Rosemary2, granted I have a bias as a teacher, but what I do not want children doing is spending more time in front of a screen (not saying computers don't have a place in the upper grades), but interacting in person with others.

Greg throughout history and even now there are places that do not have the government involved in eduction. They are not systems that should be replicated on a wide scale. The best systems in the world seem to have more government involvement not less - see Scandinavia and East Asia.

I find Zinn an excellent source to get at point of view. I don't care too much for his heavy handed style, but he is effective at telling a history from below. It is good to get kids to see that all history is biased and not to take everything an author writes without questioning. If the teacher is saying that Zinn is always correct then that is a problem. Here is the course page: http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/public/courses/teachers_corner/3501.html

Dr. Zinj, nice strawman. Can you give us the evidence that she did not do this. It is also an insult not only to the child in the story, but his family. The case was a frequent topic of conversation. And the speech pathologist was using it to get the child to talk about the topic. Your reading comprehension or lack of it is showing.

Ummm, classical teacher your post does not make sense. Culturally sensitive seems to me to side with parents. And lets not be daft, the village that parents raise children is important. See the differences between the village of Scarsdale, NY and inner city DC. Then tell me the village does not play a part.

mkat68, did you notice that you did not answer my question. If it is just one flag, one language and one loyalty that is not enough for what anyone should consider culture. Culture would include religion, foodways, social forms, etc. - Way too diverse or as you put it multicultural and dynamic. I also don't understand how your answer proves that you were taught how to think and not what to think.

After reading the MinnPost article I can't say that Skahan agreed with the student. She did see it as a good way to get the student talking and connect with the student. The MinnPost article makes the case (anecdotally) for culturally responsive teaching. See the comments too. Not the best source to use if you want to discredit the teaching practice: http://www.minnpost.com/learning-curve/2012/05/culturally-responsive-teaching-its-something-you-do-every-day

No contradiction. The US is #1 when similar cultural backgrounds are compared. But that is not how international scores are tabulated - it is the whole population as 1 score. So, no I don't see a contradiction. If the US is #1 in educating every cultural group isn't that a good argument for saying the US is #1. But it is also fair to say that we have never scored well on international tests.

These facts are from VDare who asked for the stats and Pat Buchanan's article using the statistics. http://townhall.com/columnists/patbuchanan/2010/12/28/who_owns_the_future/page/full/

Huh? I cited two Washington Post articles. washingtonpost.com. And please grow up. Why does it matter if the union has students as their #1 priority. Does it matter that players unions don't have fans best interest as their #1 priority. Or I when I was privately employed was more interested in making enough money to live than any company I worked for as my #1 priority. In other words unions act like everybody else. Like grown ups. Try it out.