Glitter penguins

"We are thus able to decry the circumstances of the poor while assuring ourselves that we had nothing to do with their plight. We can even take special delight in lambasting the source of their suffering - a source that is safely external to us....Thus we fail to confront our complicity in their long-term suffering. By being outraged, we appear compassionate. This permits us to continue to ignore the true roots of their condition, roots that branch into our worlds and are nourished on our political and religious beliefs" (Dyson, pg 243).

Having discussed in class the article by Wilford Shamlin III regarding charter schools, an interesting conversation began, which was the discussion of what actually differentiated public, private, and charter schools. At the end of class we had come to the conclusion that private definately was not public; however, the distinction between private and charter was not defined as well as that between public and charter. It was clear that private schools are privately owned and receive donations and that public schools are owned by the state and receive government funding but charter schools remain a blurred line in between both.

While reading Noguera's Part III Introduction the following passage stood out to me,

"To help schools figure out how best to meet the learning needs of their students, a grownig number of researchers have focused upon the need for educators to acquire a degree of cultural competence when teaching poor black and Latino children in inner city. For many, this consists largely of the need for educators to know and value the cultural heritage of their students. Yet, while such information may provide teachers with important background information, it rarely provides the insights they will need to actually be successful in the classroom" (pg. 143).