"The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people and be willing to bear the expenses of it. There should not be a district of one mile square, without a school in it, not founded by a charitable individual, but maintained at the public expense of the people themselves." -- John Adams

"No money shall be drawn from the treasury, for the benefit of any religious or theological institution." -- Indiana Constitution Article 1, Section 6.

"...no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish enlarge, or affect their civil capacities." – Thomas Jefferson

Friday, February 6, 2009

Arne Duncan's Assumptions.

Posted by Steven Krashen on US News website, in response to "What Arne Duncan thinks of No Child Left Behind" Feb. 6.

Arne Duncan's view of what needs to be done (better tests, better tracking systems, rigorous and uniform standards, earlier start, better teachers) is based on the assumption that there is something seriously wrong with American education.

The only thing wrong is poverty. When you control for the effects of poverty, American children do quite well compared to children in other countries. US schools with fewer than 25% of children in poverty outscore all countries in the world in Math and Science (see Gerald Bracey's column on the Huffington Post, July 22, 2007). US children only fall below the international average when 75% of more of the students in a school are children of poverty.

The obvious solution is to reduce poverty. When all children have proper diets, are surrounded by good reading material, and have the other advantages that children from high-income families have, our schools will be considered the best in the world.

For a description of the devastating (but often reversible) effects of hunger, see Gerald Coles: "Hunger, academic success, and the hard bigotry of indifference" Rethinking Schools, vol 23, 2, 2008/2009.

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