After Arne Duncan made the grievous error of speaking frankly, his remarks set off a firestorm. So he tried today to walk back his comments, reinterpret them, spin them, remove the memory of what he had said, and make everything right. But it didn’t work. People are still buzzing about his original tasteless remarks about “white suburban moms” who discover that their child is not so brilliant and their local school is not so good.
Mercedes Schneider explains why he couldn’t undo the damage.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
He may be on a long walk-back down a short pier.
PLEASE PLEASE. PLEASE send this out far and wide. email to friends and family, post on ALL social networks, blogs…etc.
This may be our chance for REAL reform. The govt. needs to get the message that they serve us, not the other way around.
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/remove-arne-duncan-secretary-education/w0DYCDDm
So far there are 2200 signatures. We need more.
BAT…where you at?
Thanks for posting the petition here! Sadly, after 2 days we still need almost 98,000 signatures…
The reason, I think, that you’re having trouble with the petition is that people don’t want to sign into a White House petition site/account. If you did it on MoveOn or Sum of Us (but NOT Change.org!), people would sign it. I know that you want it to go to the White House, but, honestly, only assistants will be reading it anyway and, sadly, nothing will come of that (just as with the letters we sent via Diane & Anthony Cody. What precipitates action? Thousands of people marching in D.C. now THAT’s what we need to do.
I agree. I, for one, have not signed it for that reason.
Petitions are one thing. But it is time to call congressmen, senators, superintendents—it is time to talk to school board members. The pushback has to have a human face, not just signatures.
What about change.org. I have been reading that it has had good results in terms of the power of signatures.
Joanna is ‘on the money’. Direct political action is the way to push back against the status quo.
I signed..
People need to know that they only use display your initials..
But at this point..I really do not care if they use my name..
I am totally offended by this comment..This man should be fired..!!
What an idiot.
Exactly! What an idiot?
Ditto
NO! He’s not an “idiot”. Having sh#@ for brains doesn’t come up to the level of idiot.
(Will that qualify me for “terrorist” status??
Egads…even an idiot makes more sense than Arne, the DUNCE He is a royal embarassment and not too bright as one can see by his many comments over his entire deform years as Sec. of the Dept. of NON-Education.
Arne boxed himself into a losing match. Never bash children, moms and neighborhood schools. We know Arne lacks education qualifications, and now he has opened his mouth to prove he doesn’t have an ounce of common sense or he would not criticize children, moms and neighborhood schools.
Moms will never forget, and he will never recover.
Duncan is clueless. Obama might as well have chosen Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church as his science adviser. In his general ignorance of learning and of child development and in his utter contempt for kids, for parents, for scholarly opponents of his policies, and for democratic processes, he has made a mockery of the office of Secretary of the Department of Education. He is an embarrassment, and he is doing enormous, very real harm to real children, every day. He needs to go. And he will be remembered as the worst education secretary in our history. He has managed to become to education what William McGonagall was to poetry. A laughing stock. But there’s a difference. McGonagall wasn’t harming anyone. No one was being forced to read his poetry. Duncan is causing grievous harm.
Duncan loves tests. So, here’s an exam question for him:
In what way is calling a child “not brilliant” because he or she does not perform well on a particular standardized test like saying that a human is worth $160.00 because that’s the value of the separated constituent chemicals that make up the human body? Explain.
Someone who can’t answer this question should not be allowed anywhere near a classroom and certainly shouldn’t hold any position of authority in the education hierarchy.
I like the separated chemical worth example.
The problem with CCSS is that it has become an institution unto itself. Duncan is the Secretary of the Department of CCSS and RttT; not education. Talk about digging a hole.
Careful what you worship; that’s how I was raised to think.
The contempt for public education by its own head is abominable. Can you imagine if the DOD started to berate its branches?
http://www.ed.gov/blog/2013/11/high-standards-for-all-schools-and-students-everywhere/
Amusing how teachers have gone from aging, downscale union thugs to the people Duncan relies on for much-needed credibility when trying to sell his program to parents:
“More rigorous standards for what students should know and be able to do have the potential to drive much-needed improvements in America’s classrooms. The state-created standards known as the Common Core are widely supported by teachers—three-quarters of whom have said in surveys that higher standards will improve instruction—”
I guess trotting out CEO’s, political pundits and the same rotating cast of billionaires wasn’t getting it done.
“The state-created standards known as the Common Core are widely supported by teachers—three-quarters of whom have said in surveys that higher standards will improve instruction—”
Who was it that said “If you tell a big enough lie enough times people will believe it”????
(oops didn’t mean to invoke Godwin’s law)
Basically, he forgot the First Law of Holes. He was also unlucky in that his original statement didn’t have any vagueness to it or possible alternate interpretations. He says he worded it poorly, but polishing his statement up doesn’t yield a better product. Coprolites don’t polish up into diamonds.
LOL. Arne has quite a collection of polished coprolites by now.
Not amusing that he puts words in teachers’ mouths by citing bogus survey data. 75% of teachers are not in support of common core national standards.
Well, don’t worry about that. I know the “survey” cite is pure political spin. It all depends on how they ask the question, which Duncan knows.
“three-quarters of whom have said in surveys that higher standards will improve instruction—”
If I asked any group of people “will higher standards improve instruction?” I’m sure 75% would agree. It doesn’t mean anything, without more.
It’s much more interesting to me that he feels he needs “teachers” (broadly) to validate the plan to parents, because polling actually DOES show that teachers are trusted by parents, certainly far more than politicians like Duncan or hedge fund investors 🙂
“will higher standards improve instruction?”
An unqualified NO here.
He’s referring to the bogus AFT survey.
The bogus “survey” from the Common Core Curriculum Commissariat’s Ministry of Propaganda formerly known as the AFT.
Why is Arne Duncan so invested in pushing the CCSS through at such an aggressive pace? He reminds me of a carpet bagger who wants to sell his stock of hair tonic before people realize it doesn’t work. Only I think Arne sincerely believes in his snake oil. He claims that American schools are failing, but if you remove the 21% of students who live in poverty, US public schools rank with the best schools in the world on the NAEP assessment. How does he reflect upon and understand a statistic like that?
There has been no real, informed, public debate about the CCSS, nor the significant shift in educational philosophy that it, and the high-stakes testing attached to it, represent.
There has also been no public debate about the corporate reform push to, essentially, scuttle our public school system, that was established on the principles of equity, and replace it with corporate styled franchises, that are conceived with the notion of competition at their (common) core.
This represents a massive change in educational values, that has many implications, and shouldn’t be foisted upon the American culture by philanthropists and members of the business sector, like Arne, and Rupert Murdoch, who have little to no experience in education, and very questionable motives.
“US public schools rank with the best schools in the world on the NAEP assessment.”
Unless you are being sarcistic with that statement (which is true in a certain sense) then NO, they don’t. The NAEP is an American test not an international one.
And why does anyone give a crap about international test scores and rankings when the results, due to the myriad invalidities involved (see Wilson), are invalid, a chimera, “vain and illusory”. I couldn’t care less about any “rankings”. A complete mental masturbation exercise.
sarcastic not sarcistic, ay ay ay!
Duane,
I wasn’t being sarcastic, but I did name the wrong test. I can’t find where I read the statistic. I think it was on Diane’s blog, and it was probably the PISA, not the NAEP.
While I agree that the tests are flawed and only measure a piece of a students learning and knowledge, I would not go so far as to say that they are completely invalid. But that’s beside the point. The real problem with them is not that they are flawed, their are no perfect assessments, and I doubt there ever will be. It’s how the international, national, and state tests are being wrongly used and misinterpreted to shape a public policy that aims to standardize, privatize, and dehumanize public education.
This is what Arny and school reform is all about. And while I think you already know this, most people I talk to have no idea of the massive change in educational values that this represents.
Chiara Duggan & Michael Weston: the assertion by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan that three quarters of teachers are in favor of CC seems to allude to the questionable survey/poll (commissioned by the AFT) that came out earlier this year. I ask readers of this blog to correct me if I am wrong, but that is the only one I know of that specifically uses the 75% figure when claiming national teacher support of CC.
I am only guessing, but Secretary Duncan would have been better served if he had not seemed to slavishly follow Dr. Steve Perry’s unsound advice that “Men lie and women lie but numbers don’t.” [channeling rapper Jay-Z]
He would have done better by employing a little critical thinking and skepticism—deutsch29 aka Dr. Mercedes Schneider has pointed out serious [IMHO, fatal] flaws in the process by which that 75% figure was concocted.
