Here is the transcript from the Diane Rehm show and its interview with Arne Duncan. This is the interview where Duncan said he was “not familiar’ with the Justice Department lawsuit seeking to block vouchers in Louisiana because they will undermine court-ordered desegregation.
Two others were interviewed about Duncan’s policies: Mike Petrilli of the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute and Richard Rothstein of the liberal Economic Policy Institute.
Rothstein was asked whether Duncan was the most powerful and influential education secretary ever:
“Oh, yes, he certainly has because he’s had enormous flexibility without congressional authorization as a result of the stimulus bill and the Raise to the Top funds. The problem is that he’s got an entirely incoherent approach to education policy which, as I said, is doing enormous harm. He ended his comments before with promoting the importance of early childhood education. I fully agree with that.
“Everybody who studies student achievement knows that the one most important factors affecting student achievements is whether children come to school in the first place prepared to learn, whether they’ve had good literacy experiences in early childhood where they’ve had high-quality care. He promotes that. It’s very important. It’s wonderful that he promotes it.
“But then he turns around and advocates and implements an aggressive accountability policy which holds schools accountable for the same results whether or not their children have had high quality early childhood instruction. If early childhood is really as important as he says it is, and I think it is, how can you hold schools accountable for high standards and high accomplishment if children haven’t had those early childhood experiences?
“So, on the one hand, he advocates all the right things, early childhood. He advocates health clinics in schools. He advocates after-school programs and has promised neighborhoods program.
“But when it comes to actually implementing an accountability system, it makes no difference. It has no effect whatsoever.
“His Race to the Top program, for example, gave states no points for whether they had early childhood programs or health clinics in schools or after-school programs. And so he talks a good game when it comes to all of these important influences in education, but when it comes down to the actual accountability policies that he’s promoting, they have no effect whatsoever.”
Rothstein said earlier in the exchange:
“Well, the key point he made, which I think has been lost in the debate, is there’s a big difference between having higher standards and the consequences of those standards. Nobody objects to having higher standards, the common core or if they are higher and to the extent they are higher. The real issue is that what Secretary Duncan has been advocating is tying accountability to the tests that are based on those standards. We’ve had 10 years now of accountability tied to tests based on so-called lower standards, and they’ve completely corrupted our education system.
“They’ve made the system much worse. Teachers have had incentives to narrow the curriculum to the things that are tested. Students have been trained to take tests rather than to learn the underlying curriculum. The same thing is going to happen if we tie tests to these higher standards. Teachers will learn what kinds of things are going to be on the test. There’ll be a lot of test preparation going on. The tests will not reflect what children really know but rather how skilled they are at taking tests.
“And it won’t account for all of the other things besides classroom instruction that affect how high student achievement is. So the common core standards are one thing, but the real issue is the attempt — the misguided attempt to have very high stakes attached to tests to measure those standards. Those will corrupt education just as much as now as they have in the past, and it’s unfortunate Secretary Duncan and his colleagues haven’t learned the lessons from No Child Left Behind and are preparing now to implement the same kinds of mistakes that were done in the last 10 years.”
Richard Rothstein is MY hero. 😉
Right on target. Thanks RR. It breaks my heart to see the damage being caused by NCLB AND RTTT, and then have Arne Duncan and this administration be so deaf to the pleading from parents and communities that this high stakes “accountability program” is not working.
Well said! And here is room for more corruption: Allowing companies close to the high-stakes CCSS tests to be the same ones peddling curriculum:
http://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2013/09/05/reflections-on-amplifys-core-knowledge-profit-potential/
Your blog is becoming one I visit daily.
Joined yesterday after visiting for about a month! Wishing that Pearson would somehow go bankrupt or for some other reason would be shut down.
A few gems from the Dunkster:
“. . . is they actually lied to children and to families and told them they were ready for college and careers. . . ”
Yep, public schools purposely misled parents into thinking that all students were “college and career” ready. I actually lie to my students and parents everyday about that!
“We continue to support teachers, but the vast majority of teachers are very, very supportive of this.”
I don’t know how a couple of percentage points can be misconstrued to mean the vast majority.
PAGE:
Well, I know you’ve gotten a lot of blowback from some teachers who say they just need more time to get accustomed to the new standards before they’re (unintelligible). I heard that you got 14,000 emails from teachers asking for a delay.
DUNCAN:
10:09:52
No. Yeah. No. . . .
. . . So there’s no right or wrong answer
As far as those last lines, don’t you love selective editing by me-ha ha
Thanks for printing this. Readers can listen to the entire segment here: http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2013-09-04/back-school-conversation-about-education
I hope Diane will have a chance to appear as the sole guest on the show when Diane Rehm gets back from vacation. So far Diane Rehm seems to remain in the dark about all these issues. She still tends to give more credit to journalists, politicians and other self-interested campaigners–and though he’s less clueless than many of these people, I would put Mr. Petrilli in that category–than to teachers, researchers, and other education professionals. (I think you can still access her interviews with Steven Brill and Amanda Ripley.)
