Gregory Holman's blog offers solid coverage of author Frank McCourt's visit to Springfield. McCourt, author of "Angela's Ashes," and the recently-published "Teacher Man," was at Missouri State University today:
One of McCourt's themes was what he sees as the essential stupidity of No Child Left Behind and other teach-to-the-test educational policies, which he regards as privileging memorization (the way schools did in Ireland when he was a boy) over developing the mind. He seemed to think that politicians who support this sort of policy are blowhard idiots who know nothing about what it is to teach (something you can't understand, McCourt indicated, unless you’ve done it yourself).
McCourt has hit the essential futility of having elected officials with little knowledge and one (or both) eyes on the opinion polls, making decisions that have the potential to cause catastrophic harm to American education.
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