For those interested in following up, three links:
Link: http://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2013/05/30/hart-weingarten-and-power-point-deception/
Link: http://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2013/05/24/hart-weingarten-and-polling-about-common-core/
Link: http://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2013/05/08/weingarten-wants-me-to-want-the-common-core-state-standards/
And if I am correct that his assertion is based on only that one unreliable survey/poll—have we completely abandoned any expectation that the Secretary of Education (of all people!) should know the difference between “one” survey and “more than one” survey?
😡
Although there was his speech at the 2013 annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association in which he was simultaneously for, against, and somewhat for/somewhat against high-stakes standardized testing.
I guess my notion of what a Secretary of Education should be—say what you mean, mean what you say, and whatever you say, make sense—is just so twentieth century.
Perhaps I just don’t understand the Twenty First Century Cagebusting $tudent $ucce$$ mindset.
😎
“have we completely abandoned any expectation that the Secretary of Education (of all people!) should know the difference between “one” survey and “more than one” survey?”
No, I’d say the majority here haven’t abandoned that expectation. But then again that would be the same as expecting him to actually read the research and any professional rebuttals. Hell, he probably doesn’t have any clue as to where to find that type of information.
I would say he makes a good spokesman for the edudeformers but that isn’t even true.
Truly, the man suffers from hoof in mouth disease…… WHAT was the President thinking when he appointed this fellow?
“The Chicago oligarchs told me to appoint Arne, so I did.”
CCSS is indoctrination, oppressive in nature and, as evident by comments made by Duncan, serves to create a mockery of the collective purpose, mission and history of our public schools.
Has anyone sent this man a copy of the first grade test that was posted on this site a couple of days age.
If we send it to enough news people…….with children…then just maybe they will begin to put this all together..
a couple of days ago ?…..oops..I am sure you figured out my mistake…too little coffee this morning…
There are a lot of people writing comments on the internet about Arne’s current failure of words. I see it a little differently than the comments about racism , or white liberals, etc. I don’t see how Arne Duncan is “anti-white”…. I think he was just upset that ANYONE would disagree with him (because he is a narcissist) and he couldn’t think of any insult that would apply so he just used that …
do you think that Arne differentiates between /among socker moms? football moms? hockey moms? or grandmoms? or was he pointing out more about class issues? I think he only has two groups he can maintain in his mind: ME and Not-Me (you are against me so I have to call you a name) that is the narcissistic view of a child under 4 years old which I think is where he is stuck. I don’t think he is conceptually advanced (beyond 4) where he could differentiate enough beyond ME ME ME is everything. I’m trying to be funny here but I really wanted your opinion.
Your comment make So Much Sense..
but Arne would not understand…
I think he focused on white suburban moms, this revealing his tender spot of worry. Like someone else who commented above, I think he genuinely does believe his ideas are the best ones, even if only because he is narcissistic. His worry all along has probably been “what will I do when this starts to infiltrate places where parents have time, means and methods to be discerning about what public school provides their children?” and boom it happened. They hit back so he mocked them. It reveals their reaction was his fear all along because he believes in his approach but surely must realize it is manipulative, presumptuous, disingenuous and not representative of the type of society we live in. He would expect the poor and disenfranchised to fuss to no avail (nobody listened to them in Chicago about closing schools), but as the actions move up the social ladder to where more affluent people actually do rely on our systems and pillars of democracy, he got hit where he feared he might.
I’m sorry I have to laugh; but it is serious because he has a significant job and a lot of power (and funds to allocate so it isn’t funny)….. I see him as Pinocchio and the Fox and the Wolf have stolen his spelling book so he is lost for words. But I realize he is a corporate puppet. But I know his wrong-headed policies are hurting a lot of students so I shouldn’t laugh…. but his wooden head is wrong headed and he can’t listen (like John King)
Great visual imagery! We should be prepared for a high profile op-ed or spin by the corporate brains who are holding his strings…wait for it.
First those who opposed CC were labeled “Tea Party”, now it seems that moms, translate that to “women” and especially White women are coming from an emotional level “they can’t take the fact that their kid isn’t brilliant” instead of a rational one.
