Wednesday, January 25, 2006

 
RFK On The Mind

Last year, the blogger Jenny D. posted some fascinating transcripts of New York Sen. Robert F. Kennedy’s back-and-forth with U.S. Education Commissioner Francis Keppel during a hearing on the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (parts of which, in its current form, are now known as the No Child Left Behind Law.) She apparently was cleaning some stuff up and decided to post it again. It’s really an interesting read. Check it out here. Here’s a sample from that crazy high-stakes-testing, right-wing Kennedy nutcase:

RFK: Obviously I am completely in accord with the objectives of
the bill. All I wonder is whether we couldn't give further protections to the
child by certain requirements. Now what I ask is whether it would be possible to
have some kind of testing system at the end of a year or 2 years in which we
would see whether the money that had been invested in the school district of New
York City, or Denver, Colorado, or Jackson, Mississippi or whatever it might be
was coming up with a plan and program that made it worthwhile, and whether the
child, in fact, was gaining from the investment of these funds.

 

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