Host Gretchen Carlson began the segment with the Texas textbook controversy, which will be voted on today by the Texas Board of Education. Some historians feel the proposed changes to the state’s social studies curriculum feel minimize the accomplishments of minorities and women.
“Our kids need to know about the struggles of all the people that have made this country what it is today so that they understand it takes many groups working together to succeed as a nation,” Lily said in an interview after the Fox appearance. “Why would we want to discount the contributions of these groups in America’s history?”
There is a very smart new Member of Congress from California who gets it.
Congresswoman Judy Chu is tired of jumping on rickety legislative bandwagons of blame and shame and name the bad guys and all will be magically right with all of our schools.
She’s an educator. So she knows it’s complicated. So she knows as we start down that road to reauthorizing (read that: getting rid of the Stupid Stuff in) No Child Left, what we need to leave behind are those gimmicks of abusing high-stakes tests and pretending they mean something they don’t.
She’s put together a compelling case for rethinking what real.
Today she presented her white paper (pdf). There’s a little tear-stain of hope on my copy. Because she calls for exactly what President Obama promised we would do first in reauthorizing a law that was supposed to give a leg up to children who face life’s greatest challenges and live in our most disadvantaged communities.
The President said, “We are going to stop doing things that don’t work.”
This was always a cute week for me at Orchard Elementary in the suburbs of Salt Lake City, Utah. Moms (and, yes, there was once a Dad) would come in like little secret elves and decorate our doors for us. Kids would make us construction paper love notes with hearts and flowers and “Smartees” and Hershey’s Kisses candies hot-glued on so tight we’d end up eating hot glue as well as chocolate.
That was the year Angie wrote on my door, in her best curly-girl cursive, “To Mrs. Eskelsen, My Bust Teacher.”
I walked proud for a week.
So, you will note the irony in the universe that this is the week that perhaps up to 250,000 teachers and vital support staff will be receiving pink slips telling them that due to the financial crisis, there is no money to pay them next year. Continue reading →
Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) proposed the “Keep our Educators Working Act of 2010” bill that would provide $23 billion to extend the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
I’m a teacher. And teachers and professors and education support staff have a simple belief; a faith that education is a basic human and civil right. It’s tattooed on our DNA. It’s how we breathe in. It’s what we breathe out.
It’s why I am so proud to be a part of the Global Campaign for Education. It’s why thousands and thousands of teacher are teaching a special lesson this week. We are telling our students that something they often take for granted is a luxury beyond imagination to 72 million children in other countries.
72 million children do not have the opportunity – some of them do not have the right – to attend a public school.
Lily Eskelsen appeared on Fox & Friends this morning to discuss education issues alongside Harlem Children’s Zone President Geoffrey Canada and Marcus Winters of the Manhattan Institute.
