I Am Opposed To The Use Of

The Contrasts Between What Is Spent Today To Educate A Child In The Poorest New York City Neighborhoods, Where Teacher Salaries Are Often Even Lower Than The City Averages, And Spending Levels In The Wealthiest Suburban Areas Are Daunting Challenges To Any Hope New Yorkers Might Retain That Even Semblances Of Fairness Still Prevail.

When I Was Teaching In The 1960s In Boston, There Was A Great Deal Of Hope In The Air. Martin Luther King Jr. Was Alive, Malcolm X Was Alive; Great, Great Leaders Were Emerging From The Southern Freedom Movement.

Good Teachers Don't Approach A Child Of This Age With Overzealousness Or With Destructive Conscientiousness. They're Not Drill-masters In The Military Or Floor Managers In A Production System. They Are Specialists In Opening Small Packages. They Give The String A Tug But Do It Carefully. They Don't Yet Know What's In The Box. They Don't Know If It's Breakable.

In Public Schooling, Social Policy Has Been Turned Back Almost One Hundred Years.

There Is Something Deeply Hypocritical In A Society That Holds An Inner-city Child Only Eight Years Old "accountable" For Her Performance On A High-stakes Standardized Exam But Does Not Hold The High Officials Of Our Government Accountable For Robbing Her Of What They Gave Their Own Kids Six Or Seven Years Before.