“That is like saying that because Romeo and Juliet committed teen suicide, we condone teen suicide. Kids know the difference. Like it or not, that is the way 14-year-old boys talk to each other.”
– John Whitehurst, chairman of the English department at Antioch High School, on The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. Parents at the school are complaining that by including it on the Chicago area school’s summer reading list, the school is condoning the use of profanity.
“Sure, some charter schools are lousy. But failure is part of innovation. Parents will quickly figure out if their kids’ school is lousy, and if they are allowed other choices, they’ll pull their kids out. The weak schools will die from lack of customers….By contrast, weak PUBLIC schools NEVER die. They wreck children’s’ lives decade after decade.”
– ABC News’ John Stossel, who calls Arne Duncan’s call for charter schools to become more active in weeding out bad apples “foolish top-down government-think.”
“The feng shui people believe you need to take the roof off buildings to allow bad chi to escape. Let’s hope this helps.”
–Joe Williams, executive director of Democrats for Education Reform, on the efforts to “rebrand” No Child Left Behind, including dismantling the little red school house outside the Department of Education.
The only problem with Stossel’s quotation is the complete lack of evidence to back it up. But that has never stopped him before.
“…one that will do. To swell a progress, start a scene or two.”
Claus’s quote is better than Stossel’s.
Me too, Paul. But I like Eliot’s better than Claus’s.
Ah, well–I can hardly compete. I grow old and shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled….