Arne Duncan, same old Arne.
Mike Klonsky quotes an opinion piece that Arne wrote praising Rahm Emanuel’s proposal to withhold diplomas from seniors in high school unless they have a definite commitment for college, a job or the military.
Arne says that kids drop out because school is too easy. Mike has a few choice words on the subject.
If they had rigor…if they had grit…if they were faced with higher expectations…etc.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Is the preparation for management at United Airlines? New slogans for the air carrier, “We put the hospital in hospitality” and “We drag you anywhere”
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nice
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! like!
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“United Airlines”
United we stand
United you fall
Our policy’s grand
With “choices” for all
You choose to be dragged
And choose to be gagged
And choose to be bagged
Arrested and tagged
United’s our name
And choice is our game
United we claim
Our title to fame
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Poet- What a gift ,,,,,,,you have.
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The idea was yours.
Also, thanks to you, I now know why I write poetry: cuz I hate having to figure out where, to put, the, commas,,,,,, I
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Tip-there can’t be too many.
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Duncan is a dunce. I want someone to fill his mouth with fast-setting wet concrete.
Business Insider published the top reasons students drop out of high school.
“Research shows dropping out is strongly tied to socioeconomic status. Kids who come from low-income areas are 2.4 times more likely to drop out than middle-income kids. Unlike kids from wealthier families, for whom school is usually the primary focus, poorer students must focus on other responsibilities. School becomes secondary, if it’s a priority at all.”
http://www.businessinsider.com/most-common-reasons-students-drop-out-of-high-school-2015-10
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I like the concrete image, Lloyd. Funny thing is, I’m actually gearing up to do some masonry patching outside. I’ve been working on fixing the front stairs. It was a tough winter in many ways….long, cold and corrosive -to my home and my spirit.. Quite a bit of damage was done. Thinking of good ole Arne as I handle the trowel and shovel in the mortar mix will make the job a bit more enjoyable.
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I used some fast setting mortar to fix a stone wall just a couple days ago.
That stuff sets up fast, even under water!
Arne would have about ten minutes to say his piece.
After that he’d need one of those voice synthesizers like physicist Stephen Hawking has.
Of course, you still need a brain to operate the voice synthesizer.
Not a problem for Hawking, of course, but it might be for Arne.
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Arne Duncan, one of the main reasons we are in this mess with common core and ESSA was his bad leadership as Secretary of Education. This has led to people being fed up and wanting privatization. He should not be making any comments about public education after he is causing the demise of public education and he doesn’t realize it.
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Who says he doesn’t realize it?
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He needs to shut up and disappear, something I’d also love for Ms. DeVos to do. But on the brighter side, at least he’s no longer the Worst.SecEd.Ever!
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Just when I finished vomiting over the daily absurdities out of VonClownstic and or the ineptitude or willing compliance of the cable media covering the circus, I read this and am reminded that idiocy didn’t start with Trumputin..
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All it will do is encourage people to lie. And that’s stupid because it makes people have less regard for other, more important rules.
If a women is married and is intending to be a stay at home mother then she won’t get her diploma? What if she is not married, but partnered, and intends to be a stay at home mum, will she get a diploma? What if she is not married, but partnered, is eight months pregnant and intends to be a stay at home mum, will she get a diploma?
I think a lot of people have forgotten that America is meant to be the land of the free.
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No problem, she may simply submit a copy of ultrasound. She has a plan!
What an empty-headed, content-free proposal by Mayor Rahm.
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I wrote a long comment, but it disappeared. Every one of you (provided you can stomach it) MUST read the puff piece, “Can Arne Duncan Save Chicago?”–Chicago Magazine, November, 2016. It talks about his work w/youths jailed (why? because of the school-to-prison-pipeline, helped along in Chicago by his systematic destruction of our public schools?), &, at the end of the interview:
‘”He continues, “I felt just a huge sense of urgency. As tough as it is emotionally to deal with, whatever burden or weight I’m carrying, it’s a thousandth of what these kids are dealing with every day, and if I can’t handle my little piece, how can I help them?”
And here, in his office overlooking Michigan Avenue,* he begins to cry.”
*Michigan Avenue, downtown–one of the most desirable, highest real estate of city streets in the U.S. (Certainly the most desirable in Chicago.)
