Julian Vasquez Heilig has helpfully assembled Arne Duncan’s ten most outrageous mis-statements. His sneering comment about “white suburban moms” was the latest, but far from the worst of what happens when Arne doesn’t stick to a script.
Archives for the month of: November, 2013
Following State Commissioner John King’s “listening tour” and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s insulting remarks about “white suburban moms,” Long Island Superintendent Joseph Rella wrote the following letter to Duncan:
“Who You Callin’ a White Suburban Mother???
The Commissioner’s “Listening Tour,” launched after open, public meetings did not produce the results he desired, was replaced by “Open-Public-Meetings – By-Invitation Only” (not only oxymoronic but just plain moronic). Far from quelling the tide of criticism against the Common Core Initiative – standards, curriculum, testing/APPR, etc. and its horrible effects on children, educators, and families, it has fanned the flames of outrage.
This was accomplished in no small part by the Commissioner’s purposeful deafness to what he was hearing from anyone selected to speak and from the audience (select or walk-ins). So now we have the “Open-Public-Meetings – By-Invitation Only – NON-LISTENING TOUR.” Not working out so well.
In an effort to rescue the rapidly sinking ship that is the NY Common Core Initiative, the Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, (as reported in the Washington Post – November 16, 2013) told an audience of state superintendents this afternoon [11/16/13] that the Education Department and other Common Core supporters didn’t fully anticipate the effect the standards would have once implemented.
“It’s fascinating to me that some of the pushback is coming from, sort of, white suburban moms who — all of a sudden — their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were and their school isn’t quite as good as they thought they were, and that’s pretty scary,” Duncan said. “You’ve bet your house and where you live and everything on, ‘My child’s going to be prepared.’ That can be a punch in the gut.”
Overcoming that will require communicating to parents that competition is now global, not local, he said.
Did he really say that? Was I in Toronto listening to Mayor Ford? White suburban moms? Really??? In 2013??? Competition is global, not local – so parent concerns about what’s happening to their children do not matter? Did he and Commissioner King go to the same Charter Charm School???
Although I found Governor Cuomo’s comment about failing schools reprehensible, I think that THAT Charm School would definitely qualify for the death penalty!
I had to write to him. It will go out tomorrow as soon as I get to district office…don’t have letterhead at home.”
No wonder the big corporations and tech companies are so enthusiastic about Common Core.
The education industry is an emerging market!
Look at this Oregon-based company’s website, and you will see the possibilities. It will be supplying cloud-based resources for New York and other states.
And what a team! Fabulous corporate experience.
Wow! No wonder these business guys look down on teachers. You do the grunt work, you know, like doing stuff with kids every day, and they take home big bucks.
EduShyster here recounts the sad tale of billionaire John Arnold, who apparently did not like my apology to him for a factual inaccuracy in an earlier post.
I made a factual error in a post on October 10. I said that he left Enron with $3 billion. That was an honest error on my part. I wrongly assumed that is where he became a billionaire. But he made his billions after he left Enron.
Imagine the scenario. I am in the hospital, concerned about blood clots and leaky heart valves, when my literary agent emails to say she just received an email from John Arnold’s lawyer, saying that I had defamed him. My literary agent is also a lawyer, and she advised me that since John Arnold is a public figure and since I did not act maliciously, he was unlikely to prevail in a court of law.
My immediate reaction was that I did not wish to engage in litigation with a billionaire, so–from my hospital bed–I wrote and posted an apology.
Arnold decided to give $100,000 to some organization dedicated to fact checking.
I have decided to give $100 to the American Civil Liberties Union to protect free speech in the United States.
Paul Tudor Jones was featured in an article in Forbes magazine.
Raised in Tennessee, he is now worth $3+ billion and has decided that his new mission in life is to save the public schools.
He has decided to start his mission in New York City.
He has so many misconceptions about public education that I hardly know where to begin.
Please, dear readers, is there one of you who will send Mr. Jones a copy of Reign of Error?
He doesn’t seem to know that New York City’s public school system has just gone through a decade of “creative disruption” at the hands of a far bigger billionaire, Michael Bloomberg, than Mr. Jones.
He doesn’t seem to know that the U.S. is the greatest nation in the world, and that our public schools are not failing.
He thinks that charter schools have demonstrated that they can close the achievement gap between the poorest kids and the richest kids.
His foundation–the Robin Hood Foundation–raised $81 million in one night, much of it for charter schools.
He doesn’t seem to know that charter schools on average do not outperform public schools unless they exclude low-performing students.
He thinks that the Common Core “was our Sputnik moment,” because it showed we don’t measure up to other developed countries. He seriously doesn’t know what he is talking about.
