After reading Mark Naison’s account of the BAT’s meeting with DOE staff and the Duncan himself, Peter Green was delighted that staff at the U.S. Department of Education finally had to listen to teachers that were not hand-picked to be deferential.
He noted two important points that inadvertently emerged from the talk.
“First, Marla Kilfoyle expressed her concerns about the Department’s new policy of testing students with disabilities into a magical state of Not Having Disabilities.
Secretary Duncan deflected her remarks by saying that the Department was concerned that too many children of color were being inappropriately diagnosed as being Special Needs children and that once they were put in that category they were permanently marginalized. He then said “We want to make sure that all student are exposed to a rigorous curriculum.”
So… we’re afraid that too many children of color are being mislabeled as having special needs, so rather than fix that, we’re just going to operate on a new assumption that students labeled special needs don’t actually have special needs. This is perhaps not the most direct way to attack that particular problem (we might start by checking to see how big a problem it is).
Then this, in a discussion of VAM and school closings, leading to the subject of teacher evaluation.
They two officials [one communications guy and an intern] had no real answer to what Dr Wiliams was saying and deflected attention from his critique by insisting that we needed to hold teachers accountable by student test scores because there was no other way of making sure teachers took every student seriously and helped all of them reach their full potential.
It’s not that we didn’t deduce this already, but there’s your statement. Teachers are the problem. We don’t want to do our jobs and the only way we can be made to do our jobs is with threats, because that’s the only thing we will possibly respond to.”
There you have it. Teachers won’t do their job unless D.C. Is threatening them. Please understand that most of the staff at the U.S. Department of Education have never taught. They are bureaucrats or clerks or very nice people who landed a good job in government.
How dare they tell teachers how to teach and threaten their jobs?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I suspect it was one of those meetings where they are looking at you speak, maybe even nod their heads, then open their mouths making it clear they heard nothing and just want to talk at you. Duncan is a short timer. I suspect he is already lining up his next job. He won’t listen to reality and will dig in to build a resume.
Yes, for 25+ years I did not take my students seriously. I needed Obama and Arne to motivate me. These men are condescending buffoons who wreak havoc on the lives of our children, their families and teachers. They are careless, self absorbed egotists with no shred of decency.
Why in the world does the intern think that they have earned the right to talk to a seasoned educator like that?
‘Secretary Duncan deflected her remarks by saying that the Department was concerned that too many children of color were being inappropriately diagnosed as being Special Needs children and that once they were put in that category they were permanently marginalized.
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Then they should address that issue! Not bring down the whole system just because this might be happening in schools with minorities. I guess it’s easier for them to just deem the whole thing a failure with this rationale in mind. Granted, I too have seen teachers a little too quick to want a child diagnosed (or medicated), but the aspects of Race to the Top would never in a million years look like a solution to that problem in my mind.
And I might add that isn’t it the DOE that pushed special ed classifications so much in the 70s and 80s? Couldn’t the result be a from their actions as much as any others?
The DOE should have been racing to fund more of the special education mandate that they passed in 1975 PL 94-142. The spirit of the law never matched the funding. There are students costing districts $100,000 to over 500,000 per pupil per year. Figures like that are not sustainable. Many districts have to dip into their regular Ed budget to cover special education cost. There needs to be discussion about funding this mandate.
I’m not remotely an expert on special education funding issues and the funding and legal issues are very complex, to understate it. But more substantially defraying, or even covering, special education costs does sound like a good use of federal resources.
Yep. IMO 4 billion RTTT dollars would have been better spent funding this mandate. All our students would have benefitted.
Always,
How do you think the local districts would react if the federal government dropped the mandate instead of funding it?
TE, that would depend on what kind of state level protections are in place for educating students with disabilities. IDEA is woefully underfunded and is overly bureaucratic, but one only has to look at the treatment of students with disabilities prior to IDEA to get a sense that in some or many places they would be less well served without the mandate.
Stiles,
This of course brings up the issue of where decisions about education should be made. The justification you appear to offer for the federal mandate is that local districts and or states did not attempt to educate students with disabilities. Federal mandates about education are routinely condemned here, however. How should we decide between good federal (or state) mandates and bad federal (or state) mandates on local school districts?
