May 16, 2010 Tara Haelle I'm currently a graduate journalism student at Univ of Texas at Austin, but I previously taught (English and journalism) for five years at a low-income school in Arlington, Texas. My first year was incredibly disillusioning. I've said again and again that if people REALLY, TRULY understood what was (and wasn't) going on in our schools, there would be no wars in Iraq or Afghanistan and no one would be paying attention to anything else in Congress (except perhaps healthcare since it's in a similar catastrophically awful state) because they would be so horrified and frightened about the future of our youth that all resources would be redirected there. School discipline is just as messed up as standardized testing (both our reliance on it and the results of it) in many places, and people need to be aware of how these issues and our broken school systems are affecting students, their future, and our nation's future.
In one of your updates, you mention that "If Wiseburn is successful in separating from Centinela, it would continue a “charter movement” in the area. In 2000, the Lennox School District in collaboration with Loyola Marymount University and Green Dot worked together to open Amino Leadership High School" - This is the same charter school that recently chose to close its doors because it wasn't making enough money. See http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/03/student-protest-imminent-closing-of-green-dot-charter-school.html Even radically liberal (sarcasm) publications like Newsweek are giving some attention to the reality that charters aren't a panacea: http://services.newsweek.com/id/238689 As I read the updates about this story, I hope you actually look at the forces at play here, and don't descend into the tired, oversimplified narrative about an outdated, broken system that needs to be replaced by schools that take a more business-oriented approach to learning.
