A few days ago, Secretary Arne Duncan tweeted this question:
“What if every district committed both to identifying what made their 5 best schools successful & providing those opps to all their students?
2:44 PM – 30 Dec 2014”
Within minutes, someone created a hashtag #whatif, and parents and teachers began flooding Twitter with their own “what if” questions. Valerie Strauss reprinted some of them here.
Here is one:
“Jeanne Berrong @kayringe
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@arneduncan #WhatIf the DOE committed both to identifying what made their 5 worst reform initiatives failures & removing them from schools?
5:52 PM – 30 Dec 2014”
Here is another:
“Karen Lewis @KarenLewisCTU
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#whatif @arneduncan, children got their lives back, their joy of discovery and a safe place to learn to think critically? Play is real.
10:48 PM – 30 Dec 2014”
And another:
“Chris Cerrone @Stoptesting15
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#WhatIf Every family & student boycotted @arneduncan ‘s high-stakes testing & we moved to a well-rounded education w/ authentic assessment.
9:41 PM – 30 Dec 2014”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I highly doubt if Arne will do another “whatif” lol. Started reading your book Diane, great!
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I don’t tweet but, if I did, here’s the first one that would come to mind: “#whatif you @arneduncan asked this question BEFORE you spent massive amounts of $$$ on CCSS and shoved it down every public school child’s throat?” The second one would be something like, “#whatif corporate reformers ensured that every child in the U.S. had the same education experience that Bill Gates et al. and his kids had?”
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I’ll be happy to tweet those for you 😀
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Hannah (my daughter’s name!), please do! Thank you.
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What if successful educators were determining educational policy?
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What if Duncan actually listened to teachers and took their advice?
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“Twitfalls”
Twitter can be risky
If bitter is the crowd
Like shots of sour whiskey
When “no” is not allowed
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I do not tweet, but here is one to think about, especially if you have read her most recent books. What if Diane Ravitch was Secretary of Education?
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#Whatif Arne Duncan had actual experience in the education field?
What a jerk.
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What if our politicians and legislators were not narcissistic and incapable of even pretending to not disrespect public servants and other “commoners”.
What If Obamas and Arne’s salaries were determined by my students standardized test scores? Because their policies affect their learning more than I do at this point.
I am sorry: maybe I am having a dark night of the soul but I feel so trapped in America right now. I want to leave this country and be somewhere where I have a voice. We had so much promise.
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TOTT, Read Mario Cuomo’s 1984 keynote speech, as many of us have today, or watch the video. It’ll help you think of the strengths we have as Americans. Maybe conveying to your students the promise will fuel your purpose as you return to school for 2015.
Linking President’s or Secy Ed’s salary to your students’ test scores is a cool idea.
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I agree Booklady, but then think about it: how far from his father, is the current Cuomo and how destructive has he been to education in NY? The current Cuomo is a joke: how did the honorable father end up giving us him…he is destroying his father’s legacy:(
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Listening to Mario shows you how far apart Andrew is from his own heritage.
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What if anti-reformers took a question seriously rather than playing the perpetual smart***?
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You just acted like a smart a***, seriously. And yet, I wasn’t being a smartA**. I seriously would like to know what would happen if our leaders were less narcissistic, and I seriously would like to know what would happen if Duncan and Obamas salaries were affected by my students test scores. I think that most if the posters honestly would be interested in the outcome of their “what ifs”.
What do you think would happen if the above came to pass? What if people were able to find out?
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What if edupologists and anonymous troll learned how to read the question properly rather than throwing groundless, unscientific, fallacious attribution?
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Good one KW;)
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Ken Watanabe: let’s not forget the old Chinese adage—
“Be careful what you wish for; you just might get it.”
Then those of us interested in a “better education for all” would be without our daily dose.
¿Of what? ¿For what? You know, the daily regimen Dr.* Charlie Chaplin prescribed:
“A day without laughter is a day wasted.”
And we wouldn’t want to waste any days, now would we?
😎
P.S. Re the asterisk: if Steve Perry and Ted Morris Jr. and Terence Carter and John Deasy can put “Dr.” before their names with 0-9 credits, then the Little Tramp more than deserves his honorific too.
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Dr. Charlie Chaplin! Thank you Dr. Krazy TA
Warm Regards,
Dr. Titleonetexasteacher
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Hey, Dr. Seuss is the only non doctor that can get away with calling himself it and he used it for hyperbole and jest !
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Dr. Who? Dr. Demento?
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5 top schools have highest family incomes. 5 lowest have greater poverty and crime.
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What if they just let me teach kids this year all the hours that I have to either test kids or go to meetings?
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Umm….ya’ see, Arne…it goes like this. In my district, the top 5 best high schools are either (1) schools that ONLY accept students with a level 3 or higher on the standardized test scores ( no level 1’s or 2’s are accepted, on a scale from 1 to 5 ) or (2) schools in very wealthy areas. Why is that? Because, Arne, you only define “best schools” as schools with the “best test scores”. So, yeah, exclude any low scoring kids to begin with, and you WILL have higher test scores than schools who accept everyone. And, yeah, test scores are perfectly correlated with socioeconomic status. So, Arne, if you want us to replicate what is going on in the top 5 high schools in our district, then (1) allow us ALL to exclude the level 1’s and 2’s and only accept level 3-5 test scores and (2) magically increase the household income to match those in the highest scoring schools in our district. THERE YA’ GO! DUH!
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Something tells me a ^0^ was behind this…
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Gonna have to explain that one to me!!
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a BAT…
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but behind what? ( I hit send before I finished)
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“What if every district committed both to identifying what made their 5 best schools successful & providing those opps to all their students?”
What if “those opps” that “made their 5 best schools successful” included all of the myriad opps that are directly related to parental income and involvement, especially stable, safe, healthy, nurturing, and enriching family life. What if?
What if “those opps” have absolutely nothing to do with test-and-punish reform?
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I’m sure those replies surprised him! I wonder if he reads them at all and sees that at least some of these concerns are something he has the power to fix if he wanted to.
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He probably read far enough to see the pattern and then promptly fired the person whose brilliant idea it was (or whoever he could pin the blame on if it was in fact his idea).
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