From Politico:
Former Obama Education Secretary Arne Duncan endorsed the notion of pulling all public school children out of school until gun laws change. Duncan’s former aide, Peter Cunningham, tweeted on Friday: “Maybe it’s time for America’s 50 million school parents to simply pull their kