Learning Matters

If you hear someone worrying about a “federal takeover,” it’s likely they’re talking about the health care debate and the public option — but Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott is pointing in a different direction.

The US Department of Education is “placing its desire for a federal takeover of public education above the interests of the 4.7 million schoolchildren in the state of Texas,” Scott said last week. He was discussing the USDOE’s “Race to the Top” (RTTP), a federal education grant program, the first of its kind, with $4.35 billion in cash for winning states.

To be competitive, states must agree to enact USDOE sanctioned reforms, including participation in the creation of common standards. Only two states have elected not to participate, Texas and Alaska. According to Scott, who says Texas’ standards are already high, the RTTP amounts to coercion.

The “Race to the Top” is the federal government’s latest, and arguably most ambitious, foray into education reform. In a recent piece for the NewsHour, we asked where RTTP fits into the history of federal involvement in public education. Watch it below.

A Race to the Top: The History [LM.tv, 12/03/09]

Texas Education head warns of federal takeover [Austin American-Statesmen, 12/03/09]

At one of the schools documented in Cevin Soling’s new film, The War on Kids, an 8-year-old student was arrested for pointing a chicken finger at another student and saying “Pow!.” In the ten years since the massacre at Columbine High School, school shootings have unnerved parents and educators. Filmmakers and activists have repeatedly asked why violence in schools has increased, and schools have poured money into preventative measures. The War on Kids explores the ramifications of those measures.

Soling’s documentary, now playing at the Quad Cinema in New York, argues that public schools are instruments of fear and oppression in the lives of children. Reviews in both the New York Times and Variety are quick to note that the film’s reporting could be more balanced, but neither dismisses its claims as outlandish, either. The film uses shocking images–of which you’ll get a taste in the trailer–of armed guards, police dogs and handcuffs to emphasize its points. It drifts, too, into analysis of other ways in which children are oppressed by adult institutions–namely, the over-prescription of drugs like Ritalin. Clearly, efforts to keep children–or adults, for that matter–healthy and safe can all too often lead to passivity and fear.

Watch the trailer below and, if you’re a fan of the Colbert Report, watch Soling’s appearance on the show tonight at 11:30 on Comedy Central.

The War on Kids [Official Website]
The War on Kids Review [Variety, 11/17/09]
The War on Kids: What Ails Public Schools? Better Ask, What Doesn’t? [The New York Times, 11/18/09]

In September, John Merrow blogged about a few of the education-related books engaging him at the moment. In this month’s BookForum, Kate Christensen reviews a book by Janet Poppendieck that may turn up on a lot of our reading lists in 2010.

Free For All, Poppendieck’s exposé of the American school lunch, claims that public schools need to prioritize providing nutritional, free breakfasts and lunches to all its students. The issue of school lunch is wedded, she argues, to issues of race and class: after all, the accepted measure of poverty at a given American school is the percentage of students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. In many schools, the free lunch fed to poor kids is not only unhealthy, it’s also ridden with social stigma. From Christensen’s review:

The three-tiered system of free, reduced-price, and full-price lunches ostensibly provides for needy kids but in fact intimidates and confuses parents with endless forms to fill out and fosters a sense of shame in eligible kids, who opt to go hungry rather than expose their poverty to their peers. The program therefore often fails to reach the very kids it was designed for.

Christensen compares Poppendieck’s book to Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and one hopes that the popularity of Pollan’s ideas will carry over into the realm of education. We all deserve to eat well, but with the considerable challenges they face, schoolchildren may deserve the finest dining.

Midday Malaise [bookforum.com, Dec/Jan 2010]
A Reading List [Taking Note, LMtv, 9/22/09]