Jason Stanford explains why it won’t be easy for Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to “walk back” his insulting remarks about “white suburban moms.”
When defenders of the testing industry in Texas tried the same tactic, they succeeded in strengthening the backlash against high-stakes testing.
It was not just “white suburban moms” who objected to the overemphasis on testing, but moms and dads of all races, living in not only suburbs, but cities and rural areas.
They organized, they pushed back, and they beat the testing industry, which had for many years successfully gotten hundreds of millions of dollars for more and more testing, even as school budgets were cut to the bone.
Stanford concludes:
As in Texas, Sec. Duncan’s attempt to blame mothers has caused a backlash. Sec. Duncan’s half-hearted apology for his “controversial-sounding soundbites” and “clumsy phrasing” has done nothing to quell the full-throated opposition. Critics have started a petition on WhiteHouse.gov to remove Duncan as Secretary of Education, and a Facebook group called Moms Against Duncan (MAD) had more than 3,500 members.
The apology is beside the point. Parents of public school students — myself included — are mad that our education system is still based on standardized tests that are developmentally inappropriate, unable to measure classroom learning, and over-emphasized to the point of corrupting the curriculum. Moms (and dads, for that matter) will not be happy until we put developing children and not raising test scores at the center of our education policy. We’re just waiting for Sec. Duncan to realize that he isn’t as brilliant as he thinks he is.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Are there any reports about the credentials of the test creators and test scores? I have found articles that suggest that temp workers are employed to create and score the tests. Exactly what are we getting from this billion dollar industry in terms of dollars and validity. Why isn’t there more information on this aspect of the argument.
Duncan has an EGO problem…not good. But then he should. He’s not that good at anything.
Yvonne Siu-Runyan: I need new spectacles.
I thought for a second you wrote that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan had a “Lego” problem, i.e., he didn’t know how to put them together to make anything.
Then again, he has a propensity to create word salad which perhaps speaks to his [L]EGO problem: on April 30, 2013, he spoke at the American Educational Research Association and put together words like ‘Campbell’s Law’ and ‘good test’ and ‘bad test’ and ‘somewhat good test/somewhat bad test’ and ‘nyah nyah nyah—my critics opposed to testing need to fix my testing regimen because I am about to bawl my eyes out about their failures to save me from myself’ [my paraphrases]—
Link: http://www.ed.gov//news/speeches/choosing-right-battles-remarks-and-conversation
So maybe his inability to put legos and words together in a meaningful way are related? I don’t know. Any Early Children Development experts out there that could diagnose Mr. Duncan’s, er, “cognitive challenges” re connecting objects and ideas in a coherent and meaningful fashion?
I await your diagnosis.
😎
The NCLB/Pearson/Kress accountability mess (students, teachers and public education used for corporate profits) started in Texas.
Read what TAMSA parents have to say about Pearson and high-stakes testing. Like TAMSA, parents will organize, investigate and follow the money in other states like New York. It’s important for reformers like Duncan and King to view the TAMSA PowerPoint for information about Pearson, etc. and to listen to the TAMSA parents.
At this link: Spellings lost her cool and her talking points –
I think the arrogance comes from a real fear of having to ever be a teacher or live in the conditions many children live in who depend on public school. I think there is a psychology to blocking actual answers for public schools out of fear of not really wanting to align with them. Some kind of reassurance that as long as you are not in there actually dealing with the issues, you remain in your safe domain away and above it.
Public school has a stigma (as that post about the teacher named Kuhn gave reference to a few days ago). Real reaching out to schools means, possibly, getting coughed on by a child. And with that, for some of us. . .it means getting exposed to TB. (Yes, I did. I had to be treated. . .public school). And even though I go home to a different life at night, I have never been more convinced that so long as you speak from a pedestal of understanding without really understanding, protective arrogance will creep in. Arne is protecting himself and that is why he is not doing right by public schools.
A lot of leaders are protecting themselves from having to actually be in and around what they might be quick to say are “crappy” schools. I would ask, what makes them crappy?
I find people who live an upper middle class life (or higher) so quick to use words like that. It’s like calling somebody’s wife ugly just because she doesn’t measure up to your standard for a wife or something. Before you call a school crappy, you should ask the people who use that school and who work in it to describe it.
I don’t like phrases like “bad teachers” and “crappy schools” from people who do not work in schools. I just don’t.