At his meeting
in Kansas this week-end his words sounded hollow to me.
Quite different from the powerful words he spoke in 2003 about the harm that Bush was doing to public schools.
Now that this administration is doing the same things to public schools, he seems fine with it. He even is allied with a NY charter school group.
I knew he did not get it when he said not to be critical of "all" charter schools. He missed the point right there.
He seems unaware that those of us who criticize the charter school movement do so because of the goal of that movement, not because we are criticizing an individual school. The goal is to take education out of the hands of the people and give control to private companies. Without much regulation. So we know now he won't be speaking out in support of public school teachers. That time was in the past.
It almost makes me bitter to look back at his words now and to remember all the time and money we spent on the campaign.
Dean says ultimate goal of Bush is to starve public schools of moneyTo starve them of money like other social programs were starved of money, to make them so bad it will drive people away.
"The president's ultimate goal," said former Gov. Howard Dean (D-Vt.), one of the Democrats who now harshly attacks NCLB, "is to make the public schools so awful, and starve them of money, just as he's starving all the other social programs, so that people give up on the public schools."
And these words from another campaign stop:
Dean criticized President Bush, saying his administration will lower the standards for good schools in New Hampshire, making them more like poorly performing schools in Texas. The Bush administration believes ''the way to help New Hampshire is to make it more like Texas,'' Dean told supporters in Manchester, adding that ''every school in America by 2013 will be a failing school.''
''Every group, including special education kids, has to be at 100 percent to pass the tests,'' Dean said. ''No school system in America can do that. That ensures that every school will be a failing school.''
And at another appearance in 2003, powerful words:
"The standards are so ridiculous that every single public school in America will be deemed to be a school in need of improvement or a failing school by 2013," former Vermont governor Howard Dean said in a teleconference yesterday. He said the law, which he has pledged to dismantle, was "making education in America worse, not better."
..."As governor, Dean opposed No Child Left Behind and said Vermont would have to raise $80 million more from property taxes to implement it. Yesterday, he called the law an "intrusive mandate" and said Democratic candidates who voted for it were "co-opted" by Bush's agenda, which Dean says aims to "put public schools out of business."
Dean wasn't talking charters back then. They are just now coming into their own as part of Arne Duncan's philosophy.
He really did "get" the war on public education back then. Now he does not.