\doc\web\98\10\todd.txt Date sent: Sun, 13 Dec 1998 00:39:22 -0600 (CST) From: Leon Todd To: "Loop: Fred Batty" Copies to: "Loop: Joan Battey" , "Loop: Gene" , Jimmy Kilpatrick , Jill Barto , Pat Owens , John Shepherd <71524.2205@compuserve.com>, Beth Ann Peradotti , Red Arrow , Lauren Scheffers , "Loopl: Thomas A. Carder" , "eGroups.com List Manager" Subject: "Progressive" education is racist (fwd) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- We've experienced the same in Milwaukee!!! The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, which supports former Superintendent Howard Fuller's failures, refused to print my letter to the editor in response to the Journal characterizing me and several of my board members as Attila the Hun, it was a great cartoon. For your amusement, read on: Morning Mail Unpublished Letter to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Editors 3/31/98 Burying a false Icon Your cartoon of the Neanderthals burying the false icon of a former superintendent in yesterdays paper was an amusing but tragic commentary on the non-efficacy of a host of unfortunate reforms of the recent past that have actually hurt the academic record of public school children. Many of these most recent reforms like: 1) ending summer school, 2) burning the MPS district wide curriculum materials, 3) ending entrance standards for specialty schools, 4) contracting successful special curriculum magnet schools aimed at poverty class minority children, 5) taking the essence of work out of school-to-work, 6) dismantling essential industrial art technologies like welding shop classes, 7) destroying MPS cable technology (Channel 50) for distance education, 8) decimating the highly successful and popular RISE school initiative aimed at underachieving students of color, 9) implementing whole language curriculum along with inventive spelling, 10) stopping direct systematic phonics, 11) throwing out other core knowledge curriculum components, and 12) introduction of a heathen and pagan multi-cultural curriculum in place of a traditional core knowledge public school curriculum are all directly responsible for the district's dismal achievement record, gloomy truancy statistics, and unfortunate dropout rates and need to be buried. Other ominous reform initiatives like for-profit privatization of public education were stopped by the voting public in a stellar sequence of elections of school board members that advocated substantive education at the classroom level and not this political reform experimentation for public schools. The public continues to emphasize issues over personalities in the never ending battle for control of the politics of public perception. As a MPS school board director, I've never been characterized as 'Attila the Hun' before, but my enthusiasm for burying the failed reforms of the past was accurately represented. It was not surprising that the satire represented burying the icon of a cult that has failed to achieve equality of educational opportunity for all children. MPS cannot continue to use poverty class children of color as guinea pigs for unsound and unproven reform initiatives. Sound legitimate educational practices of the past need to be restored to a district overstressed by meaningless reform and reckless change initiatives. Regretfully, politics and profiteering have come before academics. To subject the new superintendent, Alan Brown, to the Neanderthal politics of city hall and other special interest groups is an unfortunate commentary of the politics that continue to distract the district from the pursuit of academic excellence. It is no wonder that MPS academics have continued to slide at a precipitous rate. Director Leon Todd MPS Board of School Directors Milwaukee, WI Phone: 414-444-9490 FAX:414-444-3997 E-mail: leontodd@execpc.com On Sat, 12 Dec 1998, eca@fastlane.net wrote: > Texas is a hotbed of "progressive" teaching methods like those described > in this 12/21/98 National Review article. These methodologies are > creating a permanent underclass, which is, de facto, racist. Nadler's > description painfully reminds me of the block-scheduled Texas classroom > that I audited not long ago. > > Jeanne > ======================================================================== > ===== > > ©National Review, December 21, 1998 > > LOW CLASS > How progressive education hurts the poor and minorities > > by Richard Nadler > -------------------------------------------------------------------- For