In his comments at a press conference about the collapse of the New York test scores, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said,
“Too many school systems lied to children, families and communities,” Mr. Duncan said. “Finally, we are holding ourselves accountable as educators.”
Since he used the term “we,” it means that he too is accountable for the lying and debacle in New York, where it was revealed that 70% of the students couldn’t pass the Pearson-made Common Core test that Duncan funded.
Does he really mean “we”?
If he holds himself accountable, will he resign?
After all, he has been Secretary of Education for five years, and he can’t escape accountability.
New York adopted the Common Core and the tests because it won Race to the Top funding, Duncan’s signature program.
Duncan pushed Common Core. Duncan pushed the testing.
Duncan is right. He too is accountable for the children’s low scores.
Now, what will he do about it?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Q. Now, what will he do about it?
A. waffle, waffle, waffle …
I love waffles-gotta use pure maple syrup though! Use my grandmother’s 1940s round model Fostoria.
Woop❢ Woop❢ Woop❢
And butter!
LOL. Don’t hold your breath.
He’s too stooppid to resign.
I know this post is somewhat cheeky, but Arne Duncan really should resign.
Let him go work for Pearson now. He’ll be with them or one of the other corporate education companies or pro-corporate foundations within a few years, anyway. Let him go through the revolving door and start raking in the cash, and let someone who cares more about students than profits take over as Secretary of Education.
this is all true; I just think that he was inexperienced (did he ever run an SEA?)
and then he listened to the wrong people. It is pretty hard to not take advice from the powers that have all the money; you get co-opted ….. one individual probably told him not to tie incentives (funds) to test scores …. I don’t know how many gave him that advice. I just wish he had more experience coming into the job. I do have compassion for him where I don’t for Gov. Cuomo and the Commissioners of Education in NY (all of the present and previous 2)…. In Massachusetts we have our own squabble: we have a Secretary and a Commissioner and that is pretty hard to fathom as to who is accountable for what….. it has happened a lot in the history of MA. The Governor has a lot to say in it.
But, yes, I think Arne Duncan should be asked to resign; but also NY Commissioner for taking such bad advice and setting up wrong-headed policy and listening to wrong people and assuming that professional educators know nothing (that is being sent out by Fordham Institute when they say professional educators will “screw up” that is M. Petrilli’s exact language.
Arne was hardly “co-opted” – his first foray into “educational leadership” involved shutting down the school he used to tutor at (which such tutoring job he got compliments of a billionaire friend of the family). He’s been all about privatization and profit from day one.
He should have resigned/not been named Secretary of Education after the abysmal failure of Chicago’s Renaissance 2010. The guy is clueless about education.
“I do have compassion for him. . .”
I don’t! Nor for any of the other arrogant, avaricious, hubristic bastards that make up the edudeformer political corp.
Don’t forget that his boss, Barack Obama, has stabbed us in the back repeatedly by supporting Duncan, even though we teachers gave him tremendous support in two elections. I feel betrayed.
Arne Duncan = one big SHAME, SHAME, SHAME
Yes, shame is the perfect word for all this….
I think, I hope, we are witnessing this grand fraud beginning to unravel.
Shame, shame, shame.
Touche!!
WE SHOULD BE SO LUCKY–Wait who knows who would be next ????? what is that they say about the frying pan into the fire??
Duncan is responsible for the starvation of our students’ spirits. Poverty is still the major reason for our “failing school,” and he has helped create that culture. And sadly, most of our students don’t even know they’re starving. It’s criminal, and Duncan should be held criminally liable in the same way the witch hunt turned out in Atlanta. Shame on him.
Arne is using some interesting variant on the royal we, in which “we” means “everyone else but I.”
Yep, we doesn’t include me. (with the me referring to AD)
Give the man a break…it’s hard to broker power and money to the wealthy. Public schools can’t offer him nearly the golden parachute that his billionaire friends can. All he has to do is sell out public education however their think tanks tell him and he’ll be on easy street once this gig is done.
He obviously needs a vacation after all the hard work he has done in screwing over education.
Has Arne ever bothered to explain to parents if the be all end all tests written by his friends at Pearson have been validated? I am constantly amazed that those who are responsible for education are allowed to draw such stupid conclusions and foist their uneducated guesses on children. He should take a marketing 101 class from Microsoft or Walmart.