Duncan is a sexist.
This man may apologize but his apology is not sincere.
He has made his point so as to gather the support of many who also think that the White Soccer Moms coddle their children..
He is very happy to have said what he really thinks…so he can get the support of all of the non-whites…this is unfortunate..He knew exactly what he was saying…and he knew the result of saying it…
He has put White Soccer Moms in the group that is now forever tarnished..
I am White and I was a soccer Mom….a football Mom…a baseball Mom….a basketball Mom…a Golfer Mom….but mainly I was a MOM who cared about the success and happiness of her children….and …my spouse and I were involved in every aspect of our children’s lives..
This has nothing to do with Brilliance of Academics..It has to do Mr Duncan with Educating a child and guiding the child to be a Productive and Successful Citizen of this country and the world.
This has nothing to do with Brilliance of Academics but a Well-Rounded Educational System that you ..Mr Duncan have succeeded in making a ‘One Size Fits All” -BORING TESTING SYSTEM..
I have now lost any respect for this man as he will go to any lengths to keep his Precious Testing Scheme in place…
No respect for Mr Duncan…We..Mr Duncan are much smarter than you …and we Mr Duncan have so much more Common Sense…
I. Mr Duncan signed the petition to have you fired…..and we, Mr Duncan will not accept this Phony-Fake Apology as WE, Mr Duncan..know exactly your Political Agenda is headed..
Finally..we, Mr Duncan are sick of these tests and the Chaotic Curriculum that you have thrown at these teachers without any planning on your part .
You, Mr Duncan have used these children as Guinea Pigs or Lab Rats and Parents are not appreciative of this nor will they allow this to stand as is…
If you have a curriculum that spirals but you throw it all at the teachers in every phase in every grade and then test their ability to maneuver this maize of Chaos….then you have not planned properly…Sounds like a familiar Health-Care website..
You have not hurt my feelings..not one bit…My children are PHD’s….
They actually know all of the Math Basics and how to calculate with or without a calculator…
They know how to solve any real world problem and they all have told me that even though they voted for President Obama…they think you should be fired…They are young….they will be leaders of this world….I taught them to respect all people regardless of their beliefs or race…They have friends from all over the world and from all races ..
You can not hold my white children back..They have been taught to respect all races and all religions…They work with every person….not just a group of people…
I taught them to never demean a person or any group of people such as you have done in your crass statement….
Mr Duncan…making the statement that you have made has convinced me that you are not the one that we should be paying to serve in this position…
You have fooled no one but yourself….
I call for your resignation….again…..
“One Test for All….One Size for All…..” DOES NOT WORK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@neanderthal…Aah but “one test for all… one size for all”.. was important to Henry Ford as he rolled cars off the assembly line at the River Rouge plant in MI! Duncan wants to roll our nation’s kids off the school assembly line in the name of profit for the corporations profiting through “all things public education”!
One of our sons scored perfectly on the recent tests (that dropped 30% across the state), meaning he is brilliant, and we are still angry at Arne. We are angry at him on behalf of the other children whose talents are different and should not be stifled by this disingenuous nonsense.
I might add, as I’m sure most who read this blog have already concluded, that if you are not utilizing a public institution like public school (that is to say, if your children attend private school), then analyzing it from the terms of:
1. The unions have failed it (where applicable—not all states have unions)
2. There has been soft bigotry of low expectations
Then to turn around and shame the non-minorities who are trying to utilize a public institution in a meaningful way is deplorable. You cannot fault people for trying to make the public institution work for them in a positive and confident manner.
The problem is too few reformers have figured out that public education is not sexy. It is not about sleek, designer offices. It is about children. And unless you are also going to take these children home with you at night (which teachers who have children do) then forcing strict indoctrination on them in the name of higher standards (knowing they do not have the supports at home to foster success, necessarily) is a completely different kind of soft bigotry. It is the soft bigotry of high expectations with no follow through.
At least career teachers get this. At least they know not to wear dry clean only clothes and to guide students towards success within their reach and to encourage community that will help foster that. Not community that simply fosters a sleek and shiny image with no follow through.
Here is some food for thought… As Arne Duncan implements and promotes common core, why are his kids going to public school in VA – one of the few states in the country not following common core! Hypocritical is the word that comes to mind!
