Jonathon Kozol is an Idiot

Sez the Gadfly:

Gadfly was still a bit groggy from the holidays when this fine piece about Jonathan Kozol appeared in the Weekly Standard. The article traces Kozol's development, from failed novelist (an excerpt of his book Fume of Poppies: "The white of her belly was lovely and gay. The fire beat at us."), to teacher in an affluent Boston suburb, to Communist sympathizer, to angry old man. It's a sad story, really, about someone who has talents but simply squandered them, preferring to rail against private schools and those many decent people he perceives to be racists than to actually help improve the squalid state of inner-city classrooms.

Education Next agrees, as does the Weekly Standard.

As a good Dem Kozol should probably be speaking right to me, but the one book of his that I did try to read (Shame of a Nation) seemed like an awful lot of fluff and very little substance.

Read more here, if any.

It's already been done, but not by me!

From the November issue of District Administration:

Education author and activist Jonathan Kozol began a partial fast early this past summer as what he describes as a "personal act of protest at the vicious damage being done to inner-city children by the federal education law No Child Left Behind."

In a recent column in The Huffington Post Kozol said the law's justification was the "presumptuous and ignorant determination by the White House that our urban schools are, for the most part, staffed by mediocre drones who will suddenly become terrific teachers if we place a sword of terror just above their heads and threaten them with penalties."

About 30 pounds lighter than he was before he began, Kozol says he has been subsisting on mostly liquid foods, only breaking the "partial fast" for other forms of nourishment when he experiences stomach pains.

He feels that his fast is "a tiny price to pay compared to what so many of our children and teachers have to go through every single day."

Ryan Eats Lots of Food To Protest NCLB

Education blogger and activist Ryan began turning really fat this summer as what he describes as a "personal act of protest against the No Child Left Behind Act and the hundreds of acronyms that it's added to the eduaction vernacular."

In a recent post for his blog Ryan said the laws "liberal use of seemingly random strings of letters--NCLB, AYP, LRE, RFG, and the like--has caused in me an insatiable hunger, because acronyms make me want to eat, and that hunger can only be partially slaked through frequent trips to Burger King and heaping dishes of ice cream."

Added Ryan, "PORK! Pork pork pork pork pork! PORK!"

About 90 pounds heavier than the day he was married, Ryan has been subsisting mostly on Pepsi Cola, quesadillas, and enough chocolate to give an entire middle school acne, only breaking his "not at all a fast" to sleep and talk.

He feels that his fat is "a tiny price to pay compared to what so many of our children and teachers have to go through every single day."

Read more here, if any.