I doubt he comprehends the concept of validity. He certainly has shown no evidence of understanding it.
“Too many school systems lied to children, families and communities,” Mr. Duncan said.
The school systems didn’t lie to the children and the parents. They were merely repeating what Arne Duncan passed on down the pipeline from Bush with NCLB and Obama with Race to the Top and federal grants, to the NGA, who then passed it down the pipe to the state boards of education, and on down the line. It’s kind of like the old game of “telephone” we played as kids. What was said at the start was nothing at all like what was said at the end. They listened to the bottomless pockets of Gates, Broad, Walton, Carnegie, and a myriad of others.
When I was giving testimony one day at our senate hearings on CCSS, one of the legislators piped up and exclaimed in a thoroughly shocked voice,….That’s not what they told us. I wanted to say more, but I just nodded, said you’re right, they didn’t, and kept on with my testimony.
Arne Duncan won’t resign. Nobody in the Obama administration ever does the “right thing” and resign, no matter what the scandal or compelling reason. He’ll probably throw somebody under the bus and that will be that. Our schools will continue on to hell in a handbasket, more money will be thrown at the problem, and nothing will improve.
“Nobody in the Obama administration ever does the “right thing” and resign. . . ”
Well, when the Assasin in Chief is held accountable for having a 16 year old American (sic) citizen murdered without formal charges or court order then we might start talking about “doing the right thing”.
I’m sorry but public school system administrators HAVE lied to us.
That is the key half-truth that gave this edu-reform crowd’s propaganda traction–precisely because it did contain a modicum of truth.
And they blamed it all on the teacher corps.
And the teacher’s union managements (local, state, national–except for a few notables like in Chicago and Seattle) were in on it, by remaining silent,with the bureacratic harumphers and self-righteous prigs looking to maintain their middle class salaries and pensions.
Think I am too harsh?
Not harsh enough because many of you STILL can’t see how you have been played by those who are supposed to be watching your back.
Go uptown and play 3 card monte on the street and after losing your money, you will begin to get the idea.
Street corner or boardroom, it’s all the same game.
Much of what you say may be true, but what’s wrong with “middle class salaries and pensions.”
Actually, nothing. Teachers should have them, and job security too. BUT they have to act like professionals and elect people to union leadership who demand full responsibility FROM their members in order give them FULL protection and representation. By LACK of professional solidarity, the teachers have let their greatest strength, professional solidarity, become sand. Lech Walesa didn’t win his fight because his members were wimps. Chicago is the answer. When has a union ever been guided in EVERY decision by Justice, eh?
Nothing is wrong with middle class salaries.except when they are incentives to drive destructive behavior(s) that poison our body politic.
Teaching is an endeavor that is, or should be, egalitarian and encouraging and uplifting for the benefit of our collective future.
Any teacher with any experience knows that most, not all, admins do not have their back or put simply, do not support them especially if such support could be used to scapegoat them.
So, now we have a mess and the collective swimming pool is filling up with urine with everyone clamoring to save their own skin.
“Actually, nothing. Teachers should have them, and job security too. BUT they have to act like professionals and elect people to union leadership who demand full responsibility FROM their members in order give them FULL protection and representation. By LACK of professional solidarity, the teachers have let their greatest strength, professional solidarity, become sand. Lech Walesa didn’t win his fight because his members were wimps. Chicago is the answer. When has a union ever been guided in EVERY decision by Justice, eh?”
Dear Imposter: What have you done with Harlan, and does he know you’re posting under hs name and avatar?
I wholeheartedly agree with you, however I fainted first before posting this.
Harlan, I agree with you here.
Unions have deceived their members. Their members have allowed this to happen.
Duncan should resign but probably won’t. He should be forced to resign, but except for outraged citizens, nobody will call for him to so. Maybe someone who is better with technology than I am could start a petition. Maybe New Yorkers should organize a protest on Washington.
Sorry…I meant nobody will call for him to do so.
It’s easy; he’ll blame the teachers!
Let’s start a movement to publicly challenge Arne Duncan, the nation’s governors and legislators to take the Common Core tests themselves and have the results published nationally.
Arne is not an educator, so “we as educators” is just rhetorical.
