FROM THE EDITOR
Fred Barton
Editor, SLATE Newsletter

Gentle Reader:

Well, another school year has come and gone. I’ve always found it odd to be reflecting back over the year just as it seems to be getting started. The maple outside my office window had finally fully leafed out just as I’m packing up, tossing out, and storing away.

And what can we say about the year that slips over the western horizon? You know what’s coming don’t you? It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. On the one hand, resistance to the onerous aspects of NCLB is rising, but on the other, more elementary principals are proudly touting their new "no recess" policy so students can spend more time in mindless drill and test preparation.

The Department of Education seems to be developing a more reliable connection with reality as it offers some flexibility to states in meeting the Act’s goals, but federal commitment to rebuilding the public school systems in the hurricane ravaged south seem to be lukewarm at best.

The vast majority of people continue to be against abandoning public schools in favor of voucher programs, but politicians, fronting for religious and conservative power brokers, continue to push them.

Oh, and here’s something to ruminate on: next year is an election year.

Rumination. That might be the theme of this last issue of the school year. First up, Mindy Nathan gives us some thoughts to chew on concerning who the winners and losers are in the current rush to add “rigor” to the high school experience. As she says, “Instead of looking at children as units, can we instead support a system that honors and celebrates their uniqueness – including their own ideas about who they wish to become?” Mindy is a public school teacher and former school board member, so she has a range to her vision and experience. She is also the Mindy mentioned in Alfie Kohn’s "Speaking My Mind" piece in the March issue of English Journal.

Next up is a veritable herd of ruminates, or should I say ruminators. It’s the yearly Parade of the Edublogs. I’ve tried to provide a range of offerings for your summer perusal, from the timely (“My blog is a space for transparent reflection about high school, language arts education, educational technology, and how to best use tech in the classroom.”) to the, shall we say, lighter side of education (“I’m from the government. I teach your kids.”) with several stops in between.

Bringing us back from cyber space are two cautionary tales. One from Marcia Punsalan concerning the best laid plans, and how to better lay them, and a second meditation on grandmothers, granddaughters, the transmission of values and the reading life by Linda Goodgion.

Millie checks in after that to bring some closure and a wider view to the censorship stories presented by Marcia Punsalan and Linda Goodgion with her end-of-year report on the censorship wars. I wish I could say it’s a short one, but, well, it’s not. Films are, apparently, the next battleground. Schools are short a lot of things, money, time, freedom to control their own future, but unfortunately there’s no shortage of people who wish to control what students learn and how they learn it.

Then we have an occasional visitor to these pages. NCTE Executive Director Kent Williamson brings us up to date on some goings on in Washington D.C.  No, not those goings on. The good kind.

Finally, I contemplate the conspiracy against public schools. Maybe, maybe not. May not matter.

So pour yourself a cool beverage, find a comfortable chair, and join us in a little contemplation. Or a nap. Whatever, it’s summer.