This Is Our City

Katelyn, not sure if you read comments on old posts, but after being very impressed with your "Same-Sex Marriage and the Single Christian" article I went looking for more from you. This interview/article doesn't give much insight into your own views, but if you have not looked into criticisms [like Rebecca gives] of corporate reform please do so. A good place to start is atthechalkface.com/ . Personally I think the chalkface is a whitewash of most public ed, but their criticisms of corporate reform often hit their mark with vigor. The achievement gap is only the problem because our system values 'achievement' more than education. What is it everyone is trying to achieve? storing the most incoherent facts in memory long enough to achieve a high test score? Yes that is a big, if not the biggest part of what they call 'achievement', and as long as test scores on incoherent information are the gold standard there can be no true reform nor justice for the poor.

This rational discussion of public education is undermined by too much irrational thinking among too many Evangelicals. It is apparent from some of the responses that contrary opinions are not cognitive but psychological and no amount of reason will change this kind of paranoia. To tolerate a decline in public education is to relegate the less fortunate to a permanent secondary status because their only hope for the future is education.

The Cato Institute has done some excellent work describing the uselessness of government data in describing "per student spending" in different school districts (See http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa662.pdf for one example.), and it is easy to see how such inaccurate data (ie, "lies" - see Mark Twain) can be used to advocate for "social justice" (ie, "redistribution"). Undoubtedly, variations in education spending by district seriously contribute to variations in performance and achievement and should be eliminated. However, when one realizes that virtually ALL public schools spend significantly larger amounts of money per student than private institutions and consistently produce inferior results, it suggests that the system itself needs radical transformation, not reform. It is foolhardiness, not courage, that suggests we take a detour that leads us over the falls later rather than sooner, instead of going back to the starting point and using a different route altogether.