Are the supporters of corporate reform coming unglued?
Mike Klonsky thinks so. Of a sudden, Secretary Arne Duncan says his critics are “inhabitants of this alternative universe.” What has happened to make him angry? Why would he mischaracterize critics as people who insist that we can’t fix the schools until we fix poverty. I don’t know anyone who makes that claim. Duncan, au contraire, seems to think that the way to “fix” the schools is with more testing, more merit pay, more charters, more test-based evaluation of teachers, more school closings. No one, including Duncan, has ever explained how his way will fix the schools or someday fix poverty.
Jersey Jazzman says that Duncan’s rant reached “new depths of sanctimony.” He writes: “No one is saying schools shouldn’t be improved. Perhaps someone should draw a warm bath for the SecEd so he can rest his weary, weary arms after the toil of building so many straw men. The plain fact is that no one here in the “bubble” has ever said our schools are “just fine.”
The Jazzman offers a simple list (created by Rutgers’ Bruce Baker) of the determinants of low-performing schools. These are the factors that stand out: high proportions of low-income students; high proportions of minority students; high proportions of English language learners; larger class sizes.
Here, says Jersey Jazzman, is what Secretary Duncan doesn’t know or refuses to acknowledge:
The link between poverty and learning is the most obvious thing in the world. It is ridiculous to pretend that firing a few more teachers based on student test scores or starting a few more charter schools or giving out vouchers or implementing merit pay will overcome the challenges facing a child living in poverty.
I, and everyone else in the “bubble,” do believe well-resourced schools can help ameliorate the effects of poverty — to a degree. But the problems of chronic poverty and inequity in this country have far more to do with a regressive tax code, a capital market that is little better than a rigged casino, a lack of a living minimum wage, a monetary policy that puts full employment on the back burner, and a whole host of other public policies that have nothing to do with public schools.
Wendy Lecker, a civil rights attorney
writing in the Stamford (CT) Advocate, says that Arne Duncan is living in an “alternate universe.” She says that Duncan insists that standardized tests are necessary to tell us the truth about our students’ poor performance, but Lecker points out that state officials game the system to tell us whatever they want about the test results. In some states, they set the bar high, to produce failure, while in others, they adjust it downward to make themselves look better. She writes:
These test scores are not objective. Student success, school quality and teacher effectiveness are all political moving targets, set by officials far removed from students and schools. Secretary Duncan is the one in an alternate universe, and our students, teachers and taxpayers are paying the price.
Secretary Duncan is angry because his narrative, his claim that our schools are failing, and only his plans can save them, is falling apart. Teachers and principals are angry and demoralized. The backlash against high-stakes testing gets larger every day. The opt out movement is growing.
Education Week reported that Duncan has spent $100 billion, and what results are there?
According to the same story:
In contrast to the early years of the Obama administration, Mr. Duncan is now “wildly unpopular,” said Maria Ferguson, the executive director of the Center on Education Policy at George Washington University. “He’s got three years to secure his legacy and defend his record,” she said. “I’m not sure he’s going to have the ammo to do that.”It is easy to be popular when you are handing out $100 billion. Not so easy when all you have left is a bully pulpit to urge people to keep doing what doesn’t work.
I have two points:
1. “sleek and shiny syndrome” (being impressed by all things plastic and in computer language) has been projected onto American schools that it will without question make them better (technology, testing ad nauseum). It won’t make them better all by themselves. There still have to be loving, caring, thoughtful, hard-working, resourceful, experienced, well-educated teachers.
2. In my Cornell course on Executive Decision-Making I have learned a great deal and every bit I learn makes me scratch my head about how most decisions regarding the public’s schools in US recently have been made. It is as if they did not consider it a legitimate industry, because they wanted to make it into a profit-producing market, and they royally messed up on how to approach decisions. For example, they could have stood some of this wisdom:
“An important part of decision making is choosing the right process by which to reach a decision. Often, executives bypass this question and operate out of habit and personal preference or follow standard organizational norms. However, the question of how a decision gets made should be addressed each time a significant problem arises.”