TE, I believe the mandate was necessary in 1975 to meet the needs of special education students. We have had 40 years to improve the education of these students. We have better resources and knowledge of disabilities and how the brain works than we did 40 years ago. Is the mandate still necessary? I really can’t answer that. But according to change.org President Obama expressed support to fully fund IDEA in his campaign. http://www.change.org/petitions/tell-president-obama-to-fully-fund-idea
Always,
I think it is clear that Stiles is concerned that reverting to district control of this aspect of education will result in the districts deciding not to live up to the currently mandated requirements. I think it is likely that poster Stiles is correct here.
You stated that you believe federal mandating of special education was required in 1975. Do you think the federal government currently has any role in mandating state/district instruction?
Further reinforcing that the schools for the significantly more privileged (that somehow educate a significantly higher percentage of students to higher academic success/status/position and income) simply have better more effective and afraid (“accountable”) teachers.
The DOE responses sound like a police state in training.
song that describes the D.O.E.s approach to ed reform. http://barrylane.bandcamp.com/track/i-write-the-tests-i-write-the-tests
good song Barry
They’re pairing Duncan up with Secretary Perez when they venture outside DC these days 🙂
I kind of like Perez, what I’ve heard. He doesn’t seem like a patronizing scold.
I think they should pair up Perez and Cordray for the remainder of this election season. Cordray was a really good AG. He even went after David Brennan, our charter school millionaire! It didn’t go anywhere, we don’t really have any state law he could use, but he made a serious attempt.
Just a suggestion 🙂
http://www.ed.gov/blog/2014/07/a-day-in-ohio-with-secretary-perez-secretary-duncan/
Anyone willing to sit down with these fascist know-nothings offers them undeserved legitimacy by simply breathing the same air of sane humanists. The time for talking is over–there is nothing more to said to these unsavory scumbags, but there is lots to be DONE.
I jut did an analysis of a three year old interview with Duncan, which shows how hard it is to get a straight answer out of him:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/07/atlanta-cheating-scandal-_n_892169.html
Check out this video of Secretary of Education Arne Duncan answering questions in the immediate aftermath of the Atlanta cheating scandal. Notice the answers… or rather NON-answers that Duncan gives to what he is asked by this Atlanta TV reporter (who, by the way, does an awesome job hitting Duncan with tough questions).
For example, she asks a simple “YES” or “NO” question, meaning that, after the question has been asked, the first word out of Duncan’s mouth should be either “YES” or “NO”, followed by more detail and clarification… as in, for example…
“Yes, and let me tell you why… ”
or
“No, that’s not the case, and here’s why… ”
DUNCAN doesn’t do that, instead spewing double-talk.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – –
01:05 – 01:25
REPORTER: “What’s your position on testing? Is there too much emphasis on the standardized testing?”
ARNE DUNCAN: “Well, what you want to do is you want to make sure you’re evaluating students each year, but the way to get good results is through good teaching, and when you cheat… you… again, you do grave, grave harm to children, and so there’s a right way to do it, and the vast majority of folks around the country do it the right way.”
– – – – – – – – – – – – –
Huh??? WTF??? Where’s the “YES” or “NO”?
If she had asked him, “What’s the key to getting good results on standardized testing? What’s the right way?” … then the answer would be responsive.
The obvious conclusion that people were making back in 2011 (and still are three years later) is that the over-emphasis on standardized testing results and the punishment-rewards (monetary or otherwise) meted out based on these results DID contribute to the fiasco in Atlanta. However, Duncan—following his corporate masters’ marching orders—wants to shut that idea or thought process down.
Check out the next question and Duncan’s non-answer:
————————————————-
01:25 – 01:41
REPORTER: “Some people have been critical all along of No Child Left Behind and the testing portions of this. Umm, how fair is that criticism?”
DUNCAN: “Well, we want to fix the No Child Left Behind Law. That’s a much longer conversation, and we’re working very hard in Congress to do… to do that now.”
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Again… W-T-F? His response is that he wants to “fix” NCLB. Well, exactly WHAT about NCLB do you want to “fix”? For Duncan’s answer to be responsive to the question, he must then address criticism of “the testing portions” that the reporters’ question references… the “portions” that create the breeding ground for cheating scandals like the ones in Atlanta, Washington, D.C. and elsewhere…. and Duncan ain’t doing that.
The reporter is pushing Duncan to admit that all this test-based evaluating/punishing/rewarding is harmful, but he responds with pointless blather about how “we’re working very hard in Congress to do that now.”
Really?… “to do WHAT now”? You meant that politicians and education officials should “fix the testing portions” that are harming education and harming kids?
Again, no answer.
The reporter then questions whether, in urban areas with so many challenging factors teachers have to fight, that demanding “unrealistic” results led to the cheating problem, that when asked to do the impossible, teachers who are threatened with firing for not achieving the impossible, will then be driven to cheat. (which is the conclusion one gets from reading Rachel Aviv’s NEW YORKER article.)
This is another great question, by the way. Kudos to the reporter!
Again, Duncan totally ducks this query. He challenges those doubters who think that the NCLB benchmarks were “unrealistic” that they are the ones in the wrong, that he is “seeing students learn every single year”
This is his version of the Michelle Rhee diversionary response to evidence of cheating: “You must be racist to think that poor, minority kids can’t learn.”
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01:41 – 02:14
REPORTER: “But, but the whole idea of unrealistic measurements… something for urban districts, et cetera… Is that – ?”
ARNE DUNCAN: “I don’t think there is anything ‘unrealistic’ about seeing students learn every single year, and you have in many urban areas tremendous progress being made. The sad fact is that I actually think in Atlanta there’s probably tremendous progress being made… fairly… and unfortunately, this, this… scandal is going to cloud that… ummm…. but this does not in any way take away from shouldn’t take away from the hard work, and the accomplishments, and the improved graduation rates that we’re seeing in many urban districts around the country.”
—————————————————-
Let’s move on to the next question, about the idea that Atlanta school district’s monetary incentives helped create the problem. This is the closest he gets to being responsive to the question being asked.
He says that monetary incentives ARE NOT ONLY GOOD for education, but that we should have started doing them long before now.
Oh really?
The only problem with Arne’s claim is…. the overwhelming evidence shows that…
THESE MONETARY INCENTIVES DO NOT WORK.
THESE MONETARY INCENTIVES HAVE NEVER WORKED.
THESE MONETARY INCENTIVES WILL NEVER WORK.
All the decades of evidences show that not only do they not improve education; they actually do grave harm to it.
But hey, Arne thinks we should keep trying anyway, so we’re just going to have to be stuck with more of it. At the end of his spiel, he vomits up the idea that using monetary incentives is “not a hard thing to do”, that you just “have to do it with integrity.”
Really? “Not a hard thing to do”?
Then how come it has NEVER worked, that historically, doing so has an utter and total failure rate?
Duncan thinks we should “spotlight” and “celebrate” good teachers and principals… with monetary rewards (the next question BEL0W).
Duncan’s assumption is that prior to, or without those rewards to push them, teachers will or are holding back their “A Game”, and not giving it their best effort… and that with monetary rewards, they’ll get off their duff and do the job they should have been doing all along.
This comes from a man who has never taught a day in his life, or worked as a principal a day in his life, for if he had, he’d know that this is all total garbage.
————————————————–
02:14 – 03:02
REPORTER: “Should… a lot of this is about money, I think, you know, that both teachers and principals are evaluated by their test scores of their students, and there’s a lot of money involved in this. Should that be decoupled from student learning?”
ARNE DUNCAN: “Well, I think rewarding teacher excellence is important. I think I would argue the opposite, that far too often in our country, we haven’t celebrated great teachers, we haven’t celebrated great principals who are making a huge difference in students’ lives. You just want to make sure that they’re doing it honestly, and again, the vast vast majority of teachers are doing an amazing job, often in very difficult circumstances, in helping students beat the odds every single day.
“I think we need to do a better job of spotlighting that, and incentivizing that, and encouraging that, and learning from that. In education, we’ve been far too reluctant to talk about success. We need to do that. We just need to make sure that we’re doing it with integrity…. not that hard to do.”
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The reporter finishes with a questions about one of the intangible ways that this harms education and society as a whole. She gets personal and talks about how this cheating scandal has taken away her “last heroes”, the teachers, and on and on.
I’m sick and tired of transcribing this words of this vile person (Duncan, not the reporter, whom I admire)… so, if you want to, you can watch her ask this last question, and the entire video here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/07/atlanta-cheating-scandal-_n_892169.html
Okay, DO something to stop the fascist know-nothings. Flood congress with phone calls demanding two things impeach Obama and reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act
Congressional switchboard– 202-224-3121
Well said, Peter Greene. It’s amazing how teachers are responsible for everything and the people holding them responsible have no background in teaching. Our society dictates a scapegoat for every ill. Kudos to all those teachers who still believe they can make a difference and continue to fight the bureaucrats. They are the true heroes and role models for our students.
Donald M. Stewart
5555 S. Everett Ave., Apt. B1
Chicago, IL 60637
donstewart74@gmail.com
(773) 684-9044
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