It’s not easy being U.S. Secretary of Education these days.
Back in the old days, before No Child Left Behind, the Secretary was basically a cheerleader with a bully pulpit. He or she ran a Department that oversaw many programs but had relatively little money and no authority to change what Congress authorized.
All that changed with NCLB. Suddenly, Congress declared that it was the judge of “adequate yearly progress.” It legislated the expectations for all schools. Now the federal government was in charge of crucial decisions about issues that used to belong to states and localities.
But as 2014 grew nearer and no state in the nation was on target to get to 100% proficiency–how could the schools have failed to meet their mandated deadline–Secretary Duncan issued waivers to states that agreed to do what he said.
Secretary Duncan, of course, knows how to reform schools. He did it in Chicago, remember, which is now a national exemplar of reform. It has been saved repeatedly, not only by Arne Duncan, but by Paul Vallas. Now it is going to be saved again by Barbara Byrd-Bennett and Rahm Emanuel.
Once Secretary Duncan issued waivers from NCLB, he was in a scary role. He is now dictating the terms of school reform for the entire nation! Don’t think this is easy. Not only is it a tough full-time job, but he is the first Secretary ever to struggle with this mighty burden.
Undaunted, he is now supervising a Race to the Top for districts, so he can run them too. They too will take the bait (re, the money) and fall into line.
Arne Duncan has the job of redesigning America’s education system. It’s one he has willingly assumed. Now he has four more years to make sure that every child in America is frequently tested, preferably beginning at age 3; that a vast federal data warehouse is built with relevant information about the test scores of every child and teacher; that privately managed charters take control of most urban school districts (using New Orleans as their model); and that every teacher knows how to raise test scores every year.
What a vision. What a burden. Arne Duncan can do it.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Man, I like satire first thing in the morning!!
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There was another female secretary, Margaret Spellings, during Bush’s second term. It is somewhat astounding to think how many males have held the highest educational post in our country when it is still a field with a majority of women in it.
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I know you know the answer, but there’s a very good reason for that. The sexism in education is sometimes astounding…
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Are you serious?
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Actually, he can’t do it; the man is an incompetent fraud, as he demonstrated in Chicago.
However, he can cause much destruction, and he will.
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He is absolutely stupid and certainly proof an Ivy League education isn’t any kind of guarantee of intellectual prowess. He’s dumber than former president GWB, if such a thing is possible.
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LOL!
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The Constitution says education belongs to the states…Arne Duncan should be eliminated. Why the states
are listening to him is beyond me…States are responsible…not the feds…They should have told him and RacettTop
where to go.
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He should be impeached for undermining Congress and NCLB. I am serious about that.
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When I was getting my Ph.D. at the University of Chicago the first wave of graduate students from the Peoples Republic of China enrolled. The student in the lab I was in talked about what it was like to live and work in Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution. At the time, I was so grateful that I lived in a county where no insanity like that would dominate the nation. NCLB and RTTT really proved me wrong. The world of high stakes testing is junk science. It doesn’t identify the rotten apple teachers. It just emotionally and intellectually destroys children.
I recognize that all of the deaths that resulted from the famines of the Cultural Revolution are an extraordinary tragedy. My comparison is not meant to minimize them. The world of high stakes testing is destroying the belief of many children that they can be successful in life. Not all parents have the means to pull their children out of high stakes testing public schools and put them in private schools or home school them.
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What a bunch of malarkey! Talk about painting yourself and everyoone else into a corner. NCLB left every corner full with tchrs and stds as victims. Those corners will get even more crowded. Can you spell C.H.E?A?TI.N?G? This is as brilliant as requiring the children with intellectual disabilities to compete in the regular Olymics. If we just tested them enough, set the bar high enough, then they can compete with gen ed kids, too. No need for Special Olympics! Sound logical! Let’s see what A Duncan and B Obama come up with when the wheels fall off RT3? Anyone working on curing SWD, yet? That’s what it will have to take to achieve at those unrealistic levels. Then, fire all their teachers for lack of achievement. NCLB squeezed many SWD out of high schools. What, we have a drop-out problem? You think? We thought Bush was a 70% – C student! He may have Obama/Duncan beat! Wow!
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Great idea: have Hillary change jobs with Arne!
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We should all demand that he is fired for incompetence.
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Diane,
Clarify the difference between a teacher using the textbook company made tests found in the teacher edition of a book and a test made by a state education department. The only difference I have seen in 20 years working in schools, is that the teacher knows ahead of time what is on the “textbook” test. My point is, what is the real opposition to state wide tests? Is it “one more test” opposition or the anixety felt by teachers who do not know what is on the exam? Both test sources-textbook companies and state ed dept. are weak, but for time stressed teachers, they have become a default resource. Finally, how do you propose we make sure a student in a rural poor district has a quality teacher like the student in a rich suburban school? Especially when the rural community is ok with, “good is good enough.”
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Standardized tests are badly misused, whether they come from textbook publishers or the states. The fact is that the state tests are written by the textbook publishers, so there s no difference. The problem is the medium and its misuse.
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So, the quality teachers are in the rich, suburban schools? Why is that Mr. Squier? You’re blaming teachers, rather than addressing important issues of culture, and poverty.
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