I suggest some of these guys in decision-making roles log on to e-cornell and take an online course in executive decision-making. If a public school music teacher was smart enough to do it, I would think those receiving large salaries for their decisions (which have HUGE impacts on other people) could at least do the same. And furthermore, that they remember whose schools the public’s schools are and why the exist and who they serve. AND that the situation of urgency that justifies all answers for those with “sleek and shiny syndrome” be critically examined for their validity. I simply don’t believe there was anything to justify skipping over pilot tests and uprooting an entire industry just because someone fell in love with the idea of rows and rows of children at computers scoring perfectly on a test (or whatever it is they drool over).
And also because the problems in public schools have been presented so negatively, rather than any focus on positive qualities (and there are plenty!), frivolous risk was taken at the expense of the public’s schools.
It is so frustrating to watch.
Another good quote from my course Arne himself could stand to read. I’d love to take him to lunch in our school cafeteria and discuss this with him. Anyone making these decisions on behalf of our schools who does not spend entire days in classrooms is not qualified to do so.
“The first thing to keep in mind is that decision making generally occurs in response to a perceived problem, but what is a problem to you may be a satisfactory state of affairs to someone else. The way a problem is presented has an impact on the decision-making outcome, because people simply make different decisions depending on the manner in which the problem is described. There’s a college competition in which pairs of MBA students make a pitch to executives with the goal of making their idea so compelling that it is selected for further discussion and potential funding. The catch is the students only have the time it takes to ride an elevator 28 floors! This activity clearly illustrates a well-known point: managers frequently make decisions based on how a problem is presented. Getting information is important, but gaining managerial attention is also a critical part of the decision-making process.”
So whoever Arne was with on the elevator, kudos to them for their pitch. But for taking down, or beginning to take down, an industry on which the public relies . . . shame on you people.
The alternative universe is the “sleek and shiny syndrome” universe, not the one that recognizes humans as biological beings where even the poorest deserve the personal involvement of experienced teachers investing in them as individuals, and who have been prepared to do so, and have in fact dedicated their lives to it.
and when I say on which the public relies, I do not mean teachers. I mean students and families.
Yes, this preacher’s daughter is riled up.
I am a mother. My children deserve better.
Joanna, I have been following you on this blog and agree with you on several points. This what I wrote to Diane yesterday.
“I like to fight fire with fire. Since the country is all about moving our public schools to a privatized business model, I suggest we use good business practices. This enjoyable and informative 10 minute whiteboard overview of the book “Drive” (2010) by business author Daniel Pink is a great look in the right direction.
http://www.danpink.com/2010/06/whiteboard-magic
According to his book, successful business encorage autonomy , mastery and purpose as the ultimate motivators. If we followed good business practices we would not be using standardization, testing, merit pay, external rewards, narrow curriculum or any of the education “reform” practices to create a generation of innovative and productive workers (since they are ineffective in business). Since maintaining our economic superiority is the supposed reason our schools need reform, I find using their own research as a good tool for communicating with people who think all people against privatization must be socialist. I just want good business practices to improve our schools 🙂
I also live/work/teach and am a mother in North Carolina. I am in amazement at how far our state has turned it’s back on education in such a short amount of time. I wanted you to know I have appreciated your comments.
Janna–
thanks and I am thankful for the information you posted too.
Last year I signed up to get my admin license through Gardner Webb and then at the last minute I backed out and instead decided to bone up on business language through online classes with Cornell. I figure if they (DOE, reformers) want to approach this like a business (applying business models and glorifying all things profit-driven), then I want to understand that language and that line of thinking (to me, like music, is just another way of understanding the organization of something).
From what I can tell, they have done it all wrong (granted, four online courses does not make me an expert, but it seems from all the lists I have applied in exercises and writing assignments, they did all the wrong things). Going all the way back to those who first led us down the RttT garden path. I am not looking to shame anyone on the state level, because I think in times when money is tight it is easy to fall for something that looks like it will bring needed money and looks like it is best practices (albeit I did drop out of the Democratic party because I was so disgusted by it). But I do think Arne Duncan does not have the responsibility of people in mind, and I would fuss at him if I met him. I would shake my finger at him like an old woman and say tst tst tsp like the monkeys in “Caps for Sale.”
