Hoeing Wheat In North Dakota?

Blogs, Letters & Testimonials

January 31, 2008

Alexander Russo had this yesterday, but it is still worth noting, even if he accuses me of being late to the scene of the crime. A few weeks ago we noted that Republican legislators in Minnesota were gearing up to burp up a case of Schmidt on the federal NCLB law. We used a tired and overused Garrison Keillor quote about all the kids being above average, etc. But it seems Keillor, an old Democrat, actually has some strong feelings on the matter but he’s aiming his complaints at righteous Dems.

Writing on Salon.com, Keillor opened up a can of whoop-rump on Democrats who instinctively oppose education ideas merely because they are associated in some quarters with Republicans.

It includes these gems:

And then there is the grief that old righteous people inflict on the young, such as our public schools. I’m looking at U.S. Department of Education statistics on reading achievement and see that here in Minnesota — proud, progressive Minnesota — on a 500-point test (average score: 225), 27 percent of fourth-graders score below basic proficiency, and black and Hispanic kids score 30-some points lower than white on average, and the 30 percent of public schoolkids who come from households in poverty (who qualify for reduced-price school lunches) score 27 points lower than those who don’t come from poverty.

Reading is the key to everything. Teaching children to read is a fundamental moral obligation of the society. That 27 percent are at serious risk of crippling illiteracy is an outrageous scandal.

This is a bleak picture for an old Democrat. Face it, the schools are not run by Republican oligarchs in top hats and spats but by perfectly nice, caring, sharing people, with a smattering of yoga/raga/tofu/mojo/mantra folks like my old confreres. Nice people are failing these kids, but when they are called on it, they get very huffy. When the grand poobah Ph.D.s of education stand up and blow, they speak with great confidence about theories of teaching, and considering the test results, the bums ought to be thrown out…

The No Child Left Behind initiative has plenty of flaws, but the Democrats who are trashing it should take another look at the Reading First program. It is morally disgusting if Democrats throw out Republican programs that are good for children. Life is not a scrimmage. Grown-ups who stick with dogma even though it condemns children to second-class lives should be put on buses and sent to North Dakota to hoe wheat for a year.

St. Michael, I beg you to send angels to watch over fourth-graders who are struggling to read, because the righteous among us are not doing the job.