He doesn’t seem to know that Common Core was not our Sputnik moment, because it is only now being implemented and proves nothing except that state officials can set the passing mark wherever they want.
He doesn’t seem to know that we are #1 among the advanced nations of the world in child poverty.
He doesn’t seem to know that income inequality is at its highest point since the days of the robber barons.
Please help this man.
I am sure he means well.
The Thomas B. Fordham Institute is a conservative think tank based jointly in DC and Dayton, Ohio. I was a founding board member and served on its board for many years until 2009, when I decided I could no longer support its central focus on school choice and testing. I had tried to resign earlier, but was persuaded by personal friendships to remain as an internal dissident. One of the qualities I admired about TBF was its candor in recognizing the shortcomings of its ideas and projects. In fact, when people ask me why I abandoned the rightwing crusade for choice, I often refer back to the blunt self-criticisms of TBF’s charter schools. I opposed the idea that TBF should become a charter authorizer but was outvoted. Then, over the next few years, my own illusions about charters were dashed as many of the charters we sponsored became failures.
The latest report from TBF, written by Aaron Churchill, continues the tradition of candor.
Churchill reviews the NAEP results for Ohio and acknowledges that traditional public schools significantly outperformed charter schools.
Churchill compares the performance of students eligible for free and reduced price lunch in both sectors and concludes:
“The results from this snapshot in time are not favorable to charter schools. In all four grade-subject combinations, charter school NAEP scores fall short of the non-charter school scores. And in all cases, I would consider the margin fairly wide—more so in 4th than 8th grade. In 4th grade reading, for example, non-charter students’ average score was 211, while charter students’ average score was 191, a 20 point difference.
“The difference, however, narrows in 8th grade. Charter school scores are only 5 points lower in reading and 6 in math. The standard error bars nearly overlap in 8th grade, but not quite—if the standard error bars had overlapped, the difference in scores would not have been meaningful.
It was findings like these that convinced me that the proliferation of charter schools was no panacea; that most charter schools were no better and possibly weaker than traditional public schools; and that an increase in charters–especially in a state like Ohio, where the charter sector is politically powerful and seldom (if ever) held accountable–would harm children and weaken American education.
And one aside about this post: I object to the idea, recently popular, that NAEP “proficient” should be treated as a reasonable goal for most children, and that anything less is disappointing. New York, which is probably not alone, has aligned its Common Core testing to produce results aligned with NAEP “proficient,” so that anything less is considered failing. This is absurd. NAEP “proficient” represents superior achievement, not pass-fail. The only state in the nation that has reached the 50% mark is Massachusetts. Why set impossible and unrealistic goals? Did we learn nothing from the disaster of NCLB?
Thanks to the warning issued by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, white suburban moms have been declared a terrorist threat, according to satirist Students Last.
“Citing national security concerns, “white suburban moms” have been classified as a terrorist group.
Time to get a belly laugh from the national madness!
http://studentslast.blogspot.com/2013/11/white-suburban-moms-not-very-bright.html”
After Arne Duncan made the grievous error of speaking frankly, his remarks set off a firestorm. So he tried today to walk back his comments, reinterpret them, spin them, remove the memory of what he had said, and make everything right. But it didn’t work. People are still buzzing about his original tasteless remarks about “white suburban moms” who discover that their child is not so brilliant and their local school is not so good.
Mercedes Schneider explains why he couldn’t undo the damage.
This mom was taken aback by Arne Duncan’s put down of “white suburban moms” who are disappointed to learn that their child is not so brilliant.
This mom has actually read the Common Core standards and has serious doubts about them. She can’t understand why Duncan disrespects her ability to think and reason for herself.
On November 11, right before I fell ill, I gave two lectures in Princeton. The first was held at Princeton High School and open to the community. After dinner I lectured as part of a series at Princeton University. Two different speeches, but the message was the same. The High School speech was focused on New Jersey, the evening speech on national trends.
Within a few days, I noted that someone from a New Jersey charter school attended the High School lecture and disagreed. It happens. I forgot about it. These days my attention is devoted to getting well.
Mother Crusader (Darcie Cimarusti) was there, and she didn’t like the column one bit. In this post, she took apart the charter advocate’s claims one by one, with her usual research skills and panache. You can see the original column and Darcie’s careful dissection here.
Behind the point-counterpoint is a larger question. What happens when charters open in small towns and villages? I recently read about a push to introduce charters in Idaho? What happens in a town of 15,000 when the public school loses money and students to the charter? With less money, the public school is not likely to get better. In the larger picture, however, the real danger is that the school that was once the glue of the community is torn asunder. The public school suffers. The community suffers. The academic results are no different. One school has few or no students with serious disabilities or English learner. The other gets them all. What’s the point?
Diane Ravitch's blog 