Arne Duncan has never disguised his preference for privately-managed charter schools over public schools. He especially favors “no excuses” schools.
So it is not surprising that–according to Joy Resmovits at the Huffington Post, he has invited Emma Vadehra, the chief of staff of Uncommon Schools, which is known for its rigid discipline and high suspension rates, to be his chief of staff at the U.S. Department of Education.
As Resmovits notes:
“For Vadehra, the move would be a return to the Education Department, where she worked as deputy assistant secretary for planning, evaluation and policy development until leaving for Uncommon in 2011. In that job, she developed a reputation for being a policy whiz kid. Before that, she worked as the late Sen. Edward Kennedy’s (D-Mass.) chief education adviser on the Senate’s Education Committee. She has a law degree from Yale Law School and graduated from Brown in 2002.”
Before she joined the U.S. Department of Education in 2009, she also worked for Uncommon Schools.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
So, Arnie and his merry band of corporate, charter school brigands are now enlisting another, like-minded, take no prisoners, pal. Any more on so many fronts, the corporate state seems to feel they need not disguise their true goals in sophistry. “High suspension rates,” interesting. While at Denver Public Schools, a “subsidiary” of the public school destroyers, suspensions were held against the schools that used this technique for unruly students. The charter schools paradigm allows many of the tenets that are verboten to public institutions. Rather a sly, “Cook the books” covert strategy!
“60 Minutes” loves to trot out these dog and pony show exhibits, where inner city kids are dressed in crisp uniforms, march down hallways like a junior ROTC parade, and teachers work a stunning 60+ with their students. To say they posit a false dichotomy
would be the understatement of this whole campaign that deals in false fronts like Renoir dealt in oils. Neither are accidental, both are examples of the top of their
fields: Renoir in painting, Arne and his henchmen in false facts and “results” that are
made through money, and regimentation that NO public school could employ!
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Wow! You are so right on. Clear and to the point. Arne (no ethics or intelligence) and his merry band of supporters are basically traitors of our country and they call themselves Americans. Egads…they are fascist and believe that their god (ultimate control and power over the masses who MUST SERVE THEM, ORDERED us chumps to do harm to others or get jailed in our FOR PROFIT prisons.) These names are not secret and more is being unveiled. Hope it’s no too late. Already we can be spied on in the name of Thousands Standing Around, cameras, drones, satellites, etc. The police are not OEACE Officers any more; they too have quotas. YIKES!. They are thugs following orders from the top 1%.
I fear for this country. Then there’s InBloome..gasp!
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So true about the phony dog and pony shows.
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Wow! Roughly 33 years old, a lawyer, twice employed by DOE and twice by Uncommon Schools, no evidence of any classroom experience….. And she’s going to be Duncan’s chief of staff? I respect a good administrator as much as the next person. But leadership in education policy making without any practical experience in schools has tended to make for very uninformed policy making. We shall see…
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No joke! Denver Public Schools had “businessman, Bennett” take over our district that had the usual problems of all urban city schools; difficult, but “doable.” Then Bennett swept in with NO background in education, save his preppy boy, elitist one.
He instituted his “business plan,” invested school funds in DERIVATIVES after the first volley of financial implosions of ’08. These “investments” in that “Exotic,” “high risk” part of the market. went into free fall and the money disaster is still engulfing the DPS financial health in a perilous way. The painful toll on DPS monies has been covered as diligently as a squirrel covers his nuts. Most Denver residents are ignorant of the whole debacle. Not satisfied with his reckless financial fiasco, he then instituted his “business plan” that has savaged older faculty members, reduced moral to a smoking, fearful cinder, and destroyed flagship schools with no caring or value of what destruction his legacy continues to have. A parable of what the whole country will experience as the corporate raiders milk the educational structures until these “parasites” leave the “host” with a system that make pr-corporate control, a fading memory of academic achievement.
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Yes, this is TRUE! And b. is the darling senator in congress on education. Save the kids, parents, teachers, and this country from the business for profit, standardization models, and all the current educational DEFORMS.
Poor Denver…what’s going on is horrid.
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Thanks for your kind remarks. What is happening here, is going to be the fate of all our public schools. The only ones to benefit are the corporate cronies who are destroying our country in so many ways. Hard to imagine the US before the corporates took over and picked our national bones!
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Another fox in the henhouse.
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“She’s the person that can take good policy and try to make it the good political thing to do,” one Hill education advocate said.
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The “good political thing to do,” and not “the right thing to do?”
That tells me everything I need to know. 😦
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Uncommon Charters is where commissioner John King comes from. This is a tight club.. no public schoolers allowed
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Didn’t you mean “.. no teachers allowed.”
“She has a J.D. from Yale Law School and a B.A. from Brown University with a dual concentration in Public Policy and Education Policy.” From the Uncommon Charters website.
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Yes. That’s the easy find. I am curious about her upbringing- elementary – high school. Parents, etc.
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Forget what you know. These days it is who you know that counts.
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So, how much longer will it take to pillage the rest of public education across the country??
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Judging by the plague of charter school corporates advances so far, NOT LONG!