Just as teachers do not approach our work without study and conscious effort to be leading a professional journey through learning, our leaders owe it to us to know what the heck they are doing. And I don’t think that in this case the DOE does, or has.
So that is part of my fighting fire with fire. The other part is the little LLC I started to help route the excess from business to schools. If we were so desperate for money that took $420 million only to spend $640 million and counting to implement the parameters, then we need to look under some other stones for help with money. At 17 I went to Haiti to tour schools, build desks, and deliver suitcases full of school supplies. At that age I became very in tune with waste of resources (plus I’m crafty anyway, so I have always been in touch with paper and glue and the costs of them). Already in one week I can tally $85.00 worth of materials that cost the school nothing because it came from stuff that was being tossed. We need more of this to happen.
My mother was a teacher so I know (and I do this too) we save everything that can be used for a project (juice cans, boxes) etc. Particularly now with our children spending a lot of time on computers (and a lot of money being spent on the technology), these hands on materials are live salve on a wound for me. And that is, in addition to just fulfilling my duties, with my experience and good training, to the best of my ability, where I focus right now. I figure I can’t change legislation, but I can affect the lives, daily, of children and I can make businesses aware of how much they can help simply by giving us some of what they would toss.
Duncan is a crony for the education triumvirate, Walton, Gates, and Broad, and their plan is working like a charm.
Now we have to figure this out, so those of us who do believe in public schools, an improved version of what we have known (not a bruised up, banged up, broken up version) should heed the following:
When responsive, we feel the impact of another’s agenda or initiative. Rather than resisting it or simply reacting to it, we discover a way to rechannel the energy to our own advantage.
“Being responsive does not expend any energy in retreating or opposing. It does everything possible to discover positive and constructive ways to use the available energy. In other words, the responsive mode attempts to use the energy of the other-as in aikido or jujitso-to accomplish one’s own needs and goals.”
Please consider switching to the Green Party. See how they tried to speak up in Philadelphia. Corporate media keeps their solutions from being heard. If all teacher’s switched at once, that could not be ignored.
1. GRASSROOTS DEMOCRACY
Every human being deserves a say in the decisions that affect their lives and not be subject to the will of another. Therefore, we will work to increase public participation at every level of government and to ensure that our public representatives are fully accountable to the people who elect them. We will also work to create new types of political organizations which expand the process of participatory democracy by directly including citizens in the decision-making process.
2. SOCIAL JUSTICE AND EQUAL OPPORTUNITY
All persons should have the rights and opportunity to benefit equally from the resources afforded us by society and the environment. We must consciously confront in ourselves, our organizations, and society at large, barriers such as racism and class oppression, sexism and homophobia, ageism and disability, which act to deny fair treatment and equal justice under the law.
3. ECOLOGICAL WISDOM
Human societies must operate with the understanding that we are part of nature, not separate from nature. We must maintain an ecological balance and live within the ecological and resource limits of our communities and our planet. We support a sustainable society which utilizes resources in such a way that future generations will benefit and not suffer from the practices of our generation. To this end we must practice agriculture which replenishes the soil; move to an energy efficient economy; and live in ways that respect the integrity of natural systems.
4. NON-VIOLENCE
It is essential that we develop effective alternatives to society’s current patterns of violence. We will work to demilitarize, and eliminate weapons of mass destruction, without being naive about the intentions of other governments. We recognize the need for self-defense and the defense of others who are in helpless situations. We promote non-violent methods to oppose practices and policies with which we disagree, and will guide our actions toward lasting personal, community and global peace.
5. DECENTRALIZATION
Centralization of wealth and power contributes to social and economic injustice, environmental destruction, and militarization. Therefore, we support a restructuring of social, political and economic institutions away from a system which is controlled by and mostly benefits the powerful few, to a democratic, less bureaucratic system. Decision-making should, as much as possible, remain at the individual and local level, while assuring that civil rights are protected for all citizens.
6. COMMUNITY-BASED ECONOMICS AND ECONOMIC JUSTICE
We recognize it is essential to create a vibrant and sustainable economic system, one that can create jobs and provide a decent standard of living for all people while maintaining a healthy ecological balance. A successful economic system will offer meaningful work with dignity, while paying a “living wage” which reflects the real value of a person’s work.
Local communities must look to economic development that assures protection of the environment and workers’ rights; broad citizen participation in planning; and enhancement of our “quality of life.” We support independently owned and operated companies which are socially responsible, as well as co-operatives and public enterprises that distribute resources and control to more people through democratic participation.
7. FEMINISM AND GENDER EQUITY
We have inherited a social system based on male domination of politics and economics. We call for the replacement of the cultural ethics of domination and control with more cooperative ways of interacting that respect differences of opinion and gender. Human values such as equity between the sexes, interpersonal responsibility, and honesty must be developed with moral conscience. We should remember that the process that determines our decisions and actions is just as important as achieving the outcome we want.
8. RESPECT FOR DIVERSITY
We believe it is important to value cultural, ethnic, racial, sexual, religious and spiritual diversity, and to promote the development of respectful relationships across these lines.
We believe that the many diverse elements of society should be reflected in our organizations and decision-making bodies, and we support the leadership of people who have been traditionally closed out of leadership roles. We acknowledge and encourage respect for other life forms than our own and the preservation of biodiversity.
9. PERSONAL AND GLOBAL RESPONSIBILITY
We encourage individuals to act to improve their personal well-being and, at the same time, to enhance ecological balance and social harmony. We seek to join with people and organizations around the world to foster peace, economic justice, and the health of the planet.
10. FUTURE FOCUS AND SUSTAINABILITY
Our actions and policies should be motivated by long-term goals. We seek to protect valuable natural resources, safely disposing of or “unmaking” all waste we create, while developing a sustainable economics that does not depend on continual expansion for survival. We must counterbalance the drive for short-term profits by assuring that economic development, new technologies, and fiscal policies are responsible to future generations who will inherit the results of our actions.
Ten Key Values of state and local Greens
There is no authoritative version of the Ten Key Values of the Greens. The Ten Key Values are guiding principles that are adapted and defined to fit each state and local chapter.
Taken from http://www.gp.org/tenkey.php
I enjoy reading a blog by a historian when history is the main question before us. And having covered (and documented) the lies of Arne Duncan and Chicago’s ed reformers for more than a decade, it’s going to be fun to make sure there is no amnesia now that “justice thunders condemnation…” and a better world might be in birth.
Arne Duncan has always been ‘unglued.’ From the beginning, he was trained to glibly repeat his talking points, and to try a charm offensive as much as possible when reality got in the way of smiles and lies.
After Paul Vallas wore out his welcome with Mayor Richard M. Daley in 2001, they needed the “Non-Paul” to keep the corporate “reform” agenda moving forward, step by step. Those of us who covered Arne’s wild meanderings (or carefully rehearsed speeches) when he was CEO of CPS knew that he was simply rehearsing and then repeating the talking points drilled into him by his Svengale, Peter Cunninghan.
I heard actually heard one of those rehearsals while awaiting an “interview” with Duncan during the first month after he was given power in Chicago following the Paul Vallas debacle. That was in July 2001! During those years, Peter was confident enough in his mission that he kept an open door at the CPS “Office of Communications” and over time, that confidence became cockiness as Arne got away with more and more.
Between 1999 and 2001, Arne Duncan was a rich kid from Hyde Park (and the University of Chicago cocoon) who returned to Chicago from his professional basketball days in Australia and needed a job. So of course he was ready to head the third largest school system in the USA.