Maybe Arne meant to say “you educators” must be accountable, not “we” since he is not an educator
But he should be accountable because of Race to Top and his passion for privatization and testing
I was thinking same thing. Is he really an educator? WE????
Accountability for THEE — accolades from wealthy patrons and plum positions after I get them what they want for ME.
If Arne resigns this is what will be happening here and everywhere:)
It always amuses me when those who screw things up beyond recognition, arrogantly demand that they are to followed regardless of the evidence of their stupidity, when the house caves in, their PRONOUNS go from, “I” to, “WE.”
Never fails!
As an Obama administration appointee, and seeing a lack of responsibility being taken pretty much across the board, I’d have to pessimistically say, “NO”, he won’t resign.
I say this not as an opponent of Obama, but as a proponent of education, which crosses political boundaries. I’d like to believe differently but history is speaking..are we listening?
Duncan lied about his own basketball career, among many other things. His lies are always self-aggrandizing, too. Not a good sign as far as character. In my opinion, the CC has nothing whatever to do with children, but is about his enormous ego.
Speaking of lying, I’d like to see a congressional investigation into how the 2009 regulations on for-profit colleges were gutted when they got to Duncan’s DOE. I won’t get an investigation, because all Republicans and half the Democrats in the House are on the for-profit college campaign donor list, but I sure would like to know what happened to those regulations when they got to Arne Duncan. For profit education isn’t limited to K-12 “reform”. He’s up to his neck in the whole sector.
It would be too easy to resign. He should be fired.
I usually detest the current use of the word, “accountability” as this term is used… abused to shame and dishonor teachers forced to follow inept and detrimental “ed reform” curriculum under constant threat of their professional lives! But true accountability would hold each and every “ed reformer” responsible for embedding the nation in this disastrous education mess! It is very hard not to get totally outraged these days as a title one teacher as I truly adore my students and feel so disheartened when I see and experience the pseudo “education climate” they are forced to endure thanks to NCLB and RTTT. Proper punishment for all these “ed reformers” should be that they have to send their own kids or grandkids to the title one schools that they created (the schools they insist are doing great thanks to their “reforms”)! Although it would be unfair to their children!
“Accountability” has been misused and, subsequently, abused in the reform context. I believe the proper word is “responsibility” when used in reference to anything education-related.
(Incidentally, artseagal, that is one cute bunny.) 🙂
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.
Diane,
When Arne says, “Too many school systems lied to children, families and communities”, he doesn’t mean himself or any other ed-reformer. Arne means that the failure on the Common Core testing falls at the feet of the individual districts, campuses and teachers. In his reference to holding “ourselves” accountable as “educators” he means the test shows how far behind we have let children and public education get. Arne the Hedgefunder means we have to work harder to help students pass these asinine tests that Pearson makes millions of dollars off a year. He will now say that this is why we never more privatization and charter schools to replace “failing” public schools. We all know the rhetoric by now.
He and others like him will never take responsibility for their failure to help students in the public school realm. He and other de-formers love to spin the truth to fit their B.S.. He still doesn’t understand that testing doesn’t equate to learning and real education; he never will.
My post should have said “He will say that this is why we NEED (not never) more privatization…”.
How can anyone, be it parent, student, teacher, taxpayer take him seriously? It’s getting to the tipping point where people are speaking up because if they don’t they have to live with that. They are speaking up because they have integrity and character; something Duncan et al does not.
People are saying to themselves, “If I don’t speak up now what will my children, students, neighbors, family etc think of me in 5 years. I think of my own children saying to me, “Why didn’t you do anything? You knew about this and didn’t say anything?? Your job was more important than our’s and others children’s lives????”
There’s no reasonable expectation of success for US students as long as Duncan is in office with Gates pulling Duncan’s puppet strings.
Duncan (recruited by Gates/Obama) is NOT equipped with the skills necessary to be a manager or leader in a small school district or child care center. In most districts, he could not hold the position of teacher, after school coach, curriculum coordinator or assistant principal. Chicago and the federal bureaucracy have bizarre political/financial methods for selecting amateurs for senior positions.
Parent and educator backlash accelerated as a result of RTTB (race to the bottom) with matching common testing bore related to Duncan’s misadventures. Parents are organizing and will vote in favor of common sense – NOT common core testing.
