Alan Singer greatly admires President Obama, as do I, except for his disastrous education policies, which laid the groundwork for privatization and deprofessionalization of teaching. Public school educators were scolded again and again by Arne Duncan for their alleged failings and their alleged low standards.
Singer here reviews the Obama record and tries to find something positive to say about the “reform” agenda of the past 15 years. Try as he might, he can’t find much to praise.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Singer looks at Obama’s policies through the lens of a teacher educator. I think he underestimates the impact of Obama’s disastrous education policies. Singer does not mention Obama’s test and punish policy and the access given to Bill Gates who was allowed to insert himself into our national policy. He was allowed to use his wealth to manipulate policy and extort states to adopt his agenda through RTTT. It was all about the carrot and mostly the stick for public schools and teachers under Obama. Gates was given free access to sell states on the value of the Common Core and VAM. These policies enabled states to take over some public school districts and sell them off to charter companies. While VAM, a totally quasi-scientific algorithm that has been since discredited, allowed some districts to fire teachers and circumvent local collective bargaining contracts. His two choices of the DOE have been overtly hostile and critical of public schools. Obama’s education policies still continue to undermine public education. Obama has never acknowledged the considerable value of our public education system, and he turned a blind eye to the plight of teacher unions. Trump and DeVos will continue their ignorant assault on public education on different grounds with all the same lack of awareness of a snake eating its own tail.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well stated rt!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I had HOPE, then Obama named his Cabinet. His appointements spoke volumes. The DEMS went right with the DFERs…$$$$$.
LikeLiked by 1 person
He couldn’t even thank public school teachers for Teacher Appreciation Week. He thanked charter scabs. Forget his good side. He doesn’t like me. I don’t like him back.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks to all for their cogent comments.
😎
LikeLike
Well said, Retired Teacher. In our attacks on Trump, we must never forget that the looming “teacher shortage” and the massive move toward computerized classrooms happened under President Obama. I, and so many other teachers, lost our jobs due to the “bad” teacher witchhunt policies mandated by Race To The Top.
LikeLike
Obama and Duncan and Cuomo and King along with the Clintons ought to start by APOLOGIZING to public school teachers and, more importantly, to parents for what they’ve done to us and our children.
Fat chance!
I live in a rural area that votes Republican. I put up sign for Obama back in 2008 and when that one was ripped down I made a huge one out of plywood, painted his name on with fluorescent orange paint and put spotlights on it at night. How did Obama and Cuomo and the other Democratic leaders repay union teachers like me who have supported them through thick and thin? By demonizing us, attacking our profession and harming the kids we care about. In hindsight I think we were seen as part of that “basket of deplorables”, too, sometimes. Talk about arrogance.
So, I did not put up a sign for HIllary this time around. I just couldn’t do it. I voted for her, gave some bucks to an organization fighting against Trump. I did support Bernie. But the enthusiasm just wasn’t there this fall.
And, you know, the yard signs really do matter -despite all the high tech campaigning that goes on nowadays. Isn’t that funny. We kept seeing tons of Trump signs everywhere when we were over in Pennsylvania and my wife and I would say, you know this just doesn’t look good.
And, it sure wasn’t
LikeLike
“We kept seeing tons of Trump signs everywhere when we were over in Pennsylvania. . . ”
Saw the same thing in rural Missouri-probably something on the order of 20-1, THETrumpster to Clinton signs.
LikeLike
John, you speak for many of us! Thanks for sharing.
LikeLike
I think all of you teachers are missing something . I agree with everyone of you .
If it were just teachers,( LeftCoast et al.)we would not be looking at a President Trump.
All those who voted for him twice and stayed home or voted for Trump feel the same disappointment. I love his speeches, I love the way he and his family have conducted themselves. However actions and policy count. So on domestic and foreign policy he has been a disappointment . Being better than the Republicans may have been good enough for me . It was not for the Americans who helped elect Trump ,mostly not by crossing over but by staying home.
LikeLike
“If it were just teachers we would not be looking at. . . ”
Can’t agree with you Joel! If I had to guess, I’d guesstimate that close to 50% of the teachers voted for THETrumpster.
LikeLike
Maybe voting patterns depend on location. Most teachers I know from the northeast voted for Hillary. As you get into the rust belt and south, I am sure a number of teachers voted for Trump.
LikeLike
Duane Swacker
Then you are agreeing with me . I am saying in my twisted way that teachers were not the only ones he let down. We could discuss those teachers who voted for him . But lets not, I have enough of my own delusional colleagues to deal with.
retired teacher
That may be dependent on the Unionization rate and State labor laws. A sad situation when workers jump out of the frying pan and into the fire.
