I was just listening to the audio of Wednesday's public hearing at the Washington House of Representatives Education Committee on the charter school bill. More than anything, I was curious to find out who would take time out of their busy day and drive all the way to Olympia in order to speak out against giving low-income parents more options for educating their children.
Not surprisingly, the people who did just that can be sorted into three groups:
1) Officials from public school employee unions, who can't cope with the thought of having to wait a few extra years before they have a chance to skim off the paychecks of charter school employees.
2) Hard-core Bolshevist school board members who can't cope with the thought of losing some of their power to better-run schools.
3) Strange ideologues, such as Lauren Wheeler, who describes herself as Director of Information for the "Washington Natural Learning Association", a home-schooling advocacy group. Ms. Wheeler is apparently troubled by the KIPP charter schools' extra-long school day, which results in tremendous success for the kids who participate in it. Do listen to Ms. Wheeler's testimony, which begins 1:08:00 into the program, as the transcript does not do justice to this woman's passion:
I do not see how anyone with any knowledge of child development can possibly accept ten hours in a classroom, okay. When educators start becoming educated on child development and their needs they will realize that taking disadvantaged children from various minorities, okay, and creating workaholic drones for a corporate establishment, okay, then you'll realize that you're going to provide cheap labor that is going to end up paying back their college educations with huge amounts of debt. My children are minority. They are Asian, they are African American. They are also European muttniks, okay. My children are being raised with high expectations. I don't pay thousands of dollars for their education as a home-based instruction parent. I use my common sense. I ask you to change the rules we have in education. Let's don't spend more money and waste it on our kids. Put it in. Put it in vestment. And get some innovation, please.Nevertheless, I still have an open mind about home-schooling.
A summary of pro-charter testimony to the Ed. Committee is here
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at January 22, 2004 10:10 PM How did we ever stumble into this morass called "public education"? Why have we allowed government to take over education, when it is spectacularly unsuited for the job and dangerous and immoral to boot.
Think of what education would be without government interference. No political indoctrination, no insufferable public school administrators, no political correctness running hog wild, no teacher strikes that drag on for months, no more school levies, no more top heavy school administrations and this list could go on for pages.
"European muttniks." LOL So that's what I'm called.
Posted by: Daniel Day on January 27, 2004 01:51 PM