Peter Greene proves himself a man of infinite patience. In this post, he analyzes and deconstructs a speech that Arne Duncan gave to the annual meeting of the PTA.
He writes:
“Arne opens up his speech as pretty much anybody would (Glad to be here! Your organization is great! Let’s here it for your leaders!) and then moves on to tales of his children’s schooling. Their experience was not the typical 25-30 desks in a row. His son got to work ahead in math because, technology. His daughter got to attend a constitutional convention and Civil War day.
[Duncan says]: “But it’s those kinds of opportunities that I think are so special. And why are those experiences so important? Because I think all of us – all of us as parents – want our children to be inspired, to be challenged, to be active participants in their own learning.
“This is not the last time that Arne will say something that is true, but also completely disconnected from the kind of schooling promoted by his department’s policies. I’m pretty sure we can make it a drinking game; every time Arne says something that would make a great basis for educational policy, but US DOE actually does the opposite–drink! Do I need to point out that Arne’s kids attend a school that remains untouched by the policies that are being inflicted on the rest of us?”
See if you can actually wade through this speech.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Another stern, finger-wagging lecture to the “middle class” on how they’re responsible for all the problems in the economy.
Stagnant (and falling) wages have nothing to do with the private sector, tax policy, lobbyists, capture of politicians and regulators, anti-labor court decisions or defunding public education and infrastructure in the race to the bottom that has been embraced by both political parties.
It’s all the fault of public schools and our lazy, coddled middle class and their low expectations. That’s convenient for lawmakers and CEO’s. No wonder they’ve grabbed onto it with both hands and all repeat it like deranged parrots.
Diane, are we allowed to drink and blog?
Got my champagne almost ready…Prost!
I read Arne’s speech a couple of days ago and did not have a drink ready, but needed one. These so-called stump speeches, more like stump-the-chump speeches are very telling. In his limited little mind, he probably thinks that his children’s education is appropriate because they ‘do everything right’ and deserve such priviledge, whereas, children who picked a life of poverty at birth, must endure the ArneApproach to finally come up to snuff. Along the way, the teachers must pay if that student does not succeed with scholarship in hand.
What a crock!
Arne has a degree in Sociology where one would assume he learned something about people. Most likely the Harvard version, that we are becoming familiar with. CorpEdReform appears to have Harvard written all over it. Too bad!
Let me get back to Arne’s speech and read it this time with glass in hand. Not even too early at 8:30 Sunday Morning.
Prosit!
Seems to be an aspect of a new-ish political paradigm. Awfully cynical, really. Pronounce from your bully pulpit what people want to hear, what they think they should hear. Then pursue a narrow path, contrary to everything you’ve espoused, which panders to some special interest which will profit from your actions, words be damned. Promise them cupcakes, serve up the strychnine….
I’d also like to register my usual complaint about the relentless promotion of ed tech by the US Department of Education. They are shoving online learning down out throats, and given their affection (and close connections) to private sector education companies and their antipathy towards public schools, I resent this sales job they’re conducting on my dime.
You know, if online learning and “individualized instruction” is a real “market” the products will be adopted by public schools if they have value. This relentless sales job by public employees is unseemly and shouldn’t be necessary.
I have complete faith in the ability of tech companies to sell product to kids. They’re pretty good at it. They really don’t need the US Department of Education acting as a national sales force.
For such free-wheeling free marketeers, they don’t have much faith in the ability of markets to sort good ideas from bad, do they? They actually use the brand names on the site. IPad rather than “tablet”. Are they endorsing that tablet? Is this their proper role?
But Gates insists he had no thought of profiting from CC. how could you even think such a thing? It never crossed his mind. Sigh. What about adding a Gates drinking game.
“What about adding a Gates drinking game.”
Well, we’d all be hammered all the time. Especially if we were drinking all those different microbrews that one can find in Seattle.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Birds’-eye view from a long line of waspy northeastern conservatives: they’ve been repeating the free market crap since robber baron days– they’re also very big on hanging onto patents forever et al monopoly-creating policies. Not much logic then or now.
