Valerie Strauss writes about a visit by President Obama to a highly selective public school in Washington, D.C. He brought with him his two Education Secretaries, Arne Duncan and John King.
He said he wanted every school to be as great as the school he was visiting, Benjamin Banneker. But there was much he did not mention.
Strauss writes:
“There’s no denying that Banneker is a top-performing school in the nation’s capital, and that 100 percent of its seniors graduate. But it’s unclear if Obama knows that if every school did what Banneker does, the high school graduation rate might plummet. That’s because Banneker is a magnet school where students must apply to get in — but the only entry grades are ninth and tenth. And they must maintain a B- average to stay. Kids who can’t cut it leave, but that attrition isn’t counted against the school’s graduation rate.”
He did not talk about his administration’s preference for charter schools over public schools. He did not acknowledge how Race to the Top had promoted privatization and led to the closure of thousands of public schools, mostly in communities of color. He didn’t talk about Common Core or the $$360 million that Duncan spent to create two testing comsortia aligned to Common Core, nor about the slow collapse of both consortia. He did not mention Dincan’s obsession with “bad teachers” or his mandate for evaluating teachers by test scores, which has generated a widespread teacher shortage.
President Obama is a brilliant man. Why is he so oblivious to the damage caused by Race to the Top, Arne Duncan, and John King?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Amen … AGREE totally!
So do I.
“President Obama is a brilliant man.”
I guess the veracity of that statement depends upon the connotation of “brilliant”.
Indeed, as in to connote brilliant rhetorician.
Diane, here is a slightly revised comment which I posted this a couple of days ago; I think it might help answer your concluding question of why Obama is so oblivious to the damage he has done to public education:
It seems that Obama, with his eye on becoming a centimillionaire like the Clintons, has actually relished the prospect of destroying public education. Or is that the going price of his admission ticket into the post-presidential plutocratic premises?
And we thought GWB was rough on public education.
As far as I’m concerned, Obama deserves nothing but contempt from the supporters of public education. If I am ever at a public event where he is speaking (doubtful, as I have a feeling he is already banking on those $250K-per-speech paychecks), I will turn my back to him.
Respect is a two-way street, and Obama has shown us (public school educators and supporters) that he has earned a rating of “Unsatisfactory” in that domain.
Agree with you, Eleanor, but please tell me how Hillary Clinton will differ from Obama?
I am doubtful that she will be different from him. I don’t have a lot of faith in Randi Weingarten either, the Hillary Clinton Superdelegate whose name has been floated as a possible Secretary of Education … Randi, it seems, has little heart for progressives …..
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/wikileaks-hilary-clinton-progressives-230009
How will HC be different from Obama?
We have to wait and see, because we have no idea what kind of president she will be and how successful she will be to overcome the GOP majority and/or minority in Congress to get any of her agendas passed through both Houses.
We don’t even know if the GOP, if they keep their Senate majority, will let her appoint a Supreme Court Justice to fill the 9th seat, because some of the GOP’s leaders have already come out and said if she is elected, they will never approve any of her nominations to the Supreme Court. They are willing to lave the 9th seat empty until they get a GOP president even if that takes 8 more years. That by itself is a good reason to vote the bastards out of the Senate and hand the Senate back to the Democrats for at last one term so we can get our Supreme Court back to 9 filled seats.
We don’t know if HC’s proposed budgets will be approved by Congress as she submits them.
We don’t know if any of the Bills HC supports, that she can’t submit to Congress, will make it to a floor vote?
We don’t know how many investigations the GOP will heap on top the list of investigations that HC has already survived, because they couldn’t find the evidence to convict her of any crimes. You know, innocent until proven guilty, and anyone with a brain knows she has been accused of many things but fond guilty of none except by far right mobs that hate her and find her guilty of every allegation and never change their minds.
We do know that she has a long history of advocating for children and women. What will that mean? We have to wait. I suggest that Hillary’s haters stop judging her until she has a track record as president to judge, and do not forget that a U.S. president is not a dictator with total power but shares power with Congress and the Supreme Court.
Is Obama really a brilliant man?
