Chicago’s superintendent of schools Barbara Byrd-Bennett wanted to delay PARCC testing. She knew the students and teachers were not ready. She proposed testing only 10% of students. The state of Illinois said it would lose $1.1 billion in federal funding if Chicago failed to participate.
Last week, Secretary Duncan was in Chicago. When asked why he threatened to cut off federal funding, he denied it.
When he arrived at a school, his driver took a wrong turn, and Duncan got out of the car and was swarmed by angry parents protesting the testing.
“Once safely inside the school, Duncan was asked about the protest outside.
“Why is his U.S. Department of Education forcing a controversial standardized test — one many parents don’t want and that Mayor Rahm Emanuel has argued is “not ready” for prime time — down the throats Chicago Public Schools?
“I’m not,” Duncan said. “The state works it out without Chicago. . . . That’s the state’s decision.”
“But isn’t the mandate being dictated by the federal government? Isn’t that what’s behind the threat to withhold $1 billion in funding that forced Chicago’s hand?
“No. You’re wrong. . . . You’re making stuff up. You don’t have your facts straight,” Duncan said.
“The secretary was asked about the parental animosity stemming from the PARCC test and the resulting protest that forced him to go through the gantlet of protesters to get into Ariel Community Academy, 1119 E. 46th Street.
““I welcome the conversation. It’s good. . . . It’s a healthy conversation to have,” he said.
“But he said, “It’s important to assess kids annually. . . . Millions of kids around the country are taking the test. We’re fine.”
“With that, a press aide to Duncan stepped in and ended the interview.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Whoooo, whooo! Way to go parents!
Duncan should be swarmed everywhere he goes, until he finally “gets it”.
We should have him counting the days until he’s done with this post. As far as I’m concerned, the sooner, the better.
He already gets IT! He is hoping that he won’t have to face IT. Yes he should be swarmed. He won’t let the swarm catch him off guard again.
You’re KIDDING?! This reads like a scene out of Lawrence Kasdan’s Grand Canyon http://imdb.to/1EnWQXO or Paul Haggis’s Crash http://imdb.to/1ABUrrb.
This is great. proTEST the TEST!
But he said, “It’s important to assess kids annually. . . . Millions of kids around the country are taking the test. We’re fine.”
I just think it’s weird. Tens of millions of US public school kids are taking this experimental test, pushed and promoted by the US Department of Education, and Duncan feels he has to conduct this silly charade that it’s “local”.
There’s no mention of the Common Core testing on the USDOE website, although this is a HUGE national program. It’s like an alternate reality. If we all keep up the pretense that this wasn’t pushed by tens of national ed reform orgs and from DC, that will become “true”.
The Common Core testing sites are posting national totals for tests completed, yet no one may ask the US Department of Education about it without this ridiculous legalistic parsing for “accuracy” on state v federal. We get it. He ran the federal initiative thru the states. Now can he answer the question on testing?
He has been threading that legal needle about the “no-federal” involvement in CCSS since 2009, but ignores the fact that USDE paid for these tests and for a bit of curriculum never published so the tests could be constructed. That bit of curriculum was in clear violation of federal law, and the testing has been equally illegal in that federal grants were awarded to the two testing groups. Duncan lies with fast talk, scripted lines in short bursts– like in the old-fashioned dolls that spoke when you pulled a string.
What is the “bit of curriculum” that the DOE paid for but was never published?
But didn’t you hear? “We’re fine”! Isn’t that a perfectly good defense to the piles and piles of mounting evidence from experts and others that the experimental test is harmful?
Hey Arne, shouldn’t we listen to the hoards of teachers, parents, administrators, and even politicians who oppose this test?
“Nah, we’re fine.”
The fact that he doesn’t have a coherent reason for these parents why he’s doing this to their kids is pitiful. Better than “making stuff up” I guess.
PS- the “fact” that “we have to assess our students annually” doesn’t seem a good enough reason to me to administer a useless test. Not having an alternative route doesn’t seem to be a good enough reason to put our kids in a train headed off a cliff (sorry Diane, I took that one from Reign of Error).
Where is that one child, parent, educator that will say, “The Emperor has no clothes?”
Thank you, Diane, for being that person. More and more are joining your ranks. Keep up the fight against The Big Lie.
“No. You’re wrong. . . . You’re making stuff up. You don’t have your facts straight,” Duncan said.
My first thought upon reading this was that Arne Duncan must have been looking directly into a mirror when he said it.
But then I realized that would have been an absolutely true statement, something that Duncan hasn’t been well-known for throughout his tenure at the Education Department.
Finally, I was left with the thought of how Duncan’s behavior was so embarrassingly shameful and low-class and how very sad it was that THIS was the man that President Obama chose as his Education Secretary, and how this awful appointment was such a waste of great promise and potential during what was such a hopeful time in our nation’s history.
Shame on you, Arne Duncan, and on you for appointing him, Barack Obama.
“Mirror Mirror, on the wall Who’s the truthiest of them all?
Said liar to the mirror
Your “facts”, they aren’t right
Your “truth” is just in error
For left is really right
DFER was instrumental in getting Dun-can’t appointed. They engineered a bait and switch to prevent any possibility that Linda Darling-Hammond would be appointed. I believe I saw an article that stated that Rahm E. played a part in this, as in go between, but I can’t find the link. I’m sure about DFER though. Obama was played without even knowing it, or perhaps he did know and decided to throw down with the corporate suit faction of the dimocrats.
