This wonderful photo is making the rounds on Twitter. The quote was taken from Monroe County ICPE (Indiana Coalition for Public Education) chairperson Cathy Fuentes-Rohwer’s speech at the Indiana State House last month. When I hear about “college and career ready standards” for elementary school and middle school children, I am reminded of the famous words of Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who once famously said:
“We should be able to look every second grader in the eye and say, ‘You’re on track, you’re going to be able to go to a good college, or you’re not,’ ” he said. “Right now, in too many states, quite frankly, we lie to children. We lie to them and we lie to their families.”
When I look at my young grandchildren, ages 8 and not quite 2, this is the same thought that occurs to me, as I feel sure it does to most parents and grandparents:
Diane Ravitch's blog 
We have two middle schoolers (and two older children that are out of school) — my husband is a private school teacher and his response to all this “college and career ready” nonsense talk that our kids are being fed from their public school is “let’s just have them get jobs”.
At the school where he teaches, parents pay quite a bit of money — guess what ? “college and career ready” is NOT part of the school’s marketing slogan!
Has Duncan said anything about how NY ed reformers are using the CC scores to declare many more schools “failing”?
I recognize he doesn’t control The Ed Reform Movement and all its various factions and lobbies but he’s certainly a “movement leader”, and we were repeatedly assured the CC tests would not be used to attack public schools.
Can we expect this in every state when the test scores come out? Lobbyists immediately use the test scores in political campaigns to privatize schools?
Seems like a real betrayal to me. Millions of kids took these tests relying on government actors to use the scores responsibly and fairly. Now they’re being used in political campaigns by ed reformers?
No, Duncan doesn’t control the so-called education reformers; they control him.
That’s what’s happening in Utah, which did its first CC-based testing last year. Up to 71% of students “failed” these tests.
This session, $8 million was set aside to hire “turnaround specialists” in “failing” schools. For a state that spends less per pupil than any other state, $8 million is a nice chunk of change. And how are these “failing” schools determined? Why, test scores, of course! And in Utah, the grades are done on a curve, so 15% will always be “failing,” no matter how what the scores are. http://www.sltrib.com/news/2285556-155/lawmakers-approve-8m-program-to-turn
Sounds like your legislature should be required to take the test. Your legislature needs to be “turnedaround.” From what you have said, I have no doubt that most of them will fail. What stupidity!
Perhaps we should get to know each child well then guide her or him to use his/her talents to become that which best reflects his/her innate talent be it carpenter, mechanic, teacher, artist, actor, organizer or preacher. Let us cultivate not cram.
This should be the slogan for all parents and educators resisting reform! Kids need to be the best people they can be, find their unique abilities and grow them for life! Well said Gail.
Time to change the politicians and reclaim our schools so that our children are allowed to be children!
When the “reformers” are talking about college, they are not talking about university. At some point, we must have a discussion about why university and what that contributes to the common good.
I get that Arne Duncan knows nothing about kids because he is not an educator and he didn’t study child development. However, as a dad of a little boy and girl who are school age, I would have thought he’d at least have a clue that none of the standardized tests which he promotes, nor the curriculum that the tests and CC drive, are capable of determining whether an 8 year old is ready to be Spider Man or Barbie Fashionista, as typical second graders aspire to become. And, contrary to what Duncan may believe, they are right on track developmentally.
His kids go ta a school that does not do all these things. His children do not suffer from the Common Core or the testing. Dad has the right contacts to guarantee their success.
Yep. Virginia didn’t sign off on the Common Core and my guess is that Duncan probably let insiders in Virginia know what a sham CC really is because his kids attend public school in a suburb there.
I’m also guessing Obama will make arrangements for Duncan to live near him in Hawaii, after Obama moves into Robin’s Nest, so they can play Magnum PI together in their retirement and send their kids to private schools, while they play golf and hoops, as they laugh all the way to the bank at civil rights leaders, liberal Democrats and the working poor who fell for all of their self-serving schemes.
Sorry, forgot a link. This was reported by a lot of news organizations last week: “Did President Obama Just Buy the Magnum P.I. Home in Hawaii?”
http://curbed.com/archives/2015/03/20/president-obama–magnum-pi-house-hawaii.php
This quote also reveals the pressure that students are now having placed on them to go to college. Every year it seems like younger and younger students are getting anxiety over school because they believe if they do not do well on one assignment that they won’t have a future. Kids should just be kids.
This slogan would make a wonderful bumper sticker. They ought to make them for grandparents and perhaps aunts and uncles. The sticker would make a wonderful talking point to engage some of those folks who are not currently focused on what is going on in public education.
Do they really mean career ready, or do they mean workforce ready?
Speaking of accountability, is Duncan concerned about his complete and utter failure to regulate for-profit colleges?
I don’t know how they plan to regulate the charter school contractors they’re eagerly funding from DC if they can’t even regulate the for-profit colleges they’re supposed to be regulating. Maybe they should slow down before they privatize K-12. Not going so well on the college end.
This is ANOTHER most INSANE statement spouted by Duncan.
Bet someone has given him a stack of cards with sayings on them written really big in BOLD letters so he doesn’t forget to spout them at regular intervals, especially if he is stuck for words. Hahahaha…may not be far from the actual truth.
Did you see Michelle Obama in Cambodia on the news? She visited a school and promoted the idea that girls should go to school and not leave school. Okay, so here she was preaching to the choir.
The reporter then showed street kids and said Michelle Obama did not see them. That was convenient, wasn’t it? Ignore the ones who don’t matter, just as her husband does here at home.
The kicker for me, though, was when the reporter said Mrs. Obama believes SCHOOL SHOULD BE FUN SO KIDS WOULD WANT TO BE THERE!!!
What a novel idea.