Dean, sunny-side up

[ProudToBeLiberal]

Dean, sunny-side up
Dogged by criticism that he is "too angry," Howard Dean rolls out a new, positive message on his rapidly expanding road show.

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By Josh Benson


On the trail
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Dean, sunny-side up
Dogged by criticism that he is "too angry," Howard Dean rolls out a new, positive message on his rapidly expanding road show.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Josh Benson



Nov. 20, 2003 | BURLINGTON, Vt. -- At the beginning of last week Howard Dean was flying around the country on a Learjet, with room for himself, a couple of staffers, up to four reporters and about nothing else. Thursday, he flew from Albuquerque, N.M., in the morning to Burlington at night on a much larger GulfStream 2, in an attempt to accommodate the crush of media now assigned to stick close to him nearly full-time.

The increased attention from the press is an indication of the turn his campaign has taken over the last two weeks, as Dean has picked up key labor and political endorsements and appears to be solidifying his position as front-runner. It's also an illustration of the sort of scrutiny Dean will be subjected to from now on.

Now, then, begins a real battle for Dean's image: His opponents want voters to see him as an inconsistent supporter of key Democratic causes and an unreconstructed, unelectable liberal. And Dean, who has made a concerted effort in recent days to broaden his message beyond a central antiwar, anti-Bush theme, is attempting to show more of the free-thinking, ideologically moderate policy wonk he was when he ran Vermont.

/snip/

After beginning his day at the National Congress of American Indians in Albuquerque, Dean jetted to a middle school in Davenport, Iowa, to talk about his plan for education, which consists largely of undoing what he considers to be the "huge mistake" of President Bush's reform, "No Child Left Behind." In front of a library room full of teachers, parents and reporters, he outlined a plan to do away with much of the currently mandated regimen of standardized testing for public schools, saying that it was essentially a recipe for undermining the public school system.

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http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/11/20/dean/

[tsipple]

1. Um, Did You Catch That Sentence?

His opponents want voters to see him as an inconsistent supporter of key Democratic causes and an unreconstructed, unelectable liberal.

How can you be both? Maybe that's why the criticisms aren't sticking.

[Guaranteed]

4. What's unelectable is the old Democratic hardline.

We need a total retooling of the Democratic platform. Thank God Dean is here to do it.

[wtmusic]

2. He wants to merge special ed classes with traditional ones

Very controversial among teachers--but he makes a good argument for it

[eileen from OH]

3. Actually, it's NOT that controversial.. . it's called mainstreaming

and it doesn't mean that special ed kids are mingled on every class academically (i.e. math, reading) It's been around for 30 years and has proven successful for both sides. The kids who are developmentally disabled learn behavior patterns from the the other kids. And the "regular" (and I DO mean those quote marks) kids learn tolerance, acceptance, and the importance of inclusion.

Have you seen the number of schools who are electing developmentally disabled kids to Prom Courts nowadays? The level of acceptance has grown incredibly. That's the result of mainstreaming. It is a good, good thing.

The biggest problems, for teachers, has been the @#$#@ No Child Left Behind Shit which mandates that those kids' scores be factored into the total. Which means they drag them down and takes us back to the days when they were excluded in order to make the schools look "successful" on paper. What a crock.

eileen from OH

[Pavlovs DiOgie]

5. What Dean did in VT

IIRC is that he did heavy mainstreaming, but funded it. That means that there were specialists and aids in the classrooms to support the regular ed teachers.

As a teacher, I have zero problem with having sped kids in my classes. I just need the resources (whether it be supplies, aids, support, whatever) to help. Regular ed teachers are masters of their content, not masters of special ed. That takes an entirely separate degree/license.

A major problem right now is that the federal government isn't funding special ed, so the money for the sped kids comes out of the regular education funding. The end result is pitting sped kids/parents against regular ed kids/parents who both want their just funding. Dean wants to fund special ed AND regular ed. Teachers, IMO, will like that.