Jim Horn (of Schools Matter, The Education Policy Blog and Monmouth University) thinks it is time turn the tables on the “failing businessmen and politicians” who have been promoting and legislating ill-conceived accountability requirements for our schools and start demanding that they be held accountable for their failures.
Jim has posted an initial list and I think it is a good one.
§ all American citizens will have health insurance coverage that offers equal coverage and facilities for mental and physical health;
§ the federal government will have devised a menu of school integration plans from which school systems across America will choose in order to live up the Supreme Court decision of 53 years ago which declared that separate schools are inherently unequal;
§ American business and government will deliver to the American people a practical plan for full employment in jobs that offer livable wages;
§ All families in America will be offered affordable and quality child care whose cost will be based on income;
§ A minimum wage, workmen’s compensation, and social security withholding will be provided to all workers, both citizens and immigrants. Businesses that do not comply will be forced to close until they do comply.
§ State governments and the federal government will devise a funding structure for public schools that is not dependent upon property taxes.
§ Business and government will take the action required to reduce greenhouse emissions of Americans to a level that will sustain a healthy planet.
§ A national action plan that includes private and public commitments will be offered to rebuild the infrastructure of America, to offer adequate and affordable housing for all Americans, to reenergize the arts, to enhance our parks.
§ Once these things are done, American businessmen and politicians, if they still have the urge to do so, may continue their public school reform initiatives–if they are willing to include the public in each and every step of their reformations. Otherwise, forget it.
I’d add something about a just system of taxation. What else belongs here?
Thomas J. Mertz
AMPS 