LikeLike
Teachers, who are evangelical, like authoritarian, patriarchal figures. It’s emotion rather than rational thought. Often, they like to think they are aren’t racists but, like Mother Jones reported from research, they are like the rest of the country, they’d pull a trigger on a Black man in less time than they would, a White man. One difference with the evangelical teachers, they would rationalize the quick trigger finger, rather than do soul searching.
The Midwest and south have a lot of evangelicals and, their number increased, as Obama predicted. “When times are tough people turn to religion and guns”.
LikeLike
Sad to say, there isn’t much to praise. Obama did so well in so many ways but left education as a low priority, directed by his incompetent basketball-playing buddy, Arne (the hard-of-hearing) Duncan. No logic or empirical evidence could shake Arne’s mind from his terrible path, and so The Donald’s selection, Ms Devos, will merely continue his (and now her) mania for anti-democratic charter schools. It would be laughable if the stakes for Democracy were not so high, and two “administrators” in a row will allow their ignorant lack of educational history to blind them to the disaster that profit-making has when mixed with a public good. I know the Republic will survive the clown-car administration of Trump as it did W’s, but why must we get these sad excuses for “leaders” every few years? As HL Mencken said a almost a century ago: “On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the WH will be occupied by a downright fool and a complete narcissistic moron” (July 26, 1920).
JVK
LikeLike
How interesting that you mention the sharp-tongued Mencken. His vitriol spawned a reaction in his day, the rise of the agrarian poets at Vanderbilt University, and his descendants in language have spawned their own reaction.
Arguably, one of the reasons we are burdened by such a rural urban split in the vote is that so many of the people who got an education left their roots to make a bundle in the big city where they could be sophisticated and look down their noses at the booboosise. I have met a lot of folks who had their views ripped apart by academics who could make a person feel unimportant. Most of these folks are in the camp of the extreme conservatives now, but it might not have been so if their professors could introduce logic without the Mencken sarcasm.
One of the reasons we have so many sparsly populated areas that voted for the complete narcissistic moron mentioned above is the urban tendency to expect all those plain folks to lock step behind urban ideas that make no sense to those in the more sparsely populated areas. In short, many feel disrespected and taken for granted.
As a person who feels left out of the discussion because I do not share the conservatism of most of my fellows, I also understand why they react to political arrogance the way they do. Clinton’s remark about the deplorables has been the topic of conversation between many of my conservative friends. That played into the hands of the Trump people who used it to argue that Clinton was arrogant.
My uncle was a man whose education led him to simplicity. Still, the connection he felt with FDR lasted through Reagan, whom he would not support. If we want to bring sanity back into political leadership, we better start connecting.
LikeLike
NEW JERSEY SCHOOL LEADERS:
It would take guts to push back hard at the state and insist on paper and order the paper version for 3,4,5, and 6th grade.
I think if it were done there would be rock star status for those courageous school leaders!!
Ed Week articles to support this:
Warning Sounded on Tech Disrupting Student Sleep
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2016/11/30/warning-sounded-on-tech-disrupting-student-sleep.html?r=1500291730&cmp=eml-eb-popweek+12092016webmch
PARCC Scores Lower for Students Who Took Exams on Computers
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2016/02/03/parcc-scores-lower-on-computer.html
PARCC is a farce – taking it on computers is denying the child proper fine motor skills through penmanship and all that goes along with that – is hurtful to a young mind.
School leaders that do not push back in essence are hurting proper development of their students.
LikeLike
The one thing I disagree with Alan about is the number of students going into education. I think the numbers are dwindling. I don’t think they’re stagnant or rising. After NCLB, RttT, Bush, Duncan, King, and now DeVos, do you really think any one would go into elementary and secondary teaching? It’s all too … disappointing, for lack of a better word. And still now word from our lovely union leaders. Says volumes. So disappointing.
LikeLike
When two political parties are conjoined, the weaker one, withers. Democrats lost the Senate, the House and, the Presidency. They have just 34% of the governorships.
LikeLike
Reblogged this on Mister Journalism: "Reading, Sharing, Discussing, Learning" and commented:
Alan Singer: Education Policy from Obama to Trump
by dianeravitch
Alan Singer greatly admires President Obama, as do I, except for his disastrous education policies, which laid the groundwork for privatization and deprofessionalization of teaching. Public school educators were scolded again and again by Arne Duncan for their alleged failings and their alleged low standards.
Singer here reviews the Obama record and tries to find something positive to say about the “reform” agenda of the past 15 years. Try as he might, he can’t find much to praise.
dianeravitch | December 11, 2016 at 1:00 pm | Categories: Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, Obama, Privatization, Race to the Top, Testing | URL: http://wp.me/p2odLa-fU7
LikeLike