Former Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is working for Steve Jobs’ widow in Chicago. He was invited to sit on the board of a $1 billion technology start-up. Corporate board memberships are well paid.
As usual, Peter Greene has the best explanation of what’s happening.
He is puzzled that the press release for Duncan refers to him as a “thought leader.”
“Arne Duncan– Highly Regarded Thought Leader. Holy smokes. I mean, holy frickin’ smokes. Duncan was not even a particularly apt Thought Sayer, and I can’t remember a single time that Duncan stood up to speak and folks from all across the nation fell in behind him, excited by his vision and his leaderliness. Not to be mean, but I’m not sure that Duncan ever proved to be a Thought Haver. Is there a Duncan policy that didn’t come from somewhere else? Anything? Test-and-punish, charter schools, data mining, Common Core– pretty sure that someone else did the thinking on those.
“He certainly did expand federal reach, but he did it through the artful use of blackmail (apply for a waiver or face the consequences of being in violation of NCLB). It is true that the stimulus money saved some jobs, but are we going to give Duncan credit for that? How about pissing off Congress so badly that they united in the historic stripping of power from a cabinet-level department? Or the complete bungling of Common Core? Or the demoralization and alienation of public school teachers? I don’t want to rehash the whole question of Duncan’s legacy again, but this is a spirited rewrite of history indeed.”
Earlier this year, President Obama’s friends took control of the Apollo Education Group, which owns the University of Phoenix. Duncan’s deputy secretary of education Tony Miller will run the multi-billion dollar for-profit operation.
In other news, Duncan’s former deputy Jim Shelton will advise Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan.
Nice gigs.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I know this is a crazy question, but do students prefer online courses over “live” courses?
They already use these in the private sector. Employees have to take online training and courses now- my middle son is skilled trades and he has to take these. For one company he worked for he was required to sit by himself and view videos and take tests. He hated it and so did all his co-workers. Are employees really clamoring for this, or is more of a “cheap training to cut costs” type of thing?
It just feels like yet another ed reform attempt to create a market where there was no real demand from the student side.
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Many years ago, students at the University of Toronto protested against the spread of on-line courses.
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It’s like Windows 10, “you don’t want it, we’ll install it in an underhanded way, denying you real choice.” And, then Silicon Valley’s methods are labeled, “free enterprise”.
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This is the one that killed me:
“Robert Gibbs, the former White House Press Secretary for President Obama, has a new job in the communications industry — make that fast food communications industry.
In a press release from the McDonald’s Corporation on Tuesday, the company announced that Gibbs has been appointed the next Executive Vice President, Global Chief Communications Officer for the Golden Arches.”
You start to realize why DC doesn’t do anything on wages when you see them all going to work for low wage employers: McDonalds, Uber, Amazon.
I mean, come on. They are IN THE BUSINESS of low wage work. I don’t think they’ll be raising the minimum wage anytime soon! 🙂
https://www.ijreview.com/2015/06/340749-robert-gibbs-named-executive-vice-president-of-mcdonalds-communications/
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The online in-school classes at my high school were a colossal failure. Students were given options to drop the course at any time. The one class that survived had students in class and online, as the online option only did not work.
I ask my hs students if they like taking online classes as I know they will be honest with me. Their answers are overwhelmingly NO!! They hate it for the most part, and for various reasons – mostly boredom.
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These are the companies that keep all the profit at the top. Despite billions in profit, they do not pay workers a living wage. They get corporate welfare courtesy of the taxpayers that underwrite the food stamps, housing vouchers and subsidized healthcare the underpaid employees get.
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He was a nobody before a buddy gave em a hand up. Thought leader. The only thoughts he has are how to promote himself.
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He is puzzled that the press release for Duncan refers to him as a “thought leader.”
I know that phrase, “thought leader” might not be clear. Here’s a video that explains what a thought leader does:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mN8L8XnDmj0
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Like “Best and Brightest” I cannot actually believe they use the phrase “thought leader” to refer to fellow members of the club.
I would be embarrassed. What does it even mean? Does one just say they’re one and then they are?