For anyone who doesn’t know about the Diane Rehm Show, you can listen using the NPR mobile news app. She’s a terrific interviewer who usually books great guests. I just hope her consciousness can be raised. After her, maybe Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes, Harry Shearer, and many others.
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is sudiously uninformed and woefully inexperienced, hence one incoherency after another.
Read his speech of April 30, 2013, to the American Educational Research Association (AERA). I provide the link below. Among other things he quotes “Campbell’s Law” to some of his most astute critics but literally doesn’t realize that he is the High-Stakes Standardized Testing Promoter-in-Chief. It cannot be taken as anything but misguided political spin that wounds, more than protects, him.
Link: http://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/choosing-right-battles-remarks-and-conversation
I might write something like “a fool and his wits are soon parted” but his good sense obtained a divorce decree and restraining order long long ago.
I am almost at the point where I feel sorry for the man.
Almost.
🙂
“. . . sudiously uninformed. . . ”
studiously? or sudsily? uninformed.
I am one of those teachers who retired early because of NCLB. Richard is not only my hero but my brother-in-law. We have talked often about what has been happening in public education!
I just think they have a real problem because there is absolutely nothing about Duncan’s K-12 policy that is “liberal”.
I have a lot of trouble distinguishing it from that of Jeb Bush. I guess Duncan doesn’t use the “government schools” and overt union-bashing rhetoric that comes from the hard Right, but other than that? There’s no difference.
They’re all falling in line on vouchers now, and vouchers were the only substantive policy difference they had.
I’m actually opposed to pre-school expansion under Duncan. We’ll simply see the same policies he’s put in place for K-12 applied to smaller children.
I shudder when I think how much he could shape a “market” re: preschools. Why does anyone think it would be any different than the “market” he’s creating with privatized K-12?
Huge national chains of publicly-funded private preschools don’t appeal to me. I don’t even want to think about preschool “cybercharters” or “value vouchers” or any of the reform innovations. “Democrats for Early Learning” industry lobbyists, the whole thing. Why would I want to expand Arne Duncan’s vision for monetizing and commercializing US schools? I don’t.
“I’m actually opposed to pre-school expansion under Duncan. We’ll simply see the same policies he’s put in place for K-12 applied to smaller children.”
I absolutely agree with you 100%!
ABSOLUTELY agree about preschool Duncan-style. NIGHTMARE!
Preschools under Duncan are the last thing we need. He’s already finishing destroying what was left of Kindergarten and the remaining early childhood grades after NCLB got ahold of them..
The road always seems to lead down the same path unfortunately… the goal is privatization so Duncan’s policies basically set up a “teacher blame game” situation. It is time to call out each and every official destroying students’ right to an education through “corporate ed reform” … by ignoring poverty and by blindly creating destructive but highly profitable (for corporations) national education policy without any understanding of education.
I don’t remember who mentioned it on this site but I like the idea of calling out the politicians and ed-reformers by not masking with nice words what they truly are doing.
CHILD EXPLOITATION
That’s it! We are too nice to these people. They lie, cheat and steal public funds meant for education all while telling the public “it’s for the children” knowing full well that that the true end game is to transfer those funds to corporations while simultaneously scape-goating teachers.
As far as Duncan and politicians that keep pushing the reform agenda they need to be targeted too.
People need to start stepping up to the plate and looking them in the eye and calling them what they really are – CHILD EXPLOITERS.
They need to be booed of stage and/or asked the really hard questions in front of a camera and not be allowed to wiggle or worm them selves out of a question.
I don’t even think these questions are hard enough, but the following are a few suggestions:
1. Please explain how Bill Gates was allowed to fund the CC and why it was rushed to implementation without any sort of field testing. How is that a good thing?
2. Please explain the relationship between Bill Gates’ funding of the CC, which requires computers, and Microsoft and others software vendors now gearing up to sell CC training software.
3. Please explain why your own children go to private schools that have small class sizes, well-paid experienced teachers with 10 or 20+ years, and funding for art, science etc.. More accurately, please explain how large class sizes, inexperienced low-paid teachers and underfunding is good for my kids but not yours.
4. Please explain how teachers are the only ones held accountable but not students, administrators, parents or politicians when dozens of peer-reviewed studies say that teachers have only between 10-15% impact on student achievement.
5. Please explain why we are pushing kids to be “college ready” when we still have college graduates living at home.
6. Are schools a reflection of the community or is the community a reflection of the schools?
7. Please explain who is more powerful at sculpting the culture and economic prosperity for a community – teachers or politicians?
If teachers, then please explain why teachers are not paid 5x more and lauded as the single best thing in turning around struggling communities?
If politicians are more powerful at sculpting the economic prosperity of communities then please explain why there is even more poverty in most communities compared to ten years ago and why only teachers are being held accountable?
I think I will stop right there, but let it be known, from this day forth I will become a pestilence for any and all politicians that exploit children and destroy careers just to make a dime for themselves or their friends.
It’s either that or torches and pitchforks – which seems to happen every few hundred years or so when the balance of power slides to far to one side.