When the game is rigged, public vs charter, the outcome is a given. And, the assaults on teachers and the Trojan horse charter school shows, dulls the public’s mind to reality versus conjured fantasy, the sad end may be in sight. Who will come to champion the present system? Nary a soul, i would sadly surmise.
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Mary or anyone else that would like to comment – why are there so many teachers that are uninformed? The ones that say they just want to do their job and “stay out of the politics”. Many think this will fade away in a couple of years like most past initiatives. I have said this one is different, this is not the time to just go along. Am I wrong?
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No, but then again I’ve been trying to get teachers to understand what’s going on and most hide their heads in the sand and/or tell me I’m crazy.
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Duane, that is exactly what I have experienced. No one willing to fight for their profession.
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More group think. More Ivy League top-down directives to “reform” the public schools these folks neither respect nor understand.
Charter operators who “serve” maybe 10% of US students setting policy for the 90%.
Cool branding on the schools, though. I’m sure she’s a hell of a marketer. What gimmicks and experiments will our kids be subjected to this year, do you think?
Do we get a “free” laptop in exchange for our public school district? Do the kids get a gift certificate?
Is the revolving door between privatized schools and the DOE spinning fast enough? Why not just merge the DOE with Charter Inc. and drop the pretense?
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Has Duncan ever hired anyone who actually wants to improve public schools rather than privatize them?
I recognizecthe DOE is a big place, and there are probably a few career public school supporters, but what’s the breakdown of Duncan appointees?
I’d also like to see a comparison of promoting and funding privatization, Obama v Bush.
This stuff must be a public record, for now anyway.
A breakdown woukd be really helpful when talking to parents of public school kids, who seem to have been completely abandoned by Mr. Duncan, in his ridiculous quest to play CEO with public funding.
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As his “Chief of Staff?” Just what does this job entail? (I know! Doing Arne’s thinking for him so he can go out & shoot hoops.) Tell you what–I VOLUNTEER–just living expenses, please (& my needs are modest in the extreme–studio, public transportation, hold the chateaubriand & champagne–I drink water, & not bottled, tap).
Really–time to abolish the D.O.Ed. and all the wanton wa$te of our tax dollar$ which $hould be going DIRECTLY into our public school systems!! (I haven’t given them $ signs for Ss because there ARE no dollars in our public schools!)
Pray tell, what is her salary? (Sure to be at least 6 figures!)
Now THIS is the post today that is making my blood boil! Every American taxpayer ought to be furious at this wasteful government spending.
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How true…BUT, it is worse than “wasteful” it is highly destructive of a functioning public system!
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Diane, too, I have a request.
Can we get a daily listing of Duncan’s public events on the site?
I realize they are on the DOE site, but public school parents need to start publicly questioning Mr. Duncan when he descends to actually visit a public school in our local area.
He gets glowing, carefully managed press. Apparently no one else will ask him a real question, so I think it’s up to us.
It would be great if we had a heads up, because I only read about Mr. Duncans phito ops after they occur.
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That’s a great question/request, Chiara. Also, in relation to my earlier comment, I would like to see Duncan’s daily agenda/schedule–that is, exactly what it is that he does all day.
As taxpayers, we pay his salary. As his employers, we are entitled to it, just as our employers check our lesson plans and times.
While we’re at it, I’d also like to see both the present (and former)
Chief(s) of Staff.
Just as when I purchase an item and use it, I need to know if I’m getting my money’s worth.
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Rbmtk – how about video cameras? Then we can watch our tax dollars being flushed down the toilet. I hear they are “needed” in classrooms. Fair is fair.
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History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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CT,
Your comment reminds me of “Good People” by Jack Johnson:)
My nomination for our theme song:)
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Schools in this country are being run by people who know policy but nothing about how humans actually learn.
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From my vantage point in Denver Public Schools, I’d say businessmen are taking over so their corporate buddies can milk the public funds and leave the nation’s education at their “tender mercies”…just like they did to countless businesses when the Romney raider syndrome was installed. Jobs went bye bye, and Romney’s bank account swelled as the workers were left to languish. Bruce Springstein’s “Wrecking Ball” album sums the whole corporate take over of America pretty succinctly!
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More top down, know everything Harvard management from people who couldn’t last a week in a classroom. Charters are private schools build with corporate and public funds. Can’t someone take on an anti discrimination suit base on all the special needs students they push out monthly? How are they getting away with this? Duncan is an arm of the Obama administration- no better than any Republican group. They seem to meld into one when it comes to destroying public education. These people are supposed o be public servants, our voice. How can this be happening in the United Sates of American? Surely in the long run this gives rise to the one percent, while the 99% will never even see it coming until it it too late. Wake up!.
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Obama has been horrible for education. He is clueless and Duncan needs to be replaced.
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I only wish O’bama were clueless. He’s anything but, just ask his corporate, charter school vultures about his guileless ignorance, what a charade!…
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Does anyone have anything on Vahedra’s education- other than Brown and Yale? Just a little curious about her background.
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“She has a J.D. from Yale Law School and a B.A. from Brown University with a dual concentration in Public Policy and Education Policy.” From the Uncommon Charters website.
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That’s it!
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