Kerry op-ed on education

[karynnj]

It does a good job explaining the waiver and explaining things Obama is trying to do to make college more affordable.http://www.wickedlocal.com/fall-river/mobiletopstories/x1793834632/GUEST-OPINION-No-Child-Left-Behind-waiver-gives-Mass-school-districts-flexibility#axzz1mmWMNz1H

[Mass]

1. Great oped, though the title is misleading. It is more about college affordability than NCLB.

I agree with college affordability. However, I have two issues with this oped:

He wants community colleges and businesses to form new partnerships to train workers for local jobs

Read more: GUEST OPINION: No Child Left Behind waiver gives Mass. school districts flexibility - Fall River, MA - Wicked Local Fall River http://www.heraldnews.com/news/x1793834632/GUEST-OPINION-No-Child-Left-Behind-waiver-gives-Mass-school-districts-flexibility#ixzz1mmZ0kxrs

Given the cost of colleges in MA, community colleges are often the door to four year colleges. What worries a lot of people is the fact that these partnerships (that are indeed important for workers) will push community colleges out of the transfer programs to 4 year colleges and therefore reduce access to college for low and medium income students. I know this is not what Governor Patrick and Senator Kerry have in mind, but I certainly hope they will be careful.

The second one is that I would really like to hear them speak about what is going to be done to break the cycle of poverty and bad education that still exist in the poorest cities of the state. It is a difficult topic, where everything cannot be expected from teachers, but I find extremely annoying that the political discourse continues to avoid these topics, as well as those of kids who would do better in a different type of learning. The first type needs a way to break the spiral of poor education. The second needs a solution and this solution is not telling them to go to college (including community college).

I am very frustrated by the political discourse on these issues (my frustration is not only concerning Kerry), because it is clear that it is imposed by the educational industrial complex, who wants to sell their tests, their books, and their consulting to education departments throughout the country. If they want to emulate other countries, they will drop SATs, SSATs, ACT, MCAS, and the alphabet soup that is now our school system, and recreate a real education system, that will value teachers and students, and will not consider schools as only a way to produce ready-to-use workers.

I am nearly done with k-12 education. My youngest is graduating this spring. But it has been a long fight to get him a decent education (in what is considered one of the best school district in the state and may be the country), because it was more important for the school to do well on standardized testing of all sorts than to help kids to learn. So, my patience is low when it comes to these types of speech.