NAACP Launches Education Overhaul Push

The AP (12/7, Gamboa) reports, "The NAACP is going on the offensive on education, deploying volunteers across the country in its biggest push for a public education overhaul since the nation's classrooms were ordered desegregated in 1954, the civil rights group said Thursday." The AP reports that the group's volunteers will lobby for extended learning time, better teacher training, better pre-K programs, and more support for needy students. "Such changes for all children, not just minorities, are the only way to ensure an educated American workforce and a thriving economy, said NAACP president and CEO Ben Jealous." The piece quotes Jealous saying, "We will always play defense on Brown (vs. Board of Education). We will always play defense when folks who are disproportionately disciplining our children harshly in ways that do not help them. You know what we are playing offense on? We are playing offense on these four things." The piece notes that Education Secretary Arne Duncan is backing the initiative, and that he cited high dropout rates in minority communities. The piece quotes Duncan saying, "This is not just devastating individuals and families. This is devastating entire communities." The AP adds, "Duncan and others said a system with those kinds of results puts the nation at a competitive disadvantage. But if the NCAA could ban the University of Connecticut's men's championship basketball team from postseason play next year because of poor athlete graduation rates, Duncan said, surely activists could take on 'this sacred cow.'"

 

Duncan: Parents Should Demand Better Education System.Michele Molnar writes at the Education Week (12/7) "Parents and the Public" blog that Duncan, speaking at the release of the "Finding Our Way Back to First: Reclaiming World Leadership by Educating All America's Children" program, said that the "US has a shortage of demanding parents." The piece quotes him saying, "One of the countries out-educating us by every measure is South Korea," and relates his description of the Administration's efforts to learn from South Korea, where parents universally demand top-quality education. Molnar quotes Duncan saying, "I wish we had more demand. I wish we had a lot more parents ... demanding a world-class education-not just on the policy side, but on the advocacy side. We have a 25 percent dropout rate in this country-a million young kids leaving our schools for our streets each year. ... Our goal has to be to go from 25 percent to zero as fast as we can."