Friday, June 23, 2006

Anyone remember the The Middle Class?

The Washington Post ran an article the other day that talks about a study examining the disappearing middle class neighborhoods in American cities.

We all know New Orleans was and maybe still is America's poorest city but few know Connecticut's big cities are not far behind. Under Bush, we all make believe we need more data to identify "failing schools". Presumably this is a mystery despite over fifty years of knowing full well exactly where these schools are.

Yet our participatory Homerism prevents us from any objectivity here. We are living in the dark ages of belligerent belief systems that can call into question every obvious scientific and sociological truth we hold dear. So America pretends that No Child Left Behind metrics will somehow reveal more desirable truths than the fact that poverty and poverty neighborhoods cheat those children.

The manufactured truth America, white, black and otherwise want to prove is that their child is being shortchanged as though learning to read was a biological truth like growing a head. NCLB trivializes learning, children, and diminishes the professionalism of teachers.

So, out of the blue this article reports that:
"No city in America has gotten more integrated by income in the last 30 years," said Alan Berube, an urban demographer at Brookings who worked on the report.

"It means that if you are not living in one of the well-off areas, you are not going to have access to the same amenities - good schools and safe environment - that you could find 30 years ago," he said.


Let's repeat the important assertion that the Brookings Institute makes. That is if you are not living in one of the well-off areas, you are not going to have access to the same amenities - good schools and safe environment.

If Brookings doesn't need NCLB to establish this fact why is the Department of Education confused? After all, this is OBVIOUS. I mean it. You don't need NCLB or Brookings or some Libertarian think tank to figure this stuff out. This is remedial 7th grade social studies.

That is, except to the current regime.

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