I won’t tell you what it is.

It is about kindness and tenderness.

Teachers, principals, parents, grandparents: You will get it.

Categories Education Reform

12 Comments Post your own or leave a trackback: Trackback URL

khomfeld says:

September 4, 2016 at 3:15 pm

*The girl asked if someone could sign her homework, so she could turn it in to her teacher the next day.
“That broke my heart,” said Burton. “She said, ‘I did my work.’”
~~
Homework: pounded into children that it is so life/death important. My heart breaks for this family.

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Laura H. Chapman says:

September 4, 2016 at 3:24 pm

I was fine until…. I read some of the comments.
Thank you for making this blog free of verbal venom.

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KrazyTA says:

September 4, 2016 at 3:26 pm

To the owner of this blog—

You succeeded!

A great way to start the day.

😎

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Janet Goldsbury says:

September 4, 2016 at 3:37 pm

Sorry, not seeing the beauty in this. This was brought to my attention as a heart warming story but I don’t see it that way. You don’t have to be a police officer or a saint to know to pick up a one month old infant and care for it in the circumstances described. The story is not heart warming; it is a tragedy. Poverty and hopelessness contributed to drug addiction and tragedy. The real story is why in a country as rich as ours do we have such a high rate of poverty and social ills. Check out the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD, if you don’t believe just how miserable the US stacks up against other countries when it comes to poverty, infant mortality, education and you name it! We got a sensationalized, watered down version of this story. In all fairness to the author, perhaps there just wasn’t enough time to dig deeper. I would like to know how the parents, assuming they were the biological parents of all 4 children, made a living. How did it come to this? Then give us some real information to think about so we as a society can get to the polls and start making some informed decisions. Where is the money in the US being spent and how do we compare, factually, not subjectively, to other countries. These people had four children and yet chose to throw their lives away. I believe they saw how hopeless their lives were. I believe they understood the math well enough to know they would never escape poverty. If you are poor in this country, you will die poor so maybe the sooner the better.

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- dianeravitch says:
  
  September 4, 2016 at 3:45 pm
  
  Janet,
  
  I agree that the underlying story about the child’s family is tragic. Her parents gave up on life. That is a reflection on our society. I have been reading articles from conservatives who assure us that poverty is almost gone, if you factor in food stamps and other non-cash benefits.
  
  See here: http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2016/08/26/the_odd_conservative_case_that_welfare_didn_t_hurt_the_poor.html
  
  And here: http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2016/09/is-poverty-no-longer-thing.html#comment-form
  
  I hope to put up a post about child poverty. I have written about it many times. Contrary to the conservative worldview, poverty is tightly correlated with poor school performance.
  
  What a disgrace to the richest country in the world. How do billionaires sleep at night?
  
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retired teacher says:

September 4, 2016 at 3:55 pm

These are the good police officers that serve and protect rather instead of the “shoot first and ask questions later” that normally get the attention of the media. Just like the many excellent public schools and teachers that serve our nation and our children well, but we rarely hear about them. All these fine, hard working people get taken for granted, and it is the “rotten apples” that are the headline grabbers.

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Raj says:

September 4, 2016 at 4:48 pm

Very heart warming story, but happens more often than you think.

We live in a cup-de-sac in San Diego County. One day a border patrol cruiser came in and arrested a Mexican maid working in one of the houses. This lady had a six months old infant, which she immediately handed over to my wife and two other neighbor ladies before getting into the border patrol vehicle. She must have known that we will take care of her baby. She was sent back to Tijuana.

We went to the store got baby formula, diapers and other needs and the three ladies including my wife took care of the baby for two to three days at which time the Mexican mother reappeared and took back the baby and thanked all of us. This story never made the papers.

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- dianeravitch says:
  
  September 4, 2016 at 5:11 pm
  
  Good for you, Raj.
  
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- KrazyTA says:
  
  September 5, 2016 at 12:58 pm
  
  dianeravitch:
  
  What you said.
  
  😎
  
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Laura H. Chapman says:

September 4, 2016 at 4:49 pm

I agree with the need to defeat the silly campaign that “the war on poverty worked” propagated by Forbes and many others if you just type in a search for “poverty is not real.”

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m4potw says:

September 5, 2016 at 1:32 am

To Raj:

It is just a note to think about all good deeds that are between the doers and God. This is much more important than to be known by publicity.

Also, do you know that Donald Trump announces that hotel maids and landscape gardeners are terrorists? Could you imagine that your story goes viral with an implication of being an accessory to terrorist? ONLY God could help you out of the accusation. Life is very unpredictable for our good, but gullible actions. Back2basic.

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m4potw says:

September 5, 2016 at 2:11 am

To Janet Goldsbury:

Beauty is always in the eye of the beholder. I am quite sure that you are well protected from brought up in order to acknowledge the unfairness in reality.

People love to have good education, good job and good health. Somehow, some people were born with disadvantages like poor health; being robbed from attending Public education; lack of basic needs like parental love /care, foods, and guidance; most of all being held back from bad cultural belief like being submissive for “Muslim” women.

In short, I profoundly love, respect and support Dr. Ravitch for her compassion and for her persistent advocate in order to sustain PUBLIC EDUCATION for all.

Dr. Ravitch’s advocacy for a whole child education concept is a very long, winding journey to lead all educators, parents, and students who will unite and come together as one force to alleviate the sufferance as shown in this post, caused by greed, ego and lust for control from corrupted authority, corrupted academe leaders and corrupted business owners who use their fame, fortune and legal power to pay lower wages, no benefits, no providing skilled training time…

It is heartbroken to feel sorry for both too rich and too poor who sooner and later die with regret. The rich cannot carry their fortune with them to six feet and under. The poor cannot fulfill their potentials.

Would you like to join with NPE with Dr. Ravitch to help out with Public Education? Back2basic

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