I was at that PTA convention in Texas and I bit my tongue through his entire speech. I wanted to throw up. I have lost faith in the PTA. While I love what PTA does at a local level for our schools, I am sickened by what I see at the state and National PTA levels. Our voices as members have been sold out to corporate interests, and the top leadership is out of touch with parents today. Most of the top leaders dont even have children in public schools anymore so they think we are overreacting about the excessive testing and problems with common core. The leaders enjoy the power and prestige of their office and won’t listen to parents and teachers.
Even more alarming, the general meetings at the national PTA convention were sponsored by Discover Card, Microsoft, and Pearson. During the general meetings, attendees were forced to sit through 15 minute commercials about their corporations and hear about their “partnerships” with PTA. The week before the convention, delegates received emails from PTA with advertisements for Pearson, telling us to be sure to stop by Pearson’s booth in the exhibit hall. How much did PTA get to spam our inboxes with marketing? We paid a lot of money to attend that convention, I don’t appreciate my email address being sold like that, especially to Pearson.
PTA mom,
National PTA gets Gates funding.
I know about the $3+ million grants from the Gates Foundation. The sad thing is that PTA wasn’t always this way. PTA used to be against corporate influence on children. Membership is declining so they are making up for it with corporate money.
Even worse than Arne’s canned speech and the corporate sponsors, the voting and parliamentary procedure at the meetings were incredibly suspicious. The electronic voting devices weren’t working correctly at one point, so we had to raise our yellow delegate cards on a vote to change the National PTA Bylaws. It required a 2/3 majority, but from where I was in the back of the room, it was clearly 50%/50% and too close to tell. The National President declared it passing! People questioned if he could really see from the brightly lit stage under the spotlights, but he dismissed the arguments saying he could see everyone’s hands better than them. He denied the requests for a revote and ballot vote.
Even worse than that fishy vote was the election for a very important position, VP of Advocacy (responsible for Legislative Priorities).
There were 3 candidates running for that office:
– the incumbent
– a qualified person from Texas (Note: The convention was in Austin, Texas so there were a ton of Texas voting delegates there. She should have had a home-court advantage)
– a mom from the European PTA Congress (military family based in Germany)
After casting votes on those electronic devices, somehow the mom from the European congress won! She lives in Germany. Military schools fall under the Department of Defense, not the Federal Department of Education. Her military schools don’t have the threat of charter schools, vouchers, parent triggers, or unqualified teachers through Teach for America. How on earth did she get elected to control the legislative office of PTA? Even more depressing, I saw that mom in the hotel lobby drunk the night before the election. She was blatantly flirting and hanging all over the West Virginia PTA President. How on earth did she get elected? The more I think about it, the more I believe that the election was set-up.
I want out of PTA.
I was also at the NPTA convention. I think that PTA Mom who was talking about the vote for VP of Advocacy may have been confused. She talks about the incumbent losing. There was no incumbent. This was a new position. The lady who won was the nominated candidate. The other two ladies were running from the floor. The lady who won was elected as a member of the National PTA Board of Directors three years ago and was the current Chair of the Bylaws Committee. The delegates must have felt that she had the experience to be qualified for this position. Although she was a member of the European Congress at the time of the nomination, I am sure that she could have had the opportunity to have her children in public schools as many military children do not have DOD schools at the post that their parents are stationed at.
I think PTA Mom’s comment should be removed. It contains unfair personal attacks that are unwarranted.
I understand freedom of speech, but I do not understand freedom to slander. PTA Mom your comments are factually incorrect and quite insulting to the group. Diane Ravitch by allowing her a forum to publicize such slander your are complicit and can be held to account for the false claims in civil court along with “PTA mom”.
Yet another PTA Mom: no names were mentioned in the post about the national PTA. Who was “slandered”?
By the way, I added to the post the fact that the national PTA showed the anti-public school “Waiting for Superman” at its 2011 annual convention in Orlando. How do you explain that?