If you further want to be appalled, read an earlier Klonsky blog about–wait for it!–the Chicago return of…Paul Vallas! Paul Vallas, described (sarcastically, by one terrific Sun-Times columnist), riding to town like a white knight, appointed by the governor to save an underwater, predominantly African American university–even though he has NO higher education experience (sound familiar, Bridgeport, CT? & BTW, thanks for the Dance of the Lemons–back to us {actually, I’m very glad for you, & kudos for fighting his appointment so hard}). Apparently, he wasn’t happy w/his unpaid university board position & wanted to be paid for his great expertise (New Orleans & Philly “successes” were cited in his hiring!). I’ll bet he’ll be getting a six-figure salary–whatever, it will be too much for a school that has had to jettison faculty, cut programs and lost scores of new enrollments.
WHY. DO.THESE.GUYS.KEEP.COMING.BACK? Oh, right…it’s the infamous Chicago Way.
Don’t send nobody nobody doesn’t know, or something like that (read Mike Royko’s masterpiece, Boss).
Excuse me…I have to go take a loooong shower.
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“Can Arne Duncan save Chicago from Arne Duncan?”
The Mobius fix
A Dr. Seuss mix
Of messing-up Things
On messing-up flings
With Arne at helm
Of Cat in Hat realm
A Mobius cause
If ever there was
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“The Era of Arne Error”
The Era of Arne Error
Is endlessly looping terror
I hate to be bad-news bearer
But Arne is in the mirror
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Love the verse! Cheered me up. Thanks.
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While it is exact truth, it is still scary to absorb the line “Arne is in the mirror” with my own interpretation — one I’ve had for more than fifteen years now: There is simply no way to differentiate the left from the right when it comes to school reform. Whom do we follow, whom do we lean upon, when leader after leader strategically plays the I CARE ABOUT KIDS flute and then manages to drag a blindly mesmerized citizenry along to chaos and abuse? It just never ends: get teary, cry a little, say the required “oh, those poor kids” line, and the general populace jumps right up onto your invasive school reform wagon.
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“Through the Looking Glass”
In Mirror Land
The right is left
And chock-full hand
Is hand bereft
The school Reform
Is double-edged
Where right is norm
But left is hedged
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“The Mack Truck in the mirror”
The objects in the mirror
Are closer than they appear
And oligarchic “error”
Is something we should fear
Reflecting total capture
Of democratic state
The money driven rapture
Is sealing certain fate
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Absurd statements like these from folks like Duncan and Rahm are simply a measure of how our side has completely lost (never had) any control of the narrative on education in the country. The reformers and their political mouthpieces have 100% of the narrative. In that climate, they say absurd, extreme things as they know that there will be no real counter or push back and that their words will be covered and taken as THE word.
At some point we need to not be focused on the technical absurdity of what these folks say but rather the bigger picture that is enabling it. We have never had control of the narrative, and still don’t. Instead we have spent our time producing and digesting academic papers that prove our side is right (one of the latest ones as posted here is a study of the rise of “I quit” letters…..as if we needed that!). It’s like our side is deeply planning for our big day in court while the other side is making friends with the jury and arguing their case. We need to stop. The battle for narrative is THE battle here. We will not win this by being right. The world does not reward the virtuous, it rewards those who show up and then win. At this moment, we have no control, say, or even input on the broader education narrative.
The people naturally positioned to be the narrative-makers for our side have failed deeply, not least due to the fact that they aren’t that bright. Randi Weingarten for example began the show years ago by confusingly supporting common core! (Right there she was rendered meaningless and of no factor by both sides….she doesn’t realize even now this but it’s true….name one person with LESS impact on the narrative of education!). The leaders of the bigger teachers unions for example are likewise not burdened with an abundance of vision, insight, ideas, or vocabulary. Now we are left with parents (fickle….I know many of you see them as stalwarts and the ultimate force. I don’t), and ourselves trying to raise a voice as individuals. Pretty thin defenses in the face of corporate/political/privatizing Ed reform movement that has genocidal intent for public education.
Now we may see the power a union would have if they only knew how to achieve it. Our first response years ago should have been to take back our unions…..as the apparatus and philosophical purpose of unions is exactly what our side needs (needed.)
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On that note:
http://www.alternet.org/activism/allan-nairn-only-mass-disruption-below-can-stop-right-wing-revolution
The NLRA , The Wagner act did not come about because Roosevelt was such an advocate of Unions . Radical socialist Union leaders had taken over several steel workers unions and were threatening to bring a crippling strike with violence as needed . A strike that threatened to throw the nation back into recession by the 36 election . .
What would they settle for, became the question for Roosevelt . The answer brought back to him through the more moderate AFL. The Wagner act. (Domhoff ” Who Rules America?”)
The cold war purged those radicals ,loyalty oaths turned the Union movement into narrowly focused organizations rather than broad based vehicles for social change. The most destructive part of Taft Hartley was not Right to Work, but rather banning the secondary boycott .