Arne Duncan got away with a lot of nonsense from the beginning in Chicago for three reasons. One: He wasn’t Paul Vallas. Two: He had the support of corporate Chicago and its media (including “Catalyst” and the others supposedly in the “reform” wing of things). Three: Corporate and public dollars bribes, widely spread around.
That was eleven years ago. Even then it was possible, listening closely, to hear some people who later realized it was the same scam in a new wrapper say things like “At least Arne’s not Paul…” or even “… but Arne listens…”
The script by the plutocracy was carefully done, and then carefully implemented, piece by piece. The central piece was closing “failing schools” and replacing them, for the most part by charters (“turnarounds” were also in the mix, but not the big piece).
By April 2002, Arne was already proclaiming the need for the “renaissance” (still small “r”) in Chicago’s schools based on the script he was getting from the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club (Chicago’s version of the Business Roundtable, which predated the Business Roundtable by 100 years so was always better at it). In 2002, when Duncan announced that he “had to close” Dodge, Terrell, and Williams elementary schools to “save the children” because of their “failing” (i.e., low test scores), the only critic who noted the actual facts on the ground for those three first victims were those of us reporting at Substance. It was an ugly performance of blaming the victims, since each school had a special set of problems that resulted in its (one year) “failure.”
But at that time, Arne was still getting away with murder (as in murdering schools) because of that aura of “NOT VALLAS” he was carrying around.
In June 2003, the Civic Committee issued that stupid monstrosity of a report, “Still Left Behind.” That thingy is still available. Written by an Ayn Rand zealot named R. Eden Martin (at the time, he was the corporate secretary of Aon Insurance and a multi-millionaire himself, but busy as a beaver pushing the most toxic versions of John Galt-ism) on behalf of Chicago’s corporate CEOs, “Still Left Behind” proclaimed that all — ALL — Chicago’s public schools had “failed” and offered tens of pages of crazy charts and graphs to prove that fiction.
That was the same year I noticed that the Chicago Board of Education was renting office space on the 19th floor of 125 S. Clark St. to “John Galt Solutions.” But the big joke came when you’d visit these reformers and notice, if they had bookshelves, that every one of them had a prized copy of “Atlast Shrugged” somewhere on the shelf. Often, they had nothing about the history of education — even pre- “Death and Life…” Diane Ravitch would have been too much for guys like Arne.
At that time, Peter Cunningham would make sure that Arne never had go answer any hard specific questions at press conferences. (At least they were holding them in those days; since Rahm took over Chicago they stopped putting their executives in front of the press except when they control the event COMPLETELY). Any time Arne was asked a question he couldn’t dodge he would give his smiling “F____ you” answer: “I’ll get back to you on that.” By the end of Arne, I used to come back quickly with something like “I’m still waiting for the first answer you promised four or five years ago…”
Then came that fateful year, 2008.
Arne posed with Barack Obama at the “Dodge Renaissance Academy” (the first “turnaround” school, from that 2002 purge) with the President of the United States who was announcing that Arne was going to be U.S. Secretary of Education. The story was on page one of The New York Times, by a reporter who spent the next three years being Arne’s Boswell. Every iteration of Arne’s lies was reported as “news” in America’s newspaper of record.
By June 2009, Arne told the world, at an event in Chicago, that he was going to save the children of the USA by closing the worst 5,000 public schools. That gem was part of the speech he gave to the “Advance Illinois” breakfast at the Regency Hyatt in Chicago. Arne was inside (with some of those silent supporters munching on their meals) while outside dozens of real teachers were protesting. The Hyatt (i.e., Pritzker) security people threatened to arrest the teachers who tried to get inside to be at the “educator’s breakfast” where Arne was trashing the nation’s public schools, not just Chicago’s anymore.
It was at that breakfast that Arne announced that the Chicago Plan (and the Chicago Boys) would launch that Atlas Shrugged attack on reality — and democracy and public education — against the entire nation. I covered that as a reporter, and had some great pictures of some of the people who were politely applauding Arne, including the (then) President of the Chicago Teachers Union, Marilyn Stewart.
The following year, when Arne went after Central Falls High School in Rhode Island (of course, by proxy: the local CEO type did it) some of those who had tried the Munich route finally started to talk back to Arne. But very very very softly, because, as is part of the record, Randi and the rest didn’t want to risk their “seat at the table.” That year, at the NEA national convention, it was All Arne All The Time from the national unions.
And so the Arne addiction, like most, couldn’t have been sustained were it not for all the enablers — most notably the executives of the corporate media and the executives of the AFT and NEA.
Well, by the year after Arne was excluding those protesting teachers from the Hyatt while his myrmidons cheered mindlessly, those protesting teachers were the leaders of the Chicago Teachers Union and millions of us were also reading, cheering and studying “The Death and Life of the Great American School System.” Now, a few years later, we have “Reign of Error…” as a handbook for the quick training of cadre. (Back then, we needed a dozen books and regular updating at substancenews.net to follow all the skeins of the Arne List of Lies…).
If there were ever a Truth Commission to come out of this era of tyranny, the corporate media hacks and the Billionaire Boys Club would not be the only ones to face the trials. The executives of the AFT and NEA and all those who pined for a “seat at the table” (and the scraps and scorn that came with it) need to be remembered. Race to the Top was worse than No Child Left Behind from the beginning, but there were many who were so addled by the fact that George W. Bush was not longer in command that for a couple of years they deftly avoided the reality of the Obama version of corporate school reform.
When large crimes have been committed, justice has to sweep in. Those crimes were not only letting Godlman Sachs and the rest of their ilk get away with crashing the economy over all those years. The national “education reform” policy is a close third in the list of the crimes of the U.S. plutocracy (the wars have to be higher than corporate “school reform”, too). I hope we’re not not big for “Truth and Reconciliation” when these criminals are no longer in power.
“Truth and Reconciliation” lets the criminals off a lot of hooks they should be hanging from. Many people are more forgiving and less bending their arc towards justice; I prefer Nuremberg to nice. But, then, the obliteration of history from the official version of reality our kids have been getting probably means that a lot of the facts the unfolded, month after month and year after year during the rise of Arne and the Chicago Boys (and the Chicago plan — Race To The Top) will be whited out.
After all, those guys gave us all that audacious hope. I was in Chicago while it was unfolding…
George,
Thank you. “We” need voices and memories like yours to guide those who who will follow “our” folly.
Excellent background info on Arne for those of us who didn’t know. Thank you!
Thanks, George,
Nuremberg…Great response.
George Schmidt: Thank you so much for this; it has taken a while for people to see the pattern that you have explained so well. When the RI school was on the news i didn’t pay much attention thinking it was an isolated incident. Now that we see what is happening in NC and Louisiana we can piece things together; thank you for your contributions to this blog and thanks to Diane for brining the parts together so we can see what is happening across the different states.
quote: “when Arne went after Central Falls High School in Rhode Island (of course, by proxy: the local CEO type did it) some of those who had tried the Munich route finally started to talk back to Arne.”
we need a lot more of this talking back to Arne.
I like it: Put Arne on trial; put Vallas on trial; put Randi Weingarten on trial; put the other union head on trial–put Barack Obama on trial.
They are murdering our public school, as George Schmidt has vividly revealed.
That “John Galt” business is really nauseating. I remember reading Atlas Shrugged at age 17, being briefly dazzled by it, subscribing to the Ayn Rand newsletter, and then moving on.
Duncan and Obama have done nothing for education. They have made education in America the latest gold rush. Children are seen as potential items of profit. Teachers (workers) have been treated like garbage -(especially charters -underpaid, mistreated, denigrated, lack of benefits, barely any teaching materials, etc. That’s ok, Obama and Duncan have helped CEOs make more money than ever. I can’t stand it when I see these two on tv. Minority children have less than they’ve ever had because the CEO is making money off of them and providing less. Shameful. You are right. Put them on trial for “crimes against education”.
Philly is trying
I may not know the secret to fixing every school, but I know what doesn’t work: Arne Duncan.