Your concerns are well-founded, although judging from my state NJ, the accountability crowd is way ahead of the curve. Our admirable prek expectations (circa 1991) seem to have been written by educators with full access to early childhood research. They’re now called ‘standards’, & if you want to enroll any students whose tuition is subsidized by the state, you need to align your curriculum, right down to 45-minute segments & contents of your classroom materials for the 2.9-6y.o. set (assessments cannot be far behind). For a shortcut, the standards now reference pre-approved commercial curricula.
Ratio of structured to unstructured play becomes moot, mere lip service, when you have to regurgitate the day’s schedule in a format amenable to bean-counting computers. And even if you’ve got only a handful of state-subsidized students, all must be squeezed into the new formula or you’ve got a scheduling nightmare.
This is how ‘dumbing down’ happens. Next step? Parents who can afford it opt outta there, into a school untainted with state funds. Your typical city-data-type index for preschools has a line for %state-subsidized, so you can easily find the superior schools. Result? Increase in inequality gap at the preschool level.
So Duncan had a restraining order. Fits with his lies to California with Senator Feinstein to try to get the state unconstitutional in California Mayoral Control of LAUSD. He is a total sociopath as is Deasy at LAUSD. Both are caught up in their own web of a 1,000,000 lies. There is no way out in the end for them if truth catches up with them.
Great idea of the students prepared and not prepared when they come to school and the system acts like as if there is not difference. Another big part of the lie equation.
Bob The Science Guy, you are my kind of guy. Well thought out and knows too much so you understand what you are dealing with and ready to take appropriate action. You must have studied the Art of War. This is serious business and Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Kim Il Jung all knew that controlling the young minds is paramount for your future empire and total control. This is the reason for the ongoing war in education which is tied into the criminal justice and international affairs also. If you have educated youth for example who read Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and understand the lessons you cannot run the games today as the general public will understand so Teach to the Test and do not test that comprehension only the small area we need for our enrichment not yours. Simple equation. Also, makes it simple to solve. CORE-CA is going to soon have a website with education, criminal justice, transportation and other areas coming soon. It is about time as now it does not exist. Also, we are the only civil rights group who is self funded so that no one tells us what to think. We work issues as we see them and analyze them. That is why we have been known from the beginning as totally independent.
George,
I read your post too and I am glad we have someone like you fighting so hard for what is right. I have read “The Art of War ” and studied the propaganda machines of many dictators. Joseph Goebbles would be proud of Murdock, Gates and Duncan. I also spent a decade in the Marines surrounded by men and women of impeccable integrity all the way from the top to the bottom. These are people who have chosen to give back to this great nation with service and even their very lives if needed. They did not do it for the pay – it was (is) pretty low. they did it because the believed it was the right thing to do. Imagine that mindset. Giving your very life so that others may live better and have a better chance.
George, I will fight like you do because of the very lack of integrity that I see in politics and administration. you can thank a pointy-headed Broad minded administrator I had once for me digging in my heals. I will not go into the details here, but let’s just say the absolute lack of integrity this person had was stunning. I am not sure who has less, ex-pointy headed administrator or Arne Duncan.
Someone forgot to tell this NYS superintendent:
INFORMATION ON THE NEW TEACHER EVALUATION SYSTEM
We are in the second year of implementing Race to the Top 3012c. We will shortly inform parents of how they can access the overall teacher rating score of their child’s teacher only. We will also release information for the principal and the District as per State direction.
We believe that this information is preliminary and we plan to use it to help drive the changes we are currently engaged in. We will also use the data to support the professional development of our teachers and principal. Finally, we will use it to determine personnel issues.
Can anyone even guess how much Pearson makes on test prep books and programs for tests that they design.
Bob, The Science Guy,
Thanks, someone who understands. Maybe, that is your military experience where in reality in battle is all that matters. Space out there and you are dead real fast. Very direct. One of my former friends when we were young was Bill Perkins. He is the only military photographer ever to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor for jumping on a hand grenade in a firefight in Vietnam. One of Bill’s best friends, Craig Ingraham, made a move, “Above and Beyond” using his letters and photos to his parents, all the footage from the Pentagon, His camera with the grenade holes, mud and blood still on it. It makes me cry every time I watch it. We cannot continue with these useless wars for money with our soldiers coming back permanently psychologically messed up as the latest marine study shows at over 50% with just one form of PTSD. We know one person whose son has 320 confirmed kills that was sent back as he was too crazy. Watch Russia Today with their current show on soldiers and what is happening like the guy married with two children and he was ready to go out and kill anyone who was happy. Instead he asked his wife to drive him to the hospital where he was the only one who did not try to commit suicide at least once. What are we doing with our youth. When you see the interviews of those our friend saved they break down as it is still with them. We need educated youth with a whole complete education not just to the test so that we will stop being fooled and the students learn the lessons of history and how to think and not be fooled. I am not against the military just how it is being used and the tragedy they impose on our youth who make up a lot of the military. I saw Vietnam coming and escaped before they knew what was happening. I later met the Air Force full bird colonel whose pilots wrote the letters I read in Aviation Week that informed me of this insanity. I later worked with one of the first 12 special services in Vietnam in 1954 and he told me, while the war was on, I sure saw that one coming. No more phony wars. No more people killed for no reason except some to get wealthier at no cost to them.