The Pell Grant Limitations

Since you did not respond to which of the issues you are willing to stand up and do something about, let me tell you how to get started.  First read

The Challenge

Since you have not responded about which issue you will undertake:  Pell Grant limitations; Standardized testing; and

Let's not just talk about Black students, Pell grants are received by all poor college students. In the eleven public institutions in Illinois, only three institutions graduate more than 70% of their White students in six years. And only three graduate more than 50% of their Black students in six years. Why six years? the data are reported by NCES as the measure of an institution's graduation rate. Do the folks in the Education Department talk to each other when they are making decisions. If it takes most students six years to graduate, why change the policy of one agency in contradiction to the other. Politicians, not educators make these decisions. Politicians' decisions are based on the polls for the next election. Educators are silent because they are busy trying to educate students while living within the rules that politicians promulgate. A recent tweet indicated that President Obama should change some of his stands on education or teachers will stay home. Let's not stay home, let's stop being silent as individual educators. The unions can't do it all!

Debut of the unpeculiar institution

Education is our right.  The right to educate all children is our mission.  The right to stand up to those who would obstruct our mission should be our goal.  Education should not be the Peculiar Institution of the 21st century.  We tweet on Twitter; have friends on Facebook, follow educators whenever they pontificate, but social media make it easy for us as educators to remain silent. We are now facing three critical issues and there are many more, but if we start somewhere and know where we are going, unlike Alice we can get there.  The issues are:  1.Changing the Pell Grant eligibility
2. Closing schools in the name of under-performing  and
3. Incessant standardized testing to tell us that test scores follow income and color
What we need is for the educators who have become the silent majority to choose an issue that they will follow, tweet about, tell your "Friends" about and form small groups to do something:  Protest, write your state and federal legislators, and join me by sending any information about educational issues that you think we should tackle if we want all Americans to have the basic right (not yet a Constitutional guarantee) of an education that prepare them to achieve their rights guaranteed by Article XVI of the Constititution.    Education is the sine qua non to achieve this constitutional guarantee.