Education Bigotry

I ignored the comments and requests from the parents of my students for many years. It would always seem that it was part of our job to teach the minority children, the learning disabled child, the physically handicapped, the gifted child and even the bigots child. So I ignored the comments from parents requesting that their child not sit next to or even be in a class with "those" children. We even had to endure the response of our colleagues at times who did not want that child in his or her class. The fact is that each child has a right to a substantially free public education. The last twenty-six years since the Nation At Risk report have been in my humble opinion an attempt to roll back of the rights that every US child has to an education. I honestly believe that public education had done too good of a job being the equalizer for Americans. Education is truly the key to the American dream and the great equalizer. Of course, those who are lucky enough to be born into a well-to-do family do not want the competing or to be equal to the black, Hispanic, or fill in the blank kid. Those parents want to maintain every advantage for their child. Add to this the fact that even though rich kids probably go to private school, their rich parents are also paying taxes to educate the underprivileged who were competing for spots in that prestigious college with "those who have been chosen". So what to do when these public school kids are in direct competition with the "good" kids.... destroy the possibility of a great public education. Create doubt among the masses regarding the quality of the beloved and successful public school system(Nation At Risk). Make public school accountable for results while limiting or cutting budgets. Giving private schools federal monies with no strings or accountability attached (NCLB). These policies reports and laws attempt to conceal the real reason by stating that they are trying to "help" the disadvantaged. BS the promoters of these changes in public education are bigots plain and simple. They are hurting little kids. The NYT article linked to the title explains the latest attempt by Republicans to keep their kids away from "those" kids using voucher schemes. Please read the entire article.