Re: Public Education and the Supreme Court

The New Jersey Association of the UCC has a Yahoo group. There has been a lively discussion about my post about the recent Supreme Court decision. Here is a continuation of this post. I hope that someone is reading this stuff. Remember these are my ideas and you are welcome to comment on them at any time. Just hit the comment on the bottom of the post.
Here is my recent post:
I "spoke" to Jan Ressenger UCC minster for Public Education. I asked her what we can do now she replied: "I think what we have to do now is "keep on keeping on." The Supreme Court, a far-right wing Supreme Court, doesn't speak for me or, I suspect, for you. In the church we
are called to name what we believe is right. We will have to find a way to continue to do that."
At Synod we were given a lot of ways to help support children which is the bottom line. They can go to segregated schools IF THEY ARE TRULY EQUAL. They have teachers who love and support them. They have teachers who teach them in the way they need to learn not just one way as we all have different learning styles. They have teachers who have the interest in the child in mind. As Marion Wright Edleman said" "If you don't like children don't go into teaching!" Or something like that. There is the old expression those who can't do teach! This has got to stop!
As a chemist we want high school teachers to have the equivalent of a Master degree in chemistry to teach. Which means teacher education should be a five year degree! We would like
elementary and middle school teachers to have a minor in science education. We also want high school and middle school chemistry and science teachers to be paid what they are worth. Which means to be paid the equivalent of an entry level scientist. I know the union will protest especially English teachers. (As you can see I did not take my English lessons seriously but that's what editors are for!)
As for my personal history:
My father worked two jobs,one as a superintendent of an apartment house so that we could live in the white neighborhood so that I could go to the neighborhood school. New York City education was de-facto segregated because of neighborhood schools. All teaching was not
equal although I had a great first and second grade teacher in a black school, not all teachers were like that.

Even in our New Jersey suburban high schools where all students meet the education is not equal. Again my chemistry teachers tell me they have the low achieving classes, the regular classes and the AP classes. Guess who is NOT in the AP classes. Is this by design?
So we and our church should investigate the schools and get the class demographics. They should be available from your school board. We have members of our congregation who work in urban school districts and with urban students, we should use them as a resource.

When I was working as a science educator, we helped teachers go through the demographic sheets and wanted them to be disaggregated by race. I believe No Child Left Behind Act mandates that. You need to study NCLB as it is now being reauthorized. You see this is a very sore point with me especially after Synod.

Sister chemist