Are you kidding?
You must be kidding?
??????????????
Nope. It’s true. Funky, huh?
Arne Duncan flashbacks. Apparently Peter Cunningham no longer rehearses Arne on the key talking points.
This “White Suburban Moms” stuff is the unscripted Arne. He really has come to believe he’s a kid from the “South Side of Chicago” and not some overprivileged scion of wealth from that cocoon around the University of Chicago, Hyde Park. It would be funny if there weren’t so much at stake.
From the day Arne became a top “public official”, he needed a Peter Cunningham.
As I’ve reported and told many people, from the beginning of Arne’s regime (July 2001) in Chicago, Arne had to be carefully rehearsed. He knew almost nothing about the city’s public schools. His Mom had established a tutoring program at Jackie Robinson Elementary School, and that’s how Arne, who went to the University of Chicago Lab School, got to know ghetto kids. Since then, Arne has, from time to time when nobody’s paying attention, stretched that tiny bit of stuff (hanging out with the Black kids after school) into an entire “career” in “public education.” And this from a guy who never attended a real public school or spent time in the communities where those schools have been (some a half mile from the Duncan home). University of Chicago Lab School. Harvard. Basketball “pro” in Australia. that was, literally, the Duncan vitae before Mayor Daley’s crew put him in charge of the nation’s third largest school system.
Early on (July 2001) I heard Peter Cunningham, who was Arne’s Swengali, rehearsing Arne carefully on his talking points on school test scores. I had been told to wait after an early Arne press event, because I had other questions. (That was before the Board of Education closed off the “Communications” department and ended press conferences to insulated CPS officials from real questions from reporters.
So for a half hour or so, I listened as Peter rehearsed Arne on his talking points. Peter had a sense of humor about the whole thing, and actually devoted time to answering questions from reporters who knew what we were talking about. (His daughter also attended Whitney Young High School when my eldest son did).
And when Arne went to Washington, the two most important people who went with him from the Chicago Boys were Peter Cunningham and his research guy. Covering all the bases early.
Obviously, somebody has let Arne off the leash, and let’s hope it continues. His crazy ruling class biases against just about everybody will spill out now and then, since his entire life has been an oozing of privilege.
thumbs up ^
The Dunk the Funcan said: “However, we should use this passion to say that the status quo is not acceptable. . ,”
I gues the ol Dunkster has never heard this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQyB5buEV5s
His words belie his true feelings. And, I’m sure that’s just the tip of the Arne Duncan iceburg. Sorry, Arne, you cannot unring the bell!
(http://walkonthehappyside.wordpress.com/2013/11/19/thoughts-on-common-core-from-arne-duncans-white-suburban-mom/)
My favorite Arne comment is actually his redaction, which is another insensitive insult: “We have a tendency in our fast-moving world to focus on controversial-sounding sound bites, instead of the complex policy debates that underlie them. Unfortunately, I recently played into that dynamic.”
Apparently, now the parents are slow-witted, uninformed, simple-minded, and basically not as intelligent as they thought they were…never-mind their kids. If they were, they would be able to contextualize and truly understand his comments. The dynamic to which he is referring is that he apparently has to herd cats: it’s our fault that we are not smart enough to understand what he is REALLY talking about. Talk about an elitist attitude, completely removed from reality.
This second comment belies the truth of the matter: he is a weak man running scared. Likely, he’s received some discipline behind closed doors and is completely frustrated at his lack of power and strategy.
Take heart at his comments! This means that the grass-roots push-back is working. State govts are bailing on Common Core, the country is onto the manipulated data scheming, and his tenure is already marked by failure.
For Joanna Best, way up there, at 2:03 AM–I, for one, will no longer sign anything from Change.org. They ran petitions secretly shilling for Students First/Michelle Rhee–remember, folks? Diane found herself–through signing a Change.org petition–that she had been signed on as a member of Students First! (IThis also happened to numerous other signers.) Change promised to stop this practice but, later, I discovered that they were posting a LOT of Students First petitions, &, fearing that this would, again, sign the unsuspecting up as Students First members, I alerted
Diane, & she posted that info. To this day, I do not trust Change.org. And, funny, I have received no petitions from them!