<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">I have long reviled Ravitch's words and stances on educational policy, but I find nothing ill in the quotation below. It may be "banal", but it rings true, and I do not see the connection here to her<font class="Apple-style-span" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"> "long-term neoconservative promotion of 'cultural literacy' as the basis for a standardized curriculum". I think this statement, unargued, is a non sequitur. </span></font>It smacks of ideological rigidity. <div><br></div><div>--mkb</div><div><br><div><div>On Apr 29, 2010, at 8:21 PM, David Green wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px; "><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; ">Thus in the concluding “Lessons Learned” chapter of<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Death and Life<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></i>she banally asserts “Education is the key to developing human capital. The nature of our education system will influence society far into the future. It will affect not only our economy, but also our civic and cultural life. A democratic society cannot long sustain itself if its citizens are uninformed and indifferent about its history, its government, and the workings of its economy.”</div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "> </p><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; ">This is hardly the stuff of insight or inspiration, but is consistent with Ravitch’s long-term neoconservative promotion of “cultural literacy” as the basis for a standardized curriculum.</div></span></span></blockquote></div><br></div><br />--
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