Also:
Closing the schools
Firing all the teachers
Busing all the kids hours away to new schools
Putting 50+ kids in.a class
Virtual schools
Common core
Stripping funding from them
Handing then over to profit centric people
TFA
Handing everyone an ipad instead of a good teacher
Continued testing
Vouchers
Forcing all disabled kids to take ACT
Charters with fascist mandatory marches
Narrowing curriculum to exclude arts, history, science
USED
resegregation
Schools that teach creationism
Schools that treat kids like products instead of people
Mass school closings
Etc
(Basically anything Arne Duncan does)
By opposing Arne Duncan, if we do nothing else, we are improving schools by delaying him from destroying them.
crazycrawfish.. you sound like coherentcrawfish to me. I would add a few others to your list. Here is one:
Framework For Teaching..
where every teacher is expected to achieve excellence in the same STANDARDIZED MANNER
The question is will Arne be like Alexander and hope to move to Australia.
Even on this blog we still hear from defenders of the education status quo, so for our benefit and hopefully for theirs, I include the following two links of the Mighty Meanderings of the Secretary of Education:
Link: http://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/choosing-right-battles-remarks-and-conversation
Link: http://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/beyond-beltway-bubble
The first is his “heartbreak” speech re the bad consequences of high-stakes standardized testing to the American Education Research Association of April 30, 2013. The second is his “armchair pundits” speech of September 30, 2013.
This is more than a collection of Arne Duncan’s prowess at giving “I’ve learned to take every view” presentations. For example, if just viewed by words alone, he is for, against, and somewhat for/somewhat against high-stakes standardized testing. In light of his actions, however, I refer readers to George Schmidt’s comments above.
Just like the elusive g factor of intelligence [where exactly is it in the brain? hmmm….] inquiring minds want to know just where the bubbles are and who’s living in them.
**All Amazon rankings accessed approximately between 8 AM and 8:25 AM, 10-5-13.**
So let’s start with Diane Ravitch’s REIGN OF ERROR (2013, hardcover) and see if she has found any resonance with the American public since the official release of her latest book on September 17, 2013:
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #54 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
#1 in Books > Education & Reference > Schools & Teaching > Education Theory > Reform & Policy
#1 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > Public Affairs & Policy
#1 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Children’s Studies
Now let’s look at “America’s Most Trusted Educator,” Dr. Steve Perry, Push Has Come to Shove: Getting Our Kids the Education They Deserve–Even if it Means Picking a Fight (hardcover, September 13, 2011):
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #339,992 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Now on to the person who, above all others, puts $tudent$Fir$t, Michelle Rhee, RADICAL (hardcover, February 2013):
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #61,671 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
#40 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Professionals & Academics > Educators
#93 in Books > Education & Reference > Schools & Teaching > Education Theory > Philosophy & Social Aspects
And just to show that I don’t play favorites when it comes to Secretary Duncan’s ideological inspirations, I include the well-known politician=education expert, Ron Paul, The School Revolution: A New Answer for Our Broken Education System (hardcover, September 17, 2013):
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #950 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
#1 in Books > Education & Reference > Schools & Teaching > Education Theory > Administration
#5 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > Ideologies & Doctrines > Conservatism & Liberalism
#6 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > Specific Topics > Commentary & Opinion
So Diane Ravitch goes on a book tour that would be the envy of almost any non-fiction writer, wide-open to the public, well-attended and publicized—proof positive she is living/writing/pontificating in a bubble! I see, I see….
Michelle Rhee, Dr. Steve Perry, and George Parker set up scripted ‘Teacher Town Halls’ with mighty masses[???] of the faithful flocking in, free to question and debate the panelists and themselves [???], in the best traditions of American democracy—proof positive that they are out in the Rheeal World having consequential discussions!
Ok. Who living on Planet Reality? And who’s living on RheeWorld?
