Saturday, April 01, 2006

Student walkouts and punishment

State Superintendent O'Connell and local educational administrators ( not leaders) are responding to student demonstrations with punishment and threats.
Here in the Sacramento area all kinds of threats were made.
It is noteworthy that they are avoiding their own responsibility.
Why must (mostly Latino) students walk out of school to find out about real world politics?
It is supposed to be a function of schools to prepare all for citizenship. Instead these folks want to punish students.
A reason is that California's History /Social Science curriculum was designed by neo con Diane Ravitch, and the standards respond to the frameworks. That is, we have a very conservative history/social science curriculum and textbooks.
And, unfortunately, as a consequence of the nature of higher education in California and the teacher selection process, we have a dominant majority of teachers who are not activists for democracy.
In the 1960's Chicanos had to walk out of school to find out about their own lives and cultures.
Now students have to walk out to discuss the draconian immigration bills.
Duane Campbell

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