Move over teachers: It's time to blame the parents

05-24-2011

Blog by Susan Ochshorn/Huffington Post

It's been a tough few days for education reform. Just when you thought it couldn't get worse, we've ascended to new heights of desperation. Flying home from Kenyon College, from which my daughter just received her B.A., with Martha Nussbaum's remarks about pluralism, democracy and the value of a rigorous liberal arts education fresh in my mind, I was brought abruptly down to earth by Michael Bloomberg's latest riposte, in response to a lawsuit challenging the closure of 22 poorly performing schools. "Unfortunately, there are some parents who just come from -- they never had a formal education and they don't understand the value of education," he remarked on his weekly WOR radio report. What's more, he evoked -- and declared dead -- "the old Norman Rockwell family," implying that its culture and values were alien to the poor, immigrant families of color, who rely on the schools he intends to close. (more...)

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Move over teachers: It's time to blame the parents

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