Advocates are for defunding the US Department of Ed since Presidents only enjoy appointing amateurs like Paige, Spellings and Duncan for education secretary and only listen to billionaires.
Duncan SHOULD Resign. Obama SHOULD have fired him. It is hard to face the truth. Our elected Democratic President and his chosen staff are following the Koch Brothers’ agenda, and will oversee the destruction and privatization of our public schools. “The owe of Minerva flies only at dusk.”
But another question is, Who will he be replaced with if he does? Will it be a an educator or another “community activist”. Will the DOE be run by a professional who supports teachers or someone subject to the scams of Michelle Rhee. If he may resign, I think we need to get a message to the President, that the next Secretary MUST be a teacher.
There have been rumors in Louisiana that John White will resign too, but again, would he simply be replaced by another of Jindal’s clones, perhaps even, God help us, Chas Roemer who is President of BESE and hand picked by Jindal?
He will not be held accountable, nor will he resign. This is the way of Washington nowadays; No personal accountability, no ethics, and highly questionable morality.
He won’t do anything about it because it is all unfolding exactly as planned. Pearson can now come in and sell the curriculum to pass the test. He just got what he wanted in CA with eight districts signing on separately from the state for Rttt. We’re dropping like flies in the face of a very calculated and devious plan to hand over all of the money to corporations.
I do not believe he means he will resign, I think he means that school level personnel have told families that we’re providing a good education and this test proves otherwise. I think it means, he will double down. This is according to plan and if he self-deprecates, then he just appears humble and ready to get “work” done.
I agree that Duncan’s intention was to say that the test results prove him right and that he will double down. I just retired from Fresno Unified , one of the CA districts receiving NCLB waiver. The supt. is very in to “playing the political game” and has worked hard to remove veteran teachers and site administrators. Funny thing is, there haven’t been any significant gains in his eight years.
The test results are dismal, but they do not prove Duncan right. Even if they were real (and they are not because of the error of treating NAEP proficient as a passing mark), Duncan has no solutions. If he knew how to reform schools, Chicago would now be a model district. Is it?
Diane,
With respect, you state that the results are dismal. But, these results cannot be compared or contrasted with results from previous years because there are no previous years for this particular test. Also, how valid is this test as an instrument with which to measure what its proponents claim to measure? If the validity has not been determined, how reliable can it be? I cannot answer these questions, but I know that it is a fallacy to claim that student performance dropped.
Bill – If I’m reading what you said correctly, I’m in agreement with you. One of the things I studied, along with “teacher stuff”, was organizational management and the process of change.
In order for true change to occur in any system, changes must be made slowly and then allowed to work. Depending on the process or organization it can take several years.
When in education do we see changes allowed to percolate for more than one term of administration of a superintendent or political party? It’s like a baker who continually opens the oven to see if the cake is done – eventually the cake falls flat.
The elephants want change and they want it to work now. Of course since they know it’s not going to work, they can continue to privatize public education, including all the colleges and universities.
Best
Jim
When the State Commissioner and the Mayor and the media say that the proportion who “passed” the test dropped by 30-35 points and is now only about 30%, that sounds dismal to me. Not to you?
all this should prove how ineffectual these standardized tests are when determining student growth and learning. A child is much more than just a test score. With so much wide spread cheating from school administrators changing test data, and the inaccuracies of the test results, let’s just do away with these tests. They serve no purpose other than making some private, for profit company richer at tax payer expense. Leave the teaching to the educators. Instead of buying tests use the money to decrease class size, hire tutors and other staff to help struggling students. Teachers cannot solve the world’s problems, yet we’re being required to. We cannot buy books and computers for children without. We’re already having to supply our classrooms out of our own shrinking pay checks.
Diane,
“If the percentage dropped 30 to 40 percent . . .” certainly sounds dismal enough unless you realize that, since the test had never been given before, there was nothing from which to drop. It is manifestly impossible for the number to have dropped from the previous year’s results because there are no previous year’s results from which to subtract this year’s scores.
One cannot derive any meaningful data by comparing the results from two entirely different tests.
In other words, this is more smoke and mirrors from the reformist camp.
I don’t think that’s what he meant.
