Arne Duncan appeared at a DFER event in Boston to lend his support to Question 2, which would increase the number of privately controlled charter schools by 12 per year forever. The bill was written by the CEO of the Massachusetts Charter School Association. DFER is the organization representing hedge fund managers, who have bet on privatization as the antidote to puberty and low test scores.
Duncan failed in Chicago, where he promised to transform the schools by 2010, and he failed as Secretary of Education, where his Race to the Top produced massive funding for privatization, high-stakes testing for teachers, a national teacher shortage, and endless rancor among teachers, parents, and school officials burdened by his mandates.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
There is no expansion of charter schools that ed reform HASN’T supported.
In fact, President Obama required charter expansion as a condition of Race to the Top funding.
They could have required all kinds of conditions on charters in RttT. They deliberately and carefully did not do so.
So, it doesn’t mean anything when they “support” these charters. They support the expansion of all charters, everywhere, at any time.
The effect on existing schools isn’t even a factor.
Duncan said he supports expanding any school model that is getting good results and is not wedded to any particular approach. “Let me be very clear: I’m not pro-charter or anti-charter,” he said. “I’m pro-high-performing school.”
Baloney. He spent his entire time in office expanding these schools. Meanwhile, 38 states cut funding for public schools and not a peep out of him or the President. As long as states met the litmus test for expanding “choice” the Obama Administration gave them a free pass on everything else.
That’s his legacy- weaker public sector schools and stronger private sector schools.
Public schools are barely mentioned in ed reform, unless they’re ordering tests, cutting funding or analyzing test scores. Read any of them. It’s “choice” and “accountability”- the only reason they address public schools at all is to make sure they have a measure to use in “choice” systems. My son could attend his public school 9 days a year, sit for the testing and he would have completely fulfilled his usefulness to this “movement”.
Duncan believes charters are a success the day they open. I have never heard him acknowledge the failure of charters or the grafters and grifters who steal from them.
This is the administration that gave a huge grant to expand Ohio charter schools WHILE every newspaper in the state was reporting that the charter sector was a disaster.
This isn’t “science” and it has nothing to do with “quality”. The entire time the President was in office Ohio public schools took hit after hit and not one member of the Obama Administration spent a minute advocating for them. But they made sure charter expansion was funded.
This morning, I received a phone call from a guy in Massachusetts raising money, nationally, for Democratic senators.
He said that he had, only recently, become aware of public education privatization, due to Issue 2. (I asked him why it took the Democrats 15 years to inform the public.).) He seemed to think that Democrats were fighting for public schools, mentioning Elizabeth Warren. Both, the public being kept in the dark for over a decade and, Arne Duncan’s campaigning for charter schools, in Massachusetts, must make, the Party’s attempt to hide its complicity, a bit of a hard sell, especially to the loyal in the Northeast.
Duncan was accompanied by MA (Democrat) Representative Stephen Lynch, who received an award from DFER. Lynch is the former president of the union of Ironworkers Local 7. Earlier in the week, he spoke at a demonstration against efforts by MA’s Republican governor to privatize our transit authority, the MBTA.
Lynch seems to miss the point that privatization of our school system is aimed at killing off union protections for teachers. Maybe it’s because so many are women.
School reform destroys the usual political affiliations, due to all the dark money candidates can count on. We certainly see the money flowing into MA to pass Question 2 to lift the charter cap.
These fundraising calls are frequent. I always mention school privatization. This time, the guy said he would flag our recorded call for listening, up the chain. The triggering issue wasn’t schools, it was the Dayton Daily News’ info. that Dem. Senator Brown wasn’t endorsing his Democratic colleague for Senate.
Did Arne Duncan mention this at the charter promotion meeting?
“That’s because Noble is among the one third of Oklahoma districts that have reduced their school week to four days because of budget cuts, according to a report from Vice News Tonight.
Vice News Tonight, a 30-minute newscast aimed at millennials that airs on HBO, devoted five of those minutes last Friday to Oklahoma’s education funding troubles. Reporter Roberto Ferdman visited Noble, a district with 2,900 students, and spoke with students, parents and educators about the four-day week, which started this school year.”
Public school funding in Oklahoma has been cut back so far they can’t even stay open 5 days a week.
Weirdly. there don’t seem to be any politician/billionaire groups advocating on behalf of these PUBLIC schools. There never are.
Are public schools not valuable? Why are they ignored?
https://www.the74million.org/article/vice-news-tonight-report-on-4-day-school-week-brings-districts-struggle-to-young-hbo-audience
The politicians follow what the billionaires want. And the billionaires all want increasing privatization so that more profits flow into their companies and their buddies’ companies. With the added benefit of producing students who will eventually vote the way they want them to, and work at jobs the way they want them to- no unions, no questioning, just do what they’re told.
Is anyone surprised by this revelation?
Arnie Duncan failed to support the Chicago public schools but he did succeed (with Mayor Emmanuel) in expanding Colin Powell’s formula for school “success” by expanding the militarization of the schools, especially in creating even more military training and indoctrination units called JROTC! Dr. King often railed against the triplet of evils confronting America — racism, materialism, and militarism. He was correct then (1967) and he would be correct today. The hedge-fund managers, and the corporate shills who see profit in privatizing the public schools are helping to undermine our country, our democracy (if we ever really had one).
Classic. Also, the typo “antidote for puberty” is probably supposed to be “antidote for poverty”? I am normally not a grammar stickler, but found that one a funny typo. I’m not sure where I’d stand on an anti-puberty platform. 🙂
That one tripped me up for a minute, too although if charters were an antidote for puberty, I might be in favor. 🙂
Wonder who’s paying Arne?
Duncan’s probably paid by one of the tech moguls (or, wife of). Tangential, in June, Arne Duncan and Sean Parker, founding President of Facebook, who gained infamy for his $5 mil. wedding excess (sickening photos posted on-line), were recipients of public service awards from the Jefferson Foundation. Parker is known for saying, “philanthropy should be a series of calculated risks and big bets.” The depravity is reflected in the middle class and poor, as disposable pawns in the ego-swelling schemes of the rich, who flatter themselves, by boasting as if the schemes were heady games of chance. The tech cowards suffer no risk/consequence and have no decency, as they saunter onto elaborate stages and are showered with accolades, for their crack the whip games, many of which enrich them with money from the vulnerable.
Bastille Day, American style will come as a shock to Silicon Valley.
Arne Duncan works for Laurene Powell Jobs, Steve’s widow, who is a big funders of charters, TFA, and ed tech. She has an estimated worth of $20-30 billion.
Arne Duncan and so many others are turning “high-performing” and “under-performing” into elitist and racist nomenclature.
Well-stated. They are greedy colonialists without conscience. Lincoln warned that they would be an ever present danger, men who eat the “bread for which others toil”. Labor is already shackled with the financial sector’s drag on GDP. Labor has been robbed of its rewards for productivity gains and now, Duncan wants the rich to make money off of the kids of the middle class and poor. It can’t get much more destructive than a nation’s wealthy, cannibalizes the vulnerable young.