5/26/00 - Salon: Mothers Who Think
In wealthy school districts, parents often donate generously to their child's school throughout the course of the year. But the parents who made extraordinary donations to the school assumed that their generosity would be rewarded with power over administrative and classroom decisions, and control over curriculum. Former teacher Catherine Davis explains how extreme parental pressure and hyperinvolvement in the classroom drove her out of teaching.
If we allow parents to donate huge sums of money to public schools -- with strings attached -- we create an artificial solution to a very real problem. The urgency to increase funding to ailing public schools is hobbled by these well-meaning attempts to make everything OK -- for a handful of already privileged schools. The parents who cannot afford to pad their school's budget rely on that sense of urgency to provide some impetus for improving the public education system -- now.
There was a different kind of urgency in my district: Parents urgently wanted me to believe that they had a right to interfere in my classroom. They even felt they had the right to dictate how my aide should spend her time. ... The way these parents saw it, they paid the aides' salaries and therefore should be able to dictate how the aides functioned in the classroom.
5/17/00 - ACLU Press Release
A coalition of civil rights groups has filed suit against California on behalf of nearly 70 students in the California public schools. The class-action lawsuit charges the state with reneging on its constitutional obligation to provide the bare essentials necessary for education and says that officials violated state and federal requirements that equal access to public education be provided without regard to race, color, or national origin.
"The failures this lawsuit addresses are not randomly distributed," observed Julie Su, Litigation Director of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, another participant in the lawsuit. "They are concentrated in communities of color, in economically struggling communities, and in immigrant communities. The state's neglect has a clearly discriminatory impact." "In one of the only problem categories measured by the state -- the percent of uncredentialed teachers in a school -- the correlation is clear," Su added. "These numbers aren't the result of coincidence: this system discriminates." Data also show that the more students of color attend a school, the more untrained teachers will be teaching at that school. The same holds true for students who qualify for free or reduced-cost lunches.
Education Links
Guide to U.S. Politics John Aravosis provides links to sites covering the major national education policy debates.
Education Statistics
Extensive statistical data on education in the U.S., from the National Education Association.
U.S. Department of Education
A well organized site which offers searching, extensive faqs and a "front page" listing of "most wanted" reports and information.