NYTimes: New Jersey School District Eases Pressure on Students, Baring an Ethnic Divide
But instead of bringing families together, Dr. Aderhold’s letter revealed a fissure in the district, which has 9,700 students, and one that broke down roughly along racial lines. On one side are white parents like Catherine Foley, a former president of the Parent Teacher Student Association at her daughter’s middle school, who has come to see the district’s increasingly pressured atmosphere as antithetical to learning.This trend isn't going to stop, it's going to accelerate due to the demographic changes already baked into the cake, and this battle will soon hit the university system.
“My son was in fourth grade and told me, ‘I’m not going to amount to anything because I have nothing to put on my résumé,’ ” Ms. Foley said.
On the other side are parents like Mike Jia, one of the thousands of Asian-American professionals who have moved to the district in the past decade, who said Dr. Aderhold’s reforms would amount to a “dumbing down” of his children’s education.
“What is happening here reflects a national anti-intellectual trend that will not prepare our children for the future,” Mr. Jia said.
No comments:
Post a Comment