We must challenge Bush over schools (Progressives in Madison, WI)

[rodeodance]

http://www.madison.com/tct/opinion//index.php?ntid=25509&ntpid=2
Madison Capital Times

We must challenge Bush over schools

By Ross Collin
January 22, 2005



Now that the election's over and Democratic Party discipline has given way to frank discussions of What Went Wrong, we progressives and party liberals can stop pretending middle-of-the-road Democrats like John Kerry have anything valuable to say about public schools or the No Child Left Behind Act.




......Moreover, they dismiss work such as that done by University of Wisconsin Professor Michael Apple, whose research on democratic schools confirms what many parents and teachers know to be true: rigorous, creative teaching, not kill-and-drill test-driven instruction, fosters students' development into critically minded democratic citizens. Throughout recent campaigns, however, centrist Democrats have ignored this research and refused to present to voters either an honest analysis of the state of education or an alternative, progressive plan to strengthen America's public schools.

Instead, on matters of educational policy, middle-of-the-road Democrats endorse and adopt the language of the right in hopes of prying loose a few moderate Republican voters. Thus, as with their policy statements concerning other issues, centrist Democrats' ill-defined analyses of and plans for America's schools are just watered-down strains of the Bush plan. Howard Dean said it best in his October 2003 speech in Madison: "We can't beat George Bush by being Bush Lite, by voting for war, and Bush's taxes, and No Child Left Behind, which really means No School Left Standing. ... No wonder we can't beat George Bush. People can't tell the difference between us."

Dean's warning, of course, went unheeded. Consequently, due in part to a bought-off corporate media and a cowardly Democratic candidate unwilling and afraid both to level real critiques and to put forth positive and progressive ideas, many voters truly believed there were no real and feasible alternatives to the Republicans' terror wars, economic strategies and educational policies......

[Racenut20]

1. What was Harry Truman's quote????

Something like... "If it talks like a Republican and acts like a Republican, chances are it is a Republican"... Or something to the same effect. Keep going Dr. Dean. You sound like a real Democrat to me.

[AndyTiedye]

2. That Same Media Will Squash Dean Like A Bug (Again)

due in part to a bought-off corporate media

which destroyed Howard Dean's Presidential campaign in a single day,
the instant he became a threat to them.