You won’t believe this. Peter Greene sums it up in a hilarious/sad post.
Dolly Parton created a foundation to give free books to children 0-5. A committee of the Kentucky State Senate was discussing whether to partner with Dolly’s Imagination Library. One of the senators —Stephen Meredith—expressed concern with the term “age appropriate.” He thought it might be code for something bad, like indoctrinating little children.
Then the uproar started, including an outraged tweet from Dolly’s sister, demanding to know Sen. Meredith’s IQ score. That shut down Sen. Meredith. You can’t beat Dolly Parton and her sister.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Just shows how little legislators know about matters that we expect them to be capable of adjudicating.
Dolly is a national treasure.
YES!!!
Dolly Parton has done more for people Appalachia than most politicians. She opened an amusement park to provide jobs to the people and educate others about the culture and people of the area. She has given millions of free books to poor children. She has no motive other than trying to help the people in Appalachia. Red states need to stop voting for radical right wing “nimrods.” Kudos to her sister for standing up to insanity.
At his government site, Sen. Stephen Meredith identifies as Knights of Columbus and pro-life. He’s a religious ideologue, a characteristic that precludes thinking.
Would that more of the non-trump Republicans would speak out as clearly and frankly as Dolly’s sister; Mitt Romney did last week when he referred to gosar and green as “morons in my party.”
Did you see this??
Sent from the all new AOL app for iOS
Did we see what? (All it says is “Sent from the all new AOL app for iOS.”) Missing something here.
You don’t want to know!
I have never seen a public figure more carefully and diplomatically curate and use her image. She refuses to offend, and never come down on the side of anyone who is offensive.
My daughter benefited greatly from Imagination Library. Beautiful books. To impugn this program is the height of ignorance.
So, why is Master of the Education Universe Bill Gates not using crumbs from his table to send free books to poor kids, something that would actually make a difference? After all, he is vastly richer than Dolly is. I suppose that he doesn’t see a way to organize that “to leverage market forces” “at scale” to make himself richer. Hmmm. Maybe I’ll apply for an “innovation grant” to write a proposal describing how to do that. After all, feeding at the Gates Foundation trough is extremely lucrative. After that, who knows? I might even be offered a job at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute or The 74 as Director of Oligarch Stroking.
Does anyone know anyone that knows Dolly Parton. Of so, why not introduce her to Diane’s blog and the Network for Public Education.
My late stepfather, who grew up in Kentucky, used to tell us that he babysat her a few times when she was a kid. I’m with Flerp: Dolly is a national treasure. Decency and heart. More humans like her!!!
But Dolly grew up in Tennessee. I never asked for any details about this. Wish I had.
Dolly and Diane. Now that would be quite the duo! Super-sheroes, both.
I did my student teaching in 1978 under a history teacher who was a personal friend. Back then she was a successful country music personality. While her generation of such faded, her star rose.
Wonderful, Roy. Years ago a girlfriend dragged me to Fan Fare, the great country music festival in Nashville. I was not a country music fan, but this was an astonishing event. There were multiple stages set up on lawns. All these big stars mingled with the crowd. I met quite a few of them. The whole thing won me over. I was extremely skeptical going in, but this was an altogether beautiful event. A lot of these big stars were extremely warm and generous and personable. I suppose that these days, nothing like that would happen. But it was awesome being there. I will never forget seeing Tammy Wynette sing “Stand by Your Man.” LOL. This was a journey to the heart of America. And back then, the music was still connected to its roots in blues and Appalachian fiddling and banjo, and the stars didn’t have to be Ken and Barbie with a rock backup band and autotune.
I never went to fan fair and only to the Oprey once. It was a cold January with snow everywhere. We put some bales of hay on the truck and used some free tickets a friend had. The first act we saw was Dell Reeves.
About three years later, I got a job in the Mountains of North Carolina. There I sang in the choir with Dell Reeves’ brother. Another brother played in the “Senior Trio”, an old time fiddle group I grew to love.
So, Bill Monroe owned a place near my mother’s home, and he used to hold, there, each year, something called the Bean Blossom Bluegrass Festival. And bluegrass bands from everywhere would come. It was hilarious to see a Japanese bluegrass band singing Tea for Texas in those high “Tennessee Tenors” (bluegrass falsetto). I heard John Hartford play there and the Stanley Brothers. And sat around in a circle listening to Doc Watson. And once, Bill Monroe went scrounging around for a book of matches for me, though he clearly didn’t approve of my smoking.
I don’t think Dolly would appreciate the less than civil dialogue here. She may agree with a fair amount of how we see education, but I don’t think it is her style to attack or ridicule opinions/positions publicly that she doesn’t agree with.
& all of you probably know that Dolly recently made the news with the announcement that she was paying for college for ALL of her Dollywood employees who wanted a college education.
Her generosity knows no boundaries.
Three of the sweetest voices ever.
And here, their cover of the Neil Young masterpiece “After the Goldrush”:
Just some trivia about the amazing Dolly from wikipedia: Dolly Rebecca Parton was born January 19, 1946, in a one-room cabin on the banks of the Little Pigeon River in Pittman Center, Tennessee. She is the fourth of twelve children born to Avie Lee Caroline (née Owens; 1923–2003) and Robert Lee Parton Sr. (1921–2000). end quote
She’s the best!
“hen the uproar started, including an outraged tweet from Dolly’s sister, demanding to know Sen. Meredith’s IQ score.”
Haha, that sounds like a great weapon. Instead of pointing a gun at somebody, or threatening with a lawsuit, just demand IQ score.
I have long wished that the politicians who vote for standardized testing would be forced to take the tests themselves and have their scores published.