Diane, I think it cheapens your blog to allow gossipy insinuations. Even without names, there are specific details to identify who is being gossiped about. Are we talking issues here or personal behavior? When does it stop? Are we going to intimidate people from being involved in PTA with a forum that allows idle gossip? Is this a blog or yik yak?
Duncan is the CHOSEN one to offer the narrative of reform to our nation. it is not idle chatter to know who he is.
Duncan sweet-talked this nation about ‘reform’ when nothing was broken. The system needed an upgrade not a reformation; The media sold Duncan’s rhetoric without evidence to back it up,based on who he is…well, “who is he?”
“School” is Duncan’s jargon, just as ‘teaching’ is the word he uses to replace the crucial ingredient… LEARNING! We cannot let our Secretary of Education twist the language and substitute “slogans” that sell magic elixirs… CHARTER SCHOOLS disguised as CHOICE. Orwell’s double-speak!
INSTITUTION! Not schools! Word choice makes all the difference! An institution is at the root of a society!
Duncan was the purveyor of THEIR Narrative. He had at his disposal, the greatest propaganda machine in history, the tv networks and the media of the country, AND he delivered a narrative about bad teachers and failing schools, and tests and technology that must replace the veteran professionals. Experience counts in our profession, yet the very opposite is the objective of the man who speaks for this nation about EDUCATION!
If Duncan is the subject of sarcasm or ridicule, it is because he sang a song of testing and evaluation; and for the chorus, he sold charter schools, online education and iPads…. but does not worry about his kids, and never had the responsibility of facilitating learning in a classroom… nor does he have to take the blame when the kids fail to learn.. we do!
Make no mistake about this, there are real, insidious forces in motion, visible to anyone who is looking, and it is time we looked at this man… and it is time for him to GO!
Thanks so much for letting us know. I’m a parent and I didn’t know the PTA was captured.
I think there’s too much commercialization in public schools now.
I cannot imagine what a high-interest lender like the DISCOVER card will put in.
During the 15 minute Discover Card commercial at the PTA general meeting, we were told that Discover Card has developed a financial literacy program for students. PTA is pleased to support it. A credit card company teaching our kids about money?!? That’s the fox in the henhouse right there!
The model may be similar to the national and regional Chambers of Commerce that are the mouthpiece for multinational corporations. If local Chambers of Commerce are asked about their involvement in the national C. of C., they say they have no involvement.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx We are all PTO around my area of NJ & have been for decades. We already have enough bought-&-sold directives coming from state & fed pols, let’s not do it to ourselves.
Sadly, this is the exact same thing that has happened to the national teacher organizations such as the National Council of Teachers of English, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, the International Reading Association, and, of course, the 2 teachers union, National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers.
All have been purchased through corporate sponsorship and Gates or Gates-like grant funding.
All have leadership that gleefully attend all the parties on the Washington DC cocktail party circuit and make huge salaries and receive gifts from the lobbyists of our enemies while stifling dissent, silencing questioners and opponents, and generally ensuring their own survival at the expense of their members.
This is not going to end prettily. I know teachers and most parents are good natured, good hearted, tend to want to please those in authority, and see the best in everyone but we are going to have to acknowledge these huge problems with the organizations who claim to speak for us while offering cover and legitimacy to our enemies who are seeking to destroy us.
We may have nostalgic connections and good memories of what the PTA, the NCTE, the NCTM, the IRA, the NEA, and the AFT once were but they are no longer working in our best interests and they have created organizations that protect them from being questioned and replaced by the membership.
It’s time to reorganize and starve these beasts of member dues. I hope that teachers and parents find the will and the power to do this before public education and the profession of teaching in public schools are nothing but nostalgic memories while our “leaders” slide into lobbyist jobs or retire with gobs of money while we lose our houses, our children are prevented from going to college because we can’t afford it, and we ourselves slowly die off because we can’t afford medical care anymore.
It’s already happening in places like Michigan, NJ, and Philly. The rest of us aren’t that far behind.
I agree but, the organizations can’t be starved. as long as companies have the profits from the products consumers buy, to fund them.
