Thursday, January 12, 2012

Why Is Congress Redlining Our Schools? | The Nation

Why Is Congress Redlining Our Schools? | The Nation:

Why Is Congress Redlining Our Schools?

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Redlining was the once-common practice in which banks would draw a red line on a map—often along a natural barrier like a highway or river—to designate neighborhoods where they would not invest. Stigmatized and denied access to loans and other resources, redlined communities, populated by African-Americans and other people of color, often became places that lacked businesses, jobs, grocery stores and other services, and thus could not retain a thriving middle class. Redlining produced and reinforced a vicious cycle of decline for which residents themselves were typically blamed.

About the Author

Linda Darling-Hammond
Linda Darling-Hammond is Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education at Stanford University. Her most recent book is The...

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With the nation's public education system under siege, the need for qualified teachers who are committed to creating exciting and empowering schools is more urgent than ever.

Forget quick fixes. To compete internationally, we need to improve the whole system.

Today a new form of redlining is emerging. If passed, the long-awaited Senate bill to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) would build a bigger highway between low-performing schools serving high-need students—the so-called “bottom 5 percent”—and all other schools. Tragically, the