This week's Education Gadfly: Urban tragedy

Speaking of the Fordham Foundation, I continue to enjoy its newsletter, The Education Gadfly (the latest two issues are below and in the next email).  Some great stuff in the one below on the tragedy/absurdity of so many Catholic schools in inner cities shutting down for lack of money while nearby public schools, often chronically failing despite, in many cases, being lavished with money (see Newark and Washington DC, for example)..

During the past few years, scores of impoverished inner-city schools have shut their doors. On the surface, that could be a blessing. After all, one of the major problems with American education is that bad schools seem to live forever.

But, alas, I'm not writing about those schools--the persistently failing public schools that, under No Child Left Behind, are supposed to be ''restructured'' out of existence, or at least subjected to an extreme makeover. No, the ones leaving children standing outside their locked doors are generally places of deep learning, community institutions that have effectively served the children of the poor for generations. They are Catholic parochial schools--and their closure is nothing but a tragedy.

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A Weekly Bulletin of News and Analysis from the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation
Volume 6, Number 41. October 26, 2006

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This Week on The Education Gadfly Show: Soothsayers