Really. Not Rheeally…
🙂
This is powerful; thank you Diane for the synthesis …. I just have one thought that comes from the women’s movement of the 60s (civil rights movement, anti-war etc)… The metaphor of backlash that Wendy Lecker uses may not be the best way to express what is happening. For an example, see Susan Boyd: Reaction and Resistance: Feminism, Law and Social Change. I think the concepts in that book offer insight for progressive movements, for immigration , equality and the current day issues; simiar to women’s efforts to advance in society (Jan Newson) and the long struggle for equality and patriarchal resistance. I wouldn’t apply the metaphor of backlash to what we experienced in the women’s movement and I wouldn’t use the term here because I see the progressive side ….. I don’t want to disempower those of us who are struggling by reducing it to backlash. I may be getting “overly picky” here but I’ve tossed that term out of my vocabulary. Who is the “stuatus quo” , who is the reactionary, who is the backlash and who is the progressive…. we need to discern and express in precise language whenever possible. Thanks for the patience you have to read these words……
URGENT:
PLEASE send this to every public school parent you know.
The way FERPA was amended by Arne, without congressional approval, parent permission is NOT required.
Excerpt:
InBloom seems designed to nudge schools toward maximal data collection. School administrators can choose to fill in more than 400 data fields. Many are facts that schools already collect and share with various software or service companies: grades, attendance records, academic subjects, course levels, disabilities. Administrators can also upload certain details that students or parents may be comfortable sharing with teachers, but not with unknown technology vendors. InBloom’s data elements, for instance, include family relationships (“foster parent” or “father’s significant other”) and reasons for enrollment changes (“withdrawn due to illness” or “leaving school as a victim of a serious violent incident”).
Ms. Barnes, the privacy lawyer, said she was particularly troubled by the disciplinary details that could be uploaded to inBloom because its system included subjective designations like “perpetrator,” “victim” and “principal watch list.” Students, she said, may grow out of some behaviors or not want them shared with third parties. She also warned educators to be wary of using subjective data points to stratify or channel children.
One scene in the inBloom video, for instance, shows a geometry teacher virtually reassigning students’ seating assignments based on their “character strengths” — helpfully coded as green, yellow and red. On his tablet, the teacher moves a green-coded female student (“actively participates: 98 percent”) next to a red-and-yellow coded boy (“shows enthusiasm: 67 percent”).
Executives at inBloom say their service has been unfairly maligned. It is entirely up to school districts or states to decide which details about students to store in the system and with whom to share them, Sharren Bates, inBloom’s chief product officer, said. She said the company does not look at, use, analyze, mine or sell the student data it stores.
inBloom is an Orwellian nightmare. No responsible parent would send his or her child to a school that uses such an obscene instrument. It instantiates precisely the values that we are supposed to abhor in “the land of the free.”
“Heckuva’ Job Arne”
Save the Children:
DUMPDUNCAN
T-shirts for sale – at cost. Let me know
OPT-OUT
AMERICA!
I welcome all slogans
BILL GATES IS NOT MY CHILD’S TEACHER! or for teachers,
BILL GATES IS NOT MY BOSS!
K12 Charter
quote from Daily Kos: “Hedge fund manager Whitney Tilson recently announced he was shorting K12 Inc. stock, effectively betting that the company would fail. His 125-page slide show explaining his reasoning is a compelling indictment of the model. He points out that Milken’s Knowledge Universe group recently distributed its shares in K12 Inc. to investors, a predicate to cashing out.”
I found this post on Marshall Tuck’s facebook website. Doing some research I found that he is running for the CA State Superintendent of Public Education, but his educational background is as a CEO with a CHARTER public school in LA (Green Dot).
He says on his web site: “That’s why, 11 years ago, I left my job as a tech executive in order to devote my career to helping more students succeed. At Green Dot Public Schools and then at the Partnership for LA Schools, we worked to open new {charter} schools and turn around failing schools in some of LA’s toughest neighborhoods.”
I would think that we should begin a campaign against his becoming our next public school superintendent. I wonder what LA Unified thinks of Marshall Tuck and his credentials?
He also seems to be a fan of Arne Duncan and Kamala H Harris.