He and King have basically told us all that we’ve been doing it wrong this whole time, but, thanks to their visionary “leadership,” New York is on track to take the lead in reform. Arne is very proud of John. That’s because John had followed Arne’s plan almost to the letter.
No, nobody’s resigning until we push them or vote them out. Or until someone (aka Pearson or College Board) offers more cash.
Kris I interpreted what he is saying the same way . This worries me a great deal. As a special ed teacher going on 24 years I have watched this all unfold. It is going to take a massive parent opt out movement to make any real difference now I believe. Our parents must get informed & begin advocating with educators to protect our children from what I consider child abuse. No child special needs or not should be subjected to this. I can’t imagine how those who read about this ‘collapse’ feel right now. Parents of special needs children have yet another reminder of their child’s difficulties. I pray they do not believe this hype and that their teachers find a way to help them understand the problem & ways to advocate for all children. Parents & teachers of special needs have enough on their plate but it is time to stop this madness.
Will he be star witness in the NY State parents class action suit directed at those who have been “lying” to us by pretending our kids were not failures – thus denying them expensive remedial services for however many years they’ve been in school?
Or perhaps he thinks the parents have been complicit in the lying?
Thank you , thank you, thank you. I’d like to know more about this class action suit. I believe parents are going to be the key in halting the madness facing our schools and specifically protecting our children from the ‘rigors’ of hours of flawed & rigged testing. WE need a massive opt out movement. I understand that it is not a safe option for HSchool students at this time- but at the elementary level it can start. As a teacher for children with special needs going on 24 years, I have watched this all unfold. And I know parents along with educators MUST send a stronger message. I started talking to parents about opting out IF they mentioned it first last year. So few mentioned/know about it. This surprises me every year. I can’t imagine how parents are feeling right now in NY, Chicago etc. But you give me hope that parents are beginning to step up and get informed.
Debbie,
Resistance movements are never safe, especially in the beginning. But, with increasing numbers comes increased power. The ripple of people actually opting out will face stern countermeasures from the corporate abusers of our children, their parents, and teachers UNTIL that ripple becomes a tidal wave.
I still wish that we could build a nation-wide movement around the example provided by the brave teachers of Garfield High. Imagine the effect if teachers, supported by parents, stood up and refused to administer these fallacies of tests! We must be the ones who stand up and say, “NO MORE!”
any teachers outraged by the corporate take over of our public ed system, about the villainizing of teachers, etc., go to FB and ask to join Badass teachers. There are also offshoots of Badass teachers in each state. We are a movement trying to stop the corporate take over of public education
Holly,
I am a member of BAT, and would like to find an affiliate in Connecticut in order to do more than simply talk. Do you know of such an affiliate?
Holly I am a member of BAT…
Holly,
I joined the Connecticut Chapter last night. Thanks for the tip!
From your mouth to God’s Ears, as my late father used to say. But apres Duncan, whom? Obama is totally in league with the corpratists and privatizers. My guess: John Deasy, now supe in LA, ex-Prince Georges County, MD, ex-Gates Foundation and Broad Institute, extremely ambitious and now being pushed by union and parent pressure in LA.
I would go to the FB site and just post a request to join the CT group. I’m sure there is one as I believe there is now one for every state. Perhaps request a lit of all BAT groups and links to them.
AND No One at the top is acknowledging the ELEPHANT in the room!!! POVERTY!!!!! When the test scores came out yesterday I (of course) immediately checked my grand children’s schools. They are in Queens NYC in an area that is mostly small single family homes, lots of parks libraries, stores, churches and restaurants, near St. John’s College. Not a rich area but basically a middle class area with a very mixed population race and religion wise. I checked several schools in that area and they were all way above what everyone was talking about on the news, some may have gone down a little but only a little. Then I checked the scores of some of the schools (also in Queens) that I know to be in areas that have high poverty rates and the scores were much lower. Example 5th grade in the first group one school had proficient Advanced 58% & level 1 or lower 0%. Then in the second group 5th grade one school had proficient Advanced 0% & level 1 or lower 21%. So are the teachers better in the first school, do the teachers and parents in the first school care more? NO, the teachers and the parents care just as much in both groups but Poverty does make a big difference!
Margaret,
Amen!
