Should Failing Schools Be Fixed or Closed?
Andy Smarick talks with Education Next about why the Obama administration needs to rethink its embrace of turnarounds and adopt a new strategy for the nation’s persistently failing schools.
For more on this topic by Andy Smarick, please see his article The Turnaround Fallacy.
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We should just close them and shuttle them to better schools!
To continuously place seeds in bad soil and expect them to grow is very symbolic of what turnaround schools try to do. It is unfair to the child, parents, community and nation to overlook the haunting facts of these low-performing institutions that are wide spread across the country strategically placed inside of minority communities. Most of the low performing schools and charter schools are in segregated communities impacted by the ism (classism, sexism and racism). This is not only a cry for equality in education but for exposure to the truth about an antiquated educational system that enjoys pointing the finger of castigation never noticing the fingers of examination.
[...] Andy Smarick, a visiting fellow at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and adjunct fellow at the American Enterprise [...]