Sunday, June 20, 2010

Felicita students’ iPods won’t fix problem

Felicita students’ iPods won’t fix problem
By Logan Jenkins,
San Diego Union Tribune
June 20, 2010

A brick — the Smoke, Mirrors and iPods award — to the Escondido school Union School District for moving around the furniture (i.e., the principal and some teachers) at North County’s worst school but failing to change the culture...

To turn Felicita, a model of underachievement, into a model of success, however, requires surgery, not the partial shuffling of district personnel and the promise of high-tech wizardry, like iPods for students.

If we know anything about education in tough circumstances, it’s that charismatic principals and energetic, expert teachers, freed from the mind-numbing orthodoxies of the public educrats, can work wonders with students if — and it’s a profound if — parents buy in to the American dream...

Hope I’m wrong. Afraid I’m not.

But what the heck. The kids will have iPods.

At least they’ll be quiet.

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