The etiology of Arne’s DoEd clown show:
http://www.epi.org/publication/grading_the_education_reformers/
“The reformers’ arrogance is best on display when Brill gloats about the charade of appointing anti-reformer Linda Darling-Hammond to lead Obama’s official post-election education planning, while DFER, with funds from Eli Broad, wrote a secret memo for the “informal yet real education transition team.” Jon Schnur organized the effort and strove to calm his nervous fellow-reformers, assuring them that the Darling-Hammond appointment was only a sop to a faction that would have no real influence, while DFER’s secret memo set forth the Administration’s actual policy – including the naming of key Gates Foundation and Teach for America operatives for crucial administration policy posts, and calling for use of student test scores to evaluate teachers.”
Arne took a wrong turn and ended up on a dead end street.
I wonder if there is some significance to that.
“Dead Ends”
Arne took an errant turn
Down a dead-end street
Errant Arne just can’t learn
That dead-end is defeat
Arne’s driver took a wrong turn. I think that says even more. Who is Arne’s driver?
Good point, Dienne!
Thanx for the correction
“Dead Ends” (take 2)
“Arne’s driver took a turn”
Down a dead-end street
Arne’s driver just can’t learn
That dead-end is defeat
& ju$t how much $$$ are we paying for Arne’$ “driver?” (It also looked like a big guy w/him–a bodyguard, perhap$?)
If I am not mistaken, Arne’s Pearsonal chauffeur costs the US taxpayers hundreds of millions (so far)
And if he has a Pearsonal bodyguard too, that’s undoubtedly extra.
Maybe s/he’s a local? 😜
LOL
Maybe the local driver is a parent.
Um, Dunkenstein? Or Duncanister?
Arne has more than one driver: a car driver and a policy driver (aka boss)
Yes, but who is Duncan’s boss: Bill Gates, Obama, the Walton family, Eli Broad, those hedge fund billionaires? Or all of them.
If Duncan serves his master/s well, imagine the seven or eight $ figure job, he’ll walk into out of the DOE—-Arne’s reward. Or maybe a seven figure book deal for a book that sells less than 5,000 copies.
We will probably never know who Duncan’s policy driver is/was — though seeing his emails might help clarify.
Then again, perhaps he kept a private email account like Hillary — you know, so he only needed one Blackberry.
ha ha ha ha.
Arne has the problem of serving 2 masters multiplied so many times it begins to resemble a common core math problem in its difficulty.
M
Good observation.
Whoever designed CC math was obsessed with “arrays” and Arne has an array of drivers/masters.
“Arne’s Array of Masters”
Arne’s array of masters
Are driving in a loop
A circle of disasters
That’s leaving only poop
This is the USDOE twitter. Try to find a mention of the huge testing experiment being conducted right now on millions of kids in state after state.
I can’t figure out who this charade is for. It isn’t parents- they weren’t consulted prior to the Common Core creation and adoption or the near-national testing. Is it to protect GOP lawmakers who have to insist Duncan had nothing to do with it, or their base will punish them? It’s like a strange, insular political campaign conducted exclusively among ed reform insiders.
https://twitter.com/usedgov
DoEd’s twitter could be manufactured happy talk for the media. Reporters get their story leads from twitter so it would make sense that Arne would want to hide the percolating groundswell of dissent to PARCC and testing.
Can some astute artist please do a characterization print of Bozo the Clown?
And right after that he came to the NSTA conference in Chicago and told us how much he loves science teachers…..
“I welcome the conversation. It’s good…it’s a healthy conversation to have.” REALLY?
With whom, exactly, does he have such “healthy” conversations? Someone referred to Arne talking in a mirror.
Actually, we should mic him up & see what kind of “conversation” he has w/himself when he’s in the bathroom…ala Robert Durst.
It’s called DENY everything—repeatedly—as briefly as possible, don’t go into detail because if you do you’ll be revealed as a fraud, and then either change the subject and/or leave.
True that, Lloyd–& he’s taken denial to a new (& lower!) level, that of talking nonsense, as well as simply ignoring everyone who really cares about the 99% of American students.
I feel like we are trapped in an episode of Beavis and Butthead.
Anybody get what I mean? Anybody watch that show? It came around about the same time Walmart took off. Both scared me. The show and the stores.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=viXPPkoOQy0
This reminds me of the old Family Circus cartoons. Dad would ask “who did ….?” The answer was always a ghostly little gremlin known as “Not Me.” Could that be what Arne is referring to?
“Ida No”
What’s he taking? OY!
“Even as states begin administering new tests aligned with the Common Core State Standards, they are ramping up efforts to eliminate or minimize public backlash when the scores—widely expected to be markedly lower than results from previous assessments—are released later this year.
From old-fashioned fliers designed to reach parents via students’ backpacks to webinars intended for administrators and teachers, states including Illinois and New Jersey are using a diverse set of resources and partnering with various groups to prepare school communities and the general public for what’s coming. ”
Duncan and the team will be getting ready to wind down and head off to their private sector jobs in ed reform when this hits. I wonder what the backlash will mean for public schools and community support of public schools?
It becomes a lot easier to attack them and promote still more privatization when critics can claim 70% failure rates. I hope they have a plan to counter the ed reform “failing schools!” marketing machine.
There is no plan Chiara. Teachers are running for the exits.
The backlash in NYS, Chiara, is due to that 70% failure rate. You “might” be able to fool the parents of those inner city kids that their children are failures, but not those suburban moms. Now everyone is starting to wise up.
Ellen #there-ain’t-no-wool-over-my-eyes
So what if my child shows up for the test and doesn’t take it? What if a million children do that? Then what? I wish I could think of a catchy phrase or #hashtag for this. Any ideas? Anyone?
Mark Collins,
#refusethetest
#notwithmychildyouwont
Diane Ravitch,
Thanks for the suggestions.
How about #BillionsForWhat?