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From the sidelines, education activist takes high-profile role in Wichita
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By KATE BEEM - The Kansas City Star
Date: 05/08/99 22:15
WICHITA -- Cindy Duckett remembers the day she became an education activist.
After years of supporting the Wichita public schools, she had decided to
abandon them because she disagreed with the curriculum.
She was explaining to a neighbor why she enrolled her son and daughter in a
private Christian school. Her neighbor interrupted with a question: What
about my child?
Duckett stopped short. She couldn't turn her back on her neighbor's
children.
"So an activist was born," she said.
Even though her children are in a private school, Duckett, 42, has played a
high-profile role in public-school affairs in Wichita.
She worked hard to help a neighbor win election to the Wichita Board of
Education in the hope that he could inject social and fiscal conservatism.
She claimed victory when the school board began requiring teachers to get
parents' consent before children take part in health surveys or sex
education.
She founded Project Educate, a nonpartisan group that studies education
issues in Wichita and endorses school board candidates. She started an
Internet network for Kansas conservatives on which education is a frequent
topic.
Last year Duckett joined forces with the United Teachers of Wichita, the
district's teachers union, and successfully lobbied the board to adopt the
Core Knowledge curriculum for two public elementary schools. Core Knowledge
is based on the theories of University of Virginia professor E.D. Hirsch Jr.
that there is a body of knowledge that American children should know by the
time they leave elementary school.
"I have never seen it as fair that I had the option of choosing a good
schooling environment for my own children while many of those other parents,
for a variety of reasons, did not have the same option," Duckett said. "I
still won't be satisfied until everybody has a choice."
The Wichita School District offers more choices than most. The district has
neighborhood schools; true magnets, which require applications from every
student; and combination schools, which draw applicants and students from
surrounding neighborhoods.
Parents can send their children to traditional schools or performing arts
schools or open schools, where students have individualized lesson plans.
The two Core Knowledge schools are combination schools that draw students
from low-income neighborhoods and affluent families. Faculty and parents at
both Minneha and Bryant elementary schools voted overwhelmingly to try the
curriculum, which sets out distinct facts and literature that students in
each grade should learn.
A common criticism of modern schools is the redundancy evident as teachers
in each grade try to develop their own curriculum to meet sometimes vague
standards. At Minneha, for example, classes in three grades were reading
Charlotte's Web.
Core Knowledge has all but eliminated redundancies, said Mary Schumacher,
Minneha principal.
Kindergartners learn about the seven continents, and first-graders study
Egypt. Fifth-graders compare and contrast the Mayas, Incas and Aztecs.
Duckett supports the curriculum because she thinks it provides a solid,
basic education. And she doesn't mind that it teaches about Christianity,
along with other world religions, as part of its history and literature
curriculum.
Although she is happy with the Core Knowledge schools, Duckett said she
still would not enroll her children in any of the Wichita district's middle
or high schools.
"But I'm working on that," she said.
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