Bob Herbert: Secondary Education in the US Gets an "F"

Bob Herbert makes good point in his column about how American education is failing our children after 4th grade in Clueless in America

(No excerpt of Herbert's column is copied into this post.) 

But I'd like to ask if most Americans really care?  Most of the young people whose parents are affluent do fine with this system, and even some of those whose parents are working class.  

It is assumed by the mainstream in the US that those who fall through the cracks deserve to do so, even though demographics show it is mostly poor or working class minorities. 

It is assumed that children of those families therefore are inherently well, what should we say? Bad? Lazy? Never-do wells? If the mess in our secondary education system doesn't show that racism and classism isn't alive and well, I don't know what does.

The Right's big solution is to try to destroy the public school system under the guise of destroying the teacher's  unions (or visa versa depending on whether you're a knee jerk libertarian or a rich person that wants more tax breaks). 

The Left had better be stepping up with some real solutions that don't include vouchers quickly, because another 8 years of Reagan-Bush41-Clintonian education lassez faire or Bushco posturing will be very dangerous to our and our children's future. 

tags: no child left behind  bush  clinton  high school  

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