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I’m never going to be able to listen to another presentation without getting out my thought leader checklist. Very funny and disturbing at the same time.
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When it comes to thought, Duncan is a loss leader.
But there is a kind of honesty in it when a corporate moonlighter finally brings his agenda into the light of a day job.
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TAGO!
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Hahahahaha! Excellent, and thank you Peter Greene.
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OMG! Nothing surprises me anymore re: payola for doing bad things.
The OLIGARCHY reigns with TITLES no less.
Thought Leaders…HUH? Duh!
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Just so we can dispel any notion that this is actually a “broad debate” this is who leads the Powell-Jobs initiative to “transform” US public high schools:
“Russlynn Ali is the Chief Executive Officer of XQ Institute. She brings decades of experience in many arenas to her position, prime among them a knowledge of what is truly required to design schools that will best serve American students for years to come. Before coming to XQ Institute, Russlynn served as assistant secretary of civil rights at the U.S. Department of Education. Russlynn also serves as managing director of education at Emerson Collective.
The ed reform orgs hire only members of the ed reform club. It’s the same 150 people moving from government to the foundations. Russalynn Ali appears at Democrats for Ed Reform events. She’s not “unbiased”. She lobbies for market-based ed reform.
Do they really expect is to believe this is a “broad and vigorous debate” OR that’s it’s at all “grass roots” when the leaders are always the same set of influential people?
There’s no “diversity of thought” in this movement. They never invite anyone outside the club.
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The fraudulent crooks and make-money-at-any-price (off of victims) edu-baggers dragging their bag of tech tricks and boasted, empty, unproven promises around with them to move along the autocratic corporate public education agenda to privatize education and profit off of OUR children uses many hijacked phrases and empty platitudes to fool people as they manufacture a fantasy world that they are actually doing good for the rest of us that only want them to disappear into a good riddance history and become fading memories.
But evil and greed do not walk into the sunset and leave willingly. History teaches us what we-the-people must eventually do to get rid of these monsters and it never ends easily like a happy-ever-after Hollywood plot.
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Government employees, current and former, who have worked to privatize the most important common good, public education, should be told to make a choice between giving up their US citizenship or, facing punishment as enemies of the state and/or self-dealing brigands. It’s not fair to the rest of the world to be subjected to the immorality of politician-owning, American oligarchs and their minions, so…. trial it is.
The resident in a country where BIA is sold was quoted, “Don’t make money on our poor backs.” The message was for Mark Z-berg, Bill Gates, Pearson, et. al.
Co-founders of BIA, (trained at the morally dubious Harvard) said, we knew (BIA’s) “ROI, about 20% annualized, would be quite attractive to investors…None (of BIA’s schools) will be radically different than what the public system offers…the only way to have a game changing experience (20% return to Gates, Pearson, Z-berg…?) is to scale it…”
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Disgusting!
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The good part of “thought leaders” (by the way isn’t that also some new kind of fishing line?) is that they provide material for the TLDS.
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Oops, sorry all us AI folks: TLDS = Thought Leader Debunking Society.
Isn’t Kim Jong-un a thought leader??
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test
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Arne Einstein!
The whole page is italics to show our sarcasm.
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Led by the nose by his billionaire patrons, and without a thought, let alone an original one, in his head.
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“The Heart of the Rot of the Political System “.
The revolving door
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Thought leaders truth shift while ensuring quality by assessing more thoroughly their ability to implement more quickly and efficiently the data that siphons money from the public coffers!
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Like!
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First heard about thought leaders at the same time I heard about thinklets. For a example of the power of labeling old ideas thinklets, see https://www.researchgate.net/…thinklet…/Preview-220106649.
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Well said, Diane! Obama totally missed the boat on education overall. He dumped a consummate educator, Darling Hammond, for a basketball player buddy who treated education as a competition and a game. And now, to top it off, he promotes a hated uneducated “education” person (King) from New York to the position. What a disappointment Obama has been for education and learning in this country. Shame on him and on Michelle for not speaking out on this!
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“Thought Leader”–more like “bought” leader.
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