ALEC implies legislator membership dues pay their freight. Information from the Center for Media and Democracy showed more than 80% of their funding was from corporations.
How can Arne’s family in their heart of hearts have any respect for him; based on their backgrounds, they positively understand the damage he’s inflicting. Dad was a psychologist, Mom ran an underprivileged after school program, wife was trained as a teacher, mother in law was a special ed teacher!!!
Cross posted at Oped news
http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/CURMUDGUCATION-Arne-Blows-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Arne-Duncan_Policy_School-140629-787.html#comment497669
with this comment:
Duncan sweet-talked this nation about ‘reform’ when nothing was broken. The system needed an upgrade not a reformation; it needed an infusion of money for smaller classes and more schools, for example — because ‘class size matters’ — as Leonie Haimison made crystal clear- and it was PROVEN! REAL EVIDENCE.
The media did it, sold Duncan’s rhetoric and opinion without evidence to back it up and gave the country the education program that Bill Gates conceived… a magic elixir. The media today is a propaganda tool predicted by Marshall McLuhan and Vance Packard, way back when tv was new.
This is the most outrageous campaigns of lies ever to be seen in America –insidious slanders about teachers and malicious ads attacking teacher unions that inundate a population that is ignorant, and growing more so as the INSTITUTION OF EDUCATION is being dismantled, as planned and executed by Bill Gates
INSTITUTION! Not schools! Word choice makes all the difference; the ‘madmen’ know that and they work for the politicians.
An institution is at the root of a society!
“School” is Duncan’s jargon, just as ‘teaching’ is the word he uses to replace the crucial ingredient” LEARNING! We cannot let our Secretary of Education twist the language and substitute “slogans” that sell magic elixirs” CHARTER SCHOOLS disguised as CHOICE. Orwell’s double-speak!
The art of subtle manipulation has been mastered by the madmen, and moved into the political arena.The legislature is packed with liars, beholden to the kings and barons who own EVERYTHING, and are making their global move AT THIS MOMENT IN HISTORY. They are selling us their version of THE INSTITUTION which is CRUCIAL to our democracy which depends on shared knowledge.
Duncan needs to go, and Gates hand in this, needs to be investigated by the attorney General, and barring that, exposed to the public eye, so they know the truth about the conspiracy to end public education.
PTA mom~
Once we grasp the concept that all children are ripe for the picking and are accessible to anyone or any group with $$$, while we left them in the ‘protected’ walls of a school, we must question every $$ being fed into education. Appears that every aspect related to our children has been bought.
I wish there was a web site where we could get an ever updated list of Good Guys (true giving) – Bad Guys (foundations, Charity, contributions).
Need an AmericanGreed list whose focus is to corrode and contaminate our children and PublicEd. This list could be quite long. May need to start with the Good Guy list first.
No idea that PTA was bought by Gates. United Gates of America!
The Center for Media and Democracy has the list, H. A. Hurley references. It is accessed through the internet search “Sourcewatch”.
Be careful what you drink if Arne Duncan fills the cup. It could be filled with arsenic. The same applies to Bill Gates. If he offers you a cup to drink from, don’t take it, because the hand that holds that cup is linked to the devil.
Well, Lloyd, you opened the door for me regarding Gates and arsenic.
Gates and wife, Melinda, donate to Planned Parenthood.
Arsenic for children who would otherwise become our students and future citizens.
From what I have read about Bill Gates and his father’s beliefs, population control is part of his goals.
Duncan says, “Their experience was not the typical 25-30 desks in a row. His son got to work ahead in math because, technology. His daughter got to attend a constitutional convention and Civil War day. ”
What did the students do the 182 days?
Let us not forget Gates’ real intention with common core.
If you have not seen Glen Beck on Billy boy you need to. Gates let’s slip his plans
What is so upsetting about this whole scenario is that Duncan demonstrates he at least knows what the goals of education should be, he just doesn’t think the majority of this country’s students deserve what his own children experience.
That is the epitome of elitism.