It must not only be a teacher, but a teacher who has taught a variety of students. A teacher who has experience in poor districts, has experience in special education, a teacher who has experience teaching English language learners and kids with behavior issues. OMG< I just described myself. I don't want the job, though I know I could do a hell of a better job than Arne. I haven't liked him from day one. I think he's woefully out of touch with the reality of education and doesn't understand teachers and what is needed to help students. It certainly isn't more testing.
“I think he’s woefully out of touch with the reality of education and doesn’t understand teachers and what is needed to help students.”
I know you realized it when you said it Holly, but you just described almost every person who has come control and power in education.
Partly due to their ignorance, more and more of these leaders are being drawn into the spider’s web of privatizing our schools. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what the prime movers want, that is for public educators to throw their hands up in disgust and say “take it, I can’t do anymore with it”.
As I retired (maybe retarded) teacher I applaud you for your hard work and dedication to the profession. Don’t let the buggers get you down.
Best
Jim
Where is Linda Darling-Hammond? What does she say and can we promote her in place of Duncan? Call for LINDA!
It chaps my hide that he says “we educators,” as if he is one of us.
Both Duncan and Emperor Cuomo need to ride off into the sunset. Let teachers rebuild NY State education the right way. Testing kids until they cry is more than educational malpractice, it’s child abuse.
Bill- I argue that the validity of these test scores and results are dismal because the test itself does NOT hold students accountable (at least in my state of NC). The entire basis of the test is invalid before the students even took the test.
The only person that gets any consequence from poor test scores are teachers. No student is held back due to failing the tests (even before the Common Core exams) and every student knows this – they state it out loud in my classroom. I had a student fail EVERY assignment (many assignments were not turned in at all and if completed late could be turned for a grade) and was in the 1% on the high stakes test and STILL was promoted. the teachers now get “report cards” based on student test scores. Sure if I was responsible for these young peoples diet, bedtime, homework help and general health and education care I would be happy to be graded based on their test scores. Many students & their families do not value education in my school district, many are not getting their basic needs met and because I am employed in a very low income school district in a very backwards state I am getting a grade. My grades are average for teachers and I excel in all that I do and a highly trained leader and teacher (I have run education programs and have taught for 20 years and have received numerous awards) but none of that changes the life conditions at home. Yes if I was a poor teacher it would be worse – but even the best teachers cannot overcome the effects of ignorance, poor health and poverty. Grade me on my lessons, on my leadership , on my character and my work ethic – these are measurable items that can be assessed with fairness. But I cannot be graded based on student scores of a 4 hour test at the end of 180 day school year – the 6th graders do not care all they know is in 7 days they will be on summer break!
Diane and Susan,
My point is that the results themselves are not dismal; they are simply a self-fulfilling prophesy. The students themselves, and the schools have not failed when these scores reflect the fact that the tests were designed to give these results. In other words, Pearson, the NY State Dept. of Ed., and Arne Duncan are the dismal factors here.
My other point is that the press and the corporate reformers are talking about these results as reflecting a drop in student and school performance; no drop is possible because the test has never been given before. What is dismal here is the intentionally deceptive use of the numbers. This is a statistical shell game with a political agenda.
Exactly! I know I couldn’t have said it better.
Hey Diane, did you see that Jeb Bush is telling conservative groups that charter schools won’t be subject to the common core testing mandates? It’s on his lobby group website.
Speaking of lying, Duncan and Bush better get on the same page. Duncan hasn’t mentioned that charter schools, which I’m told over and over again are “public”, have a special exemption for the common core testing regime reformers are imposing on public schools.
Is Bush lying or is Duncan lying? If the common core tests are so wonderful, why is Bush telling conservatives that charters won’t have to adopt them? Do I have to turn my public school into a privatized charter to evade the lousy policy reformers are imposing on public schools?
Finally!!!!! The light dawns. Why do you think the charters are exempted? To get YOU to jump ship. Charters are funded by public tax money, but they are not technically “public” schools, because they are selective, or can be.
And the name for that is —
… wait for it …
Taxation Without Representation
I have the tea…just need a river. (With apologies to the fishies…)
Thank you, Harlan. For the very first time I agree 100% with what you’re saying. We’re on the same page here and I sincerely admire your savvy and clear thinking on this.
Let’s look for MORE common ground my friend! Best to you.