Here’s the deal.
I was at one of the whitest places on Earth yesterday: an urban farmer’s market in a gentrifying neighborhood. These spaces tend to be dominated by white, middle to upper middle class folks, and especially new parents.
At a table eating a veggie quesadilla, I overheard a conversation between two couples in their late 30s, each with two young children. All were white, middle class.
They were going back and forth for what seemed like two hours (this was a big quesadilla) about why their youngest kids were bumped up some kind of level in some kind of infant/toddler classes. Although polite about it, one mother insisted ALL children were moved up together because they had a new crop of infants coming in. The other argued that this was not the case because at least one child was not moved up, implying that they went up a level because of their child’s inherent talents. No, the other mother insisted, everyone was moved up together, the other parent must not have been told about it. But who really gives a sh*t anyway?
After all of that, both mothers were happy that their children were potty trained and walking in time to “handle” this new level of class, whatever the hell it is. The fathers in all of this? Clueless and eating.
I left the market a little pissed off. Why? Well, I am just absolutely sick and tired of hearing about how awful teachers are, how they’re lazy, a bunch of sexual predators, and how all their unions want to do is get them tenure so they can sit on their asses. We need to push them over the cliff with constant bouts of testing and a regimented national curriculum to whip them into shape. It’s their problem that poor kids are failing. How dare they show up everyday in the actual school itself and claim to be working at all in the interests of children?
I think of this conversation about infant and toddler classes. See, this is the problem here. You have kids that are going to enter Kindergarten with untold advantages and we’re supposed to believe that it’s the actual teacher that’s the problem? Prominent “reformers” offer their children these same advantages while castigating the failing urban school, marking the “failing” urban teacher with a huge scarlet letter “F” whilst ignoring the freaking fact that there are middle and upper middle class parents in this country right now, at farmers markets, arguing about why their kids were moved up a level in their freaking toddler class!
Piss on this whole thing, you know?
I really dont see any difference between what our friends the Dumbocrats are doing and what Romney will do. I dont come across many open minded people on any topic these days. They are either dug in left or right or they think it doesnt matter. When I saw how D Wasserman Schulz turned her back on the Wisco recall and all Barry could offer them was a tweet, a fucking tweet, I realized this party has no use for people like me either.
It is amazing though how the tea party managed to pull the entire GOP to the right, seems like they’re pulling the D’s there as well. amazing.
Actually it’s fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me 20 times, I’m a Democrat.
Full disclosure: I am a member of the Peace and Freedom Party, but whenever possible I vote for Democrats. If the election were today, I would vote for Obama. The consequences of not doing so are horrible.
The only way out of this situation is spreading information, and doing a better job of informing open-minded people about education.
Exactly. And now that we’ve all been told there’s nothing to see here folks in regards to that snakeoil huckster Rhee and her little D.C. Schools cheating scandal, the march of folly continues, cheaters continue to prosper and poor dumb Arne Dunkin still thinks New Orleans schools are a miracle not a mirage. Vote for Obama and more of the same? Sorry Barry, there’s a saying in Texas, Fool me once, shame on you, sadly George Bush never got it right but teachers are smarter than that. Not voting for this chmuck again or Cuomo or anyone of these jackass Dumbocrat mofos who honestly believe I owe them my vote. They can kiss me ancestral rosy County Cork arse.