Your Black World Reports:
Dr. Steve Perry could care less about hurting any adult's feelings --- and that includes teachers, unions, and even the President of the United States.
In an in-depth interview with The Root.com, Perry, CNN education contributor and author of the book, Man Up! Nobody is Coming to Save Us, slams unions for their stranglehold on the education industry, chastises teachers for not performing at a higher standard, and says that based on his experience as founder of the Capital Preparatory Magnet School in Hartford, Connecticut---which sends 100 percent of its mostly black and Latino students to four-year colleges---poverty and parental involvement often times can not be controlled, but what a student learns in the classroom can:
"There's no evidence to prove that a child who's poor can't be educated at the same level as someone else," says Perry. "There's no proof that any family factors make a child harder to educate. As I look out the window of my school and see a liquor store and a thrift store, we know that we don't get to pick from where the children come. We just have to focus on getting them to where they need to be. Education is the single most effective method of removing poverty from the family experience. Education is the antidote, and great teachers are the syringe through which the antidote is delivered."
In addition to taking the unions to task --- "[The teachers' union] is a privately run organization. They control American public education. They control the length of the school year and school days, how much people get paid, when they get vacation days and how we can evaluate them. They control the entire industry." --- Perry holds no punches when it comes to his critique of President Barack Obama's take on public school education:
"[Obama] and all those other Democrats don't send their kids to those same schools that they want to be patient about. The way I look at it is, at the end of the day, I'm a father. And if it's not good enough for my two sons, then it's not good enough for anybody's son.
It would be really hypocritical for me to stand in front of my community and extol the virtues of local neighborhood schools as I put mine in a car and send them the other way. The president hasn't always been president -- and from the day he became a dad, he damn sure didn't send his kids to a local public school. How do you stand up for something that you don't even use?"
Dr. Perry further contends that our college education system is based on vouchers in the form of federal loans and grants, and that no one calls it a failing system:
"I want children to go to the best school -- not keep a school open simply because it employs people. Closing failing schools is the best thing we can do. Children are not learning in them. Would you keep a hospital open that had a 29 percent mortality rate? No. But we keep schools open that have a 29 percent graduation rate."
In addition to his contributions to CNN, Dr. Perry has also appeared on FOX and MSNBC. His latest book, Push Has Come to Shove: Getting Our Kids the Education They Deserve -- Even If It Means Picking a Fight, is on bookshelves now.
9 comments:
I agree with Dr.Perry's basic premise ,we can not control the homes,but the children have 7 hr's aday in "our house' and we must ask for the hightest expecations possible. The teacher has so much power andshe or he can use that power in many ways.
As much as I admire the works of Dr. Perry, if I were the president of this country, I wouldn't send my kids to no dam public school either.........I don't think that's even a realistic expectation!........The entire country knows that so many of our public schools do not adequately educate our children.......If anyone that can afford the BEST for their children, then they ought to give it to them NOW and not wait for education reform which we can give credit to President Obama for.......So although he is in the position to provide better for his own NOW, he also is in this fight to provide access to a better quality education for others too........If he did send his children to some raggedy ass public school, too many would be questioning that too and asking " WHY the hell would he do that to his own children? "
I admire the work Mr. Perry has done with his successful school, however his is just one in thousands of schools with that success record!
Let's be real here!
Any parent that cares about their children's education will strive to send them to the best schools they can afford! Why blast the President because he and his wife could afford (even before he became President) to good, private schools??
We ar a middle class/upper middle class family and we sent all of our children to private schools!
I see no problem with that, and as long as we have sub-standard school systems as well as teachers people will continue to send their children to private schools, or at least live in districts where the school system is excellent.
He makes good points, but needs to man up and understand that safety issues most likely preclude the President of the U.S. - especially a black one - from sending his kids to public schools.
maybe your disrepect of the president will garner you more interviews and visibility for profit on cnn and fox news.
Athena - you've missed the point of Dr. Perry's article. Dr. Perry was stating that the public school system needs fixing so Obama's kids COULD have the option of going to public school BECAUSE his kids would still receive a QUALITY education from it.
Mr. Perry, Why call out the President and not all the others who work in public education who send they're kids to private schools? As a public school educator, who just happens to teach in the same district I went and my children went to, I see public school teachers send their kids to private schools all the time. It's easy to call out the President since he's the target of the year. Yes, our public schools need fixing, but calling out our President and no one else discredits your piece and leaves me thinking you are only jumping on the bandwagon of just wanting to sound like West and Smiley.
Several key teabaggers have already announced their plans to do away with public education. f all we have are private and semi-private schools not everyone will have access. Having an education will only be for the rich & privilege class. Why not raise the standards of public education. We need more stories of kid who succeeded coming from public schools & how they did it.
Steve Perry runs a public school.Also how come you never see him on panels with educators like Diane Ravitch or Dr jonathe Kozol?Seems to me just a book husler.
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