By LISA GRZYBOSKI
Courier-Post StaffA school choice pilot program now under consideration in the state Senate is getting a thumbs down from the Camden Education Association, the union representing the Camden school district's teachers and support staff.
The proposed program would give scholarships to poor children in Camden, along with youth in seven other low-income, urban areas of the state, so they could attend a different public school or enroll at a private school. The money to fund the scholarships would come from corporate donations to qualified nonprofit organizations. The corporations would receive a dollar-for-dollar tax credit for their contributions.
The bill uses the word scholarships, but really it means school vouchers, said Kenneth McIntosh, president of the Camden Education Association, which represents about 2,700 district personnel. . . .
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
27 Years After Savage Inequalities. . .
Over a quarter century after Jonathan Kozol told the gripping horror story of Camden, New JerseySchools, the corporatistas have a plan to finally do something--for themselves. The privatizer solution? Corporate vouchers to kill off the still struggling public schools. From the Courier-Post:
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Poverty and institutional racism are inextricably entwined with public education. We generally engage in myopic examinations of societal problem, addressing pieces of a problem instead of taking a hard look at the overall problem. I think this is because it's a hellofa lot easier to try to fix education by only looking at scores, or teachers, or blaming families, than it would be to examine the entire economic system that produces such vast inequities.
ReplyDeleteThree years ago, I wrote a scathing paper about the Providence, RI school system. I think I had just read Jonathan Kozol's book, so the outrage needed an outlet. I just posted a version of the paper on my blog... http://daisybrain.wordpress.com/2009/12/08/poverty-racism-and-education-in-a-capitalist-nation/