Therein lies the solution
“only-mass-disruption-below-can-stop-right-wing-revolution”
Starting with National strikes that can not be tied to negotiations and therefore Unions. If it does not involve the purview of the NLRA than it does not involve Taft Hartley either.
http://labornotes.org/2010/11/secondary-strikes-are-primary-labor%E2%80%99s-revival.
Getting there will involve the Union movement and progressives turning disaster capitalism to its advantage . With Trump I am sure there will be ample outrages and failures to motivate the outrage required.
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Great line, NYST: “It’s like our side is deeply planning for our big day in court while the other side is making friends with the jury and arguing their case.”
Campaign reform, reverse Cit-United decision, get the $ out of politics. The narrative is controlled by those w/ fattest purses.
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bribing/manipulating the jury and buying the judges is more like it
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Rahm Emanuel met with DeVos yesterday, so with the way these things tend to work in ed reform look for The Rahm Emanuel Plan to start showing up on the ed reform city or state legislative agendas.
This is a small club and the higher-profile members have really extraordinary (and nearly exclusive) access to powerful people. Their proposals are adopted quickly and they spread immediately- they’re supposedly “experiments” but they are experiments with no evidence requirement and none of the experiments ever fail.
This one is perfect because it’s entirely rhetorical on the part of the political actors- Rahm Emanuel doesn’t have to DO anything here. He doesn’t have to raise funding or worry about how it works or make any investment at all. He simply delegates the whole thing to schools and students and it’s already a “success”. Schools and students will scramble to meet the requirement and THAT proves that “high expectations” is all you need.
The thing is though that reality intrudes as it trickles down. Resources really are finite. There really are X number of people to carry this out. So if they aren’t given more they’ll re-allocate funding and people from something else to this – it really isn’t “plus/and” – it’s almost always “either/or”.
I just wish they had fewer initiatives. Why not so one or two things really well instead of doing 15 things poorly? I feel as if Common Core ALONE, for example, done really well, would require years and a focused investment.
If you don’t set priorities, they will be set anyway in practice. “Plus/and” is Duncan’s favorite slogan but it’s nonsense. In practice it will be first priority, second, third and so on. This will shoot to the top of the list displacing something else and then 3 months from now something else will be launched and that will shoot to the top. It’ll end with everything half-assed and incomplete and they’ll all point back at schools and say schools failed and never look at their own practice.
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My eldest graduated college right in the middle of the financial crash. The speaker at his graduation was clearly rattled by this- like a lot of people he had obviously assumed financial system people knew what they were doing so finding out they were all basically making blind bets at a casino was disorienting for a lot of us. What we had been told about how savvy and incredibly smart they are was not true and that became clear all of a sudden.
But, man, his speech was GRIM. I’m all for telling young people the truth and the truth was they were coming into a collapse but I felt as if he was transferring his fear and anxiety to them in a way that wasn’t fair to them because they just live in the present- they don’t live in whatever secure world he thought he was living in. I didn’t feel they needed a grim recitation of “challenges” they would have to surmount. They know. In a lot of ways they know better than any 50 year old that it’s more difficult to make their way than it was. None of this is news to them. They’ve seen it in their own families for 20 years.
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We do a thing at our public school where adults from the community come in and talk to juniors and seniors about what they’re doing after high school. I know lots of public schools have lots of these programs (which we never hear about) but I’ve taken part in it and it seems worthwhile. It is dicey though because you DO tend to steer them and I’m not the holder of all wisdom. Some of their plans scare the hell out of me and I think they’re bad ideas but I don’t really feel as if I can tell them “Dear God, NO, do not sign up for that crap online for-profit in ‘criminal justice” or you will be making 9 dollars an hour as a security guard and be in debt FOREVER” – although that’s probably true.
It’s hard to know how far to go. Trumping their parents or other adults they trust seems like “too far” but a lot of them do get terrible advice from all kinds of places.
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Arne Duncan and his pal Rahm need to take a long walk on a short pier. They have done considerable damage to public education and don’t have grace or intelligence to admit their complicity – along with their other buddy Obama.
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DeVos has a cadre of Secret Service protectors. How much protection does Duncan have? That’s the question the richest 0.1% should be asking themselves.
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Right, Arne has special insights on dropouts, many of whom joined gangs because they were just not academically challenged enough in school, while gangbanging gives them that much needed intellectual stimulation. Yeah, right.
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SomeDAM–LOVE your poem, “Can Arne Duncan Save Chicago From Arne Duncan?”
Made me laugh SO hard–thanx!!!
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