Brilliant at what, destroying a country’s incredibly successful public education system, the education system that is responsible for the U.S. being the 4th most educated country on the planet with almsot 3 college grads for very job that requires a college degree, a country that has so many readers that its publishing industry is the largest, most productive in the world?
How do we measure brilliance or genius in an individual, by what they destroy or what they create without doing any harm?
Reblogged this on DelawareFirstState and commented:
This is an issue in Delaware. I am not sure why our leaders cannot see what they have done to our educational system over the years. They have put practices in place that are hurting our children.
i AGREE WITH ALL OF THE COMMENTS AND i STILL DON’T KNOW WHY DIANNE WANTS HILLARY UNLESS SHE IS BRAINWASHED. RESEARCH IT..
Whether we like it or not, it’s HRC or DT. You can throw your vote away with Jill or Gary or you can block DT by voting for Hillary. When it comes to education, all 3 parties (D, R and libertarian) are horrible except for a few Democrats, Greens and socialists. Libertarians and the GOP are really the worst when it comes to education. But education is not the only issue and HRC is more progressive when it comes to social issues, the environment and science in general.
I don’t get the visit to a magnet school either.
They give the impression they only care about the Best and Brightest, like they’re embarrassed of ordinary public schools or the vast majority of kids.
Magnet schools are fine with me and I’m glad these kids have one but is that really the broad purpose of public education? To pick our certain groups of kids and serve them exclusively?
I really think it goes back to their general ideology and approach to this, where they see the public system as much more like a private system, where everyone can choose a kind of boutique school off a menu and it all just sorts itself out we all live happily ever after and no has to make any compromises.
They seem to forget what’s under-girding all this “choice”- the regular public schools they ignore or denigrate.
Magnet schools and niche interest charters CAN EXIST because there are ordinary public schools. The specialty schools don’t make ordinary public schools LESS essential or worthy- they make public schools MORE essential.
I attended a similar selective high school in Philadelphia. My school had similar attrition rates after freshman year. While I did well here, it was not the school for everyone. One freshman girl jumped off the roof in my junior year. In addition to being intelligent, students here had to be drivers in order to keep pace with the volume of work. I also taught in comprehensive high schools in two states. Many students from these schools achieved at high levels and managed to go to good four year schools. We also have to realize that college is not a realistic goal for all. Some students have different talents and interests. There are different types of intelligence, and a comprehensive public high school can often address the needs of a variety of learners. Most large public high schools can provide many more options or “choices” for students than any charter school ever could.
Yikes!!!
Trump surrogate: GOP candidate would dismantle ‘corrupted, incompetent urban school systems’ – The Washington Post
https://apple.news/A8pyfP0aKROemoF55L_WA1w
“He reminded the kids that he had visited Banneker in 2011 and was so impressed that he wanted to return “because you’re an example of a school that’s doing things the right way.”
That just makes me sad.
As if schools that keep kids who are having trouble graduating are doing something wrong.
Does the Obama Administration have a suggestion for where to send the kids who have less than a B-? We all can’t pack them off to the another school. They won’t have anywhere to go.
Obama’s comment is naive. I can see why he would be impressed from a superficial visit. The reality is this school is working for its selective population, but it is not the answer for all students.
Phillips Exeter is another school that’s doing things the right way. I wonder if he would consider a visit there?
I worked at Banneker HS in 1995. Its academic success predates President Obama. Interesting that he selected it to tout his administration’s reforms.
Because he isn’t a brilliant man, Diane. He’s very intelligent to be sure, but the empathy, foresight, and fairness that accompanies true brilliance seems to be absent within him.
The thought, ‘Obama is clearly not a stupid man, so why is he choosing this abusive intentional blindness where education is concerned?’ has gone through my head innumerable times in his almost eight years in office. Every occasion where he selects to visit only “successful” selective schools while ignoring the mess his policies have made in heavily invaded low-income public schools adds yet another brick to his wall of selective ignorance.
How free is Obama to select the schools he visits if his handlers make sure every choice they offer him ends up being one they want him to visit?
Yes. But true as this is, it still feels to fly in the face of believing that “Obama is an intelligent man…”
Intelligence has nothing to do what someone thinks, and Obama as a neo-liberal from the University of Chicago obviously believes the crap-neo agenda that shafts 99 percent of the people so the 1 percent or less prosper with the never delivered promise that goes back to Reagan, the Trumped Up Trickle Down Promise. Once at the top, what’s going to stop anyone from buying into that failed, flawed, fraudulent theory that says greed is good?
“Once at the top…” I forget, is it power or money which corrupts absolutely? Sadly, in this case, it appears to be mostly power.
It could also be the money. According to Celebrity Networth, Obama is worth more than $12 million. Imagine what he’ll charge to give a speech after he’s out of the White House, and then what a publisher will pay for a memoir of being the 1st Black president. The money will start to roll in. Who knows, he might become an action star in film. The 1st black James Bond going after Middle East Terrorists in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, etc.
Oh, my head would explode… 🙂
It’s possible that President Obama is simply incapable of admitting that his educational policies are disastrous. From a more cynical perspective the “reformers” (bilionaire-boys-club) may have been major contributors to Obama resulting in his support for their failed policies while further enriching themselves on the public’s dime. Recall how not a single banker was indicted for the financial collapse in 2008. The bankers were President Obama’s largest donors.
The problem is the policies are NOT disastrous — they are succeeding wildly. They are disastrous for public school kids, of course, but they were never intended to benefit the kids. For the big money behind all this, that was a lie from the start. Their goal has ALWAYS been about ceding control and a stream of profits to the billionaires who benefit from privatizing a tax supported education system. That is why all these state charter bills (many from ALEC) have provisions that permit, encourage or require charter management companies and actively work to destroy the public schools left behind (easier to recruit if you trash the competition).
The sooner we stop scratching our heads as to why smart people haven’t figured out that their policies aren’t working, the sooner we can admit that their policies are working exactly as intended — and that the “improving education / civil rights / choice” stuff has all been a diabolically successful smoke screen to let them steal incredibly valuable public assets while deceiving enough voters to prevent political backlash.
We are in total agreement. By disastrous I meant bad for students, teachers, public schools and great for those who value self enrichment above all else. Of course Obama et al., know exactly what they are doing.
Obama is brilliant. And many, many people are outright geniuses, and not idiot savants, broadly brilliant geniuses with really bad ideas, poor judgment and seemingly no intuition in plenty of areas, simple and complex.
This is part of our condition. And this is important. We are not ranked automatons. Rubrics meant to try to force us to be will always fail, will only undercut genuine talent and intuition. Corporatist cookie-cutter stupidity.
I think Obama did not think much about education, certainly not public education as an institution worthy of his support and needful of it from him as President. He allowed others to set the agenda, with the deepest pockets and the dimmest understanding of education, except as a market, to be in charge.
For President Obama — this is the best possible view. Either he is actively in on “the take” — or this. Either way, epic failure.
I rather agree with you, Laura. Obama has lots of issues for which he has taken a more direct role.There is nothing in his background that would indicate a deep understanding or interest in education policy. He has just put his faith in the wrong advisors. Since not everyone can be the best and the brightest, I wonder what the heck the rest of us are supposed to do. Take orders?
“He didn’t talk about Common Core or the $360 million that Duncan spent to create two testing comsortia aligned to Common Core, nor about the slow collapse of both consortia. ”
Speaking of tests: my daughter just took the ACT this morning.
Math: 60 minutes 60 questions, so 1 min for a question.
Grammar: 45 minutes 70 questions, so 40 seconds for a question.
Reading: 35 minutes 40 questions, so 50 seconds for a question.
Science: 35 minutes 40 questions, so 50 seconds for a question.
Even without further details it’s clear, there was absolutely no time for thinking. So the exam to test “college readiness” doesn’t test whether kids can think. Never mind, that the only thing I, as a prof, care about is whether kids can and are willing to think!
But in math at ACT, there were geometry problems which should require time to look at, ponder about; in reading, there are texts to read, understand and answer questions about them; in science all the problems were about charts and what kind of conclusions you can draw about them—not one theoretical question or problem.
Plain nuts.
Okok, let me try to say it better, in a more sophisticated way, as you’d expect from a prof.
…but, I can’t. There is no better way to say it: Plain nuts!
Her score will be a symbol of relative “merit” to the people who think that performance on standardized tests like these are worthwhile and have predictive value for future success in “college” and/or “career.” I trust that your daughter will not define her worth and merit by scores on these tests, or allow others to do that. She is so lucky to have a discerning father who knows what is “plain nuts.”
I wonder when they are going to realize that speed does not encourage deep, critical thinking.
plain nuts = effin insane
The current copy of Chicago Magazine has, on its cover, “Can Arne Duncan Save Chicago?”
I have to go to the library, today, & read the magazine. I’ll let you all know (LOL).
BTW–unless I’m crazy, I believe I read that Lin-Manuel Miranda gave out 10,000 Hamilton tickets to Chicago school students.
What did Obama give? (I read that he’d promised to send a personal donation to a charity or relief effort some time ago, & he never did.) Have to agree with Eleanor’s 11:11 AM comment.
And–last but not least–I don’t think any of us will forget the letter-writing campaign to Obama as started on one of your posts, Diane. Everyone who received an “answer” received a form letter from WH staff. He’s a neoliberal & part of the oligarchy (recall his ties to the Joyce Foundation?) He never did keep his promise to “put on his marching shoes” (I believe it was Ed Schultz who famously asked him where he was during the Madison, WI sit-in–& for his troubles, he was canned by MSNBC).
As you can tell, not a fan.
Can Arne Duncan Save Chicago?
Like he saved the Chicago Public Schools?
Like Race to the Top?
Good point Chiara. Going to a Magnet School is going precisely to where the problem isn’t. These schools were doing fine long before Obama and his particular policies arrived on the scene.
How could he possibly regard this magnet school has part of his success story?
Reblogged this on Politicians Are Poody Heads and commented:
Obama visited a highly selective magnet school and expressed his wish that every school was as great as Benjamin Banneker.
Somebody needs to clue him in that there are millions of children in this country who are not qualified for schools like Banneker (and would never be admitted there in the first place, or would flunk out if they were), who are English Language Learners, who are special education students with much more than a mild learning disability, there are kids who come to school distracted from learning because they are hungry, or gunfire in their neighborhood terrified them and kept them up half the night, there are kids with social, emotional, and behavior problems.
What does Obama propose doing to help those kids achieve to their individual maximum potentials?
Not all kids are Banneker kids. Not all kids will be going to college.
What, Mr. President, former Secretary Duncan, current Secretary King, are your suggestions and plans for these kids? Fire their teachers and close their schools? Turn all their schools into charter schools with rote learning and poorly-trained teachers?
Or just throw these kids under the bus. Or under a bridge, and let them rot there?
“President Obama is a brilliant man. Why is he so oblivious to the damage caused by Race to the Top, Arne Duncan, and John King?”
It would seem that Obama is brilliant in terms of raising his own career status and using his minority status to fool literally millions of people at their expense and at his own gain. This is the man who put an arrest on COLA for Social Security. This is someone who wants school choice and took the public option for single payer healthcare OFF the table at the onset of his governance.
And he just presided over the aerial bombing of Yemen this past week, which the media has barely uttered a word about. That is the manner in which he is brilliant. To think that he was given a Nobel peace prize makes my blood boil and brings out the Viking in me.
That said, Obama is not oblivious at all. He either believes in all of this reform and/or it rewards him with career opportunities both inside and soon-to-be outside his presidency.
He is no dummy, but his moral I.Q. is very much on the lower end of the spectrum. What a facade of a politician.
Doesn’t one get sick of all of this labeling?
A black man for president?
A female for president?
Wouldn’t it just be great to have a decent human being who will advocate for the working and middle class and the poor and will spend his/her life redistributing wealth in the USA to make everyone’s life the way it ought to be?
As long as the Democrats use the playbook of identity politics, identity will continue to trump (no pun intended) policy. Hence, the Dumpster fire of a presidential campaign now being waged.
Neoconservative Democrats will continue to get away with doing things that a Republican cannot (i.e. charterizing public schools, not prosecuting Wall Street banksters, and “Grand Bargains ” to cut Social Security) because they have the veneer of progressiveness.
I am hoping that we can hold Hillary Clinton’s feet to the fire to make sure she understands that she is president of 300-million-plus people, not just Wall Street hedge fund managers.
Obama is truly a neoconservative and opportunistic individual – clearly not in the mold of FDR. Underneath his Ivy League credentials is an empty suit, one that lacks a moral core and empathy.
President Obama is the poster child for that old saying, “You can’t judge a book by its cover.”
Or one might say a “wolf in sheep’s clothing”.
Angry Viking Filmmaker “Doesn’t one get sick of all of this labeling?
A black man for president?
A female for president?”
I agree. But I think none of us would do a very good job as president. The problem is not with Obama, as a person, but with the presidency itself. Just too much power, too much responsibility, too many things to do, too many issues to think about, too much money to shift around for one person.
The only reason I think Sanders would have done a good job is because he was determined to rely on his 100 million supporters rather than the few advisers who could fit into his oval office.
I think what we start finding out more and more is that the time of CEOs and other powerful leaders has passed.
CEOs and presidents have much smaller roles in successes than they attribute to themselves—and we attribute to them.
In his book Thinking fast and slow, Nobel Prize winning Daniel Kahneman explains that luck has an overwhelmingly greater role in success than CEOs expertise.
“The comparison of firms that have been more or less successful is to a significant extent a comparison between firms that have been more or less lucky. Knowing the importance of luck, you should be particularly suspicious when highly consistent patterns emerge from the comparison of successful and less successful firms. In the presence of randomness, regular patterns can only be mirages.
Because luck plays a large role, the quality of leadership and management practices cannot be inferred reliably from observations of success. And even if you had perfect foreknowledge that a CEO has brilliant vision and extraordinary competence, you still would be unable to predict how the company will perform with much better accuracy than the flip of a coin.”
So a single coin flip knows as much about the recipe for large scale success as supposedly brilliant presidents or CEOs. Let’s not rely on their expertise or any single person’s expertise more than the expertise of a flipped penny. And we certainly should stop thinking, they deserve the millions or billions we throw at them.
“That’s because Banneker is a magnet school …”
Who cares about magnet schools? We heard Sahlberg: what we need to focus on is equity not excellence. Excellence will come automatically.
If the US needs homegrown examples (since we don’t listen other countries), think about sports, like swimming, track and field, basket ball or women’s soccer. The US is best in these sports not because (as sponsors or coaches might try to convince you) there is great money in these sports and the coaches are the best in the world, but because the country provides great, wide opportunities to all. Almost all high schools or neighborhood colleges have swimming pools, soccer fields, tracks—not to mention basket ball courts. These facilities are not necessarily the best, the latest models, but they are everywhere. Just in Memphis alone, we have over 50 soccer fields! And I don’t know of a single high school here without an indoor basket ball court, though we have some of the poorest schools in the country.
Why do we have such great actors and actresses in such great numbers and in any genre? Is it because of the enormous amount of money Hollywood invests into the profession? Or is it because very few countries have such a wide base for acting and theater? Just think about all the high schools and even middle schools with optional theater programs. I doubt, Hollywood or Broadway would exist without these schools.
The most reliable, time tested guarantee for excellence is a wide, stable base.
Proofread your posts before publishing! An educated person should not make typos or misspell words.
Evelyn,
Want a job as my proofreader?
I post 5-10 times a day.
I could post once a day and never make an error.
Most of my errors are due to autocorrect. I am a good speller and had 12 years of grammar and syntax in public school.
You won’t find perfection here.
“Proofread your posts before publishing! ”
I agree. Except this is not publishing but blogging. Similarly, talking is unlike citing a poem.
Blogging is like a public rehearsal, it’s not the final performance.
Evelyn, I agree with you, but Dr. Ravitch’s insights and advocacy outweigh her infrequent errors by about 1,000,000 to 1. The USA is fortunate to have her in its court.
Lighten up or do consider getting yourself a life.
People can disagree sharply about what Diane says, but nobody who ever edited for a living could say that Diane’s copy is anything but immaculate.
Thank you, FLERP.
To Evelyn J. Petrick:
Have you ever noticed the “auto-correct” feature on iPhone? Or on “Word” in Microsoft Window? It is really embarrassing when you are in a rush!
You must have so much time in your hand but do not have heart and mind for the eroded state in Public Education.
Welcome to be a helper for Dr. Ravitch without pay. Back2basic
It means to be
“eroded state of funding and of destroying Teaching Profession” in Public Education.
King is terrible. While in NY refused to do anything to help the embattled public schools in East Ramapo.
Robert I Rhodes, Chairman, Preserve Ramapo
In defense of Obama. Maybe he just doesn’t know!???
Bob Rhodes
He appointed King. He knows what is happening in education.
He’s a fraud. My country laughs at him.
Leaders of the Office of Education within the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare 1953- 1980,
Dwight D. Eisenhower- Republican, Oveta Culp Hobby- 1953 –1955
Dwight D. Eisenhower- Republican, Marion B. Folsom- 1955 –1958
Dwight D. Eisenhower- Republican, Arthur Flemming- 1958 –1961
John F. Kennedy- Democrat, Abraham Ribicoff- 1961 –1962
Lyndon B. Johnson- Democrat, Anthony J. Celebrezze- 1962 –1965
Lyndon B. Johnson- Democrat, John W. Gardner- 1965 –1968
Lyndon B. Johnson- Democrat, Wilbur J. Cohen- 1968 –1969
Richard M. Nixon-Republican, Robert H. Finch- 1969 –1970
Richard M. Nixon-Republican, Elliot L. Richardson- 1970 –1973
Gerald R. Ford-Republican, Caspar W. Weinberger- 1973 –1975
Gerald R. Ford-Republican, Forrest David Mathews- 1975 –1977
Jimmy Carter, Democrat, Joseph A. Califano, Jr.- 1977 –1979
Jimmy Carter, Democrat, Patricia Roberts Harris- 1979 –1980
US Office of Education becomes a separate cabinet position with a Secretary of Education. here are the appointees.
Jimmy Carter, Democrat, Shirley M. Hufstedler (1979-1981)
Ronald Regan, Republican, Terrel H. Bell (1981-1984)
Ronald Regan, Republican, William J. Bennett (1985-1988)
George H.W. Bush, Republican, Lauro F. Cavazos (1988-1990)
George H.W. Bush, Republican, Ted Sanders (acting 3 monrths)
George H.W. Bush, Republican, Lamar Alexander (1991-1993)
Bill Clinton, Democrat, Richard W. Riley (1993-2000)
George W. Bush, Republican, Roderick Paige (2001-2005)
George W. Bush, Republican, Margaret Spellings (2005-2009)
Barack Obama, Democrat, Arne Duncan (2009- 2015)
Barack Obama, Democrat, John B. King, Jr. (2016- Present)
Some of my favorite quotes are from John W. Gardner (1965 –1968)
The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy: neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water. Excellence: Can We Be Equal and Excellent Too? (1961).
Life is the art of drawing without an eraser. Quoted in Matthew M. Radmanesh, Cracking the Code of Our Physical Universe, p. 269.
Political extremism involves two prime ingredients: an excessively simple diagnosis of the world’s ills, and a conviction that there are identifiable villains back of it all. A Nation Is Never Finished, ABA Journal (November 1967), Volume 53, page 1011.
Obama is a brilliant man, just like Gates is. They have, however, come to disastrous conclusions about public education. Or they’ve simply foisted their agenda on us without bothering to let us know they have an agenda.
But I’m constantly told I have an agenda, a bad one apparently, because I’m a union member. I have “special interests,” unlike the reformers. cough They’ve stolen and manipulated the narrative.
I don’t mean this comment to be a criticism of you, socolaura. I might even be guilty of it myself. I just wonder what defines “brilliance.” I really see nothing that makes either Obama or Gates “brilliant.” It’s like this quest for “the best and the brightest.” What makes someone worthy of that label? Can’t we just recognize that some people have gained notoriety/recognition for their accomplishments, which may or may not say something about their brilliance? What makes someone truly exceptional and does it really make sense to make our standards of performance dependent on some need to declare our endeavors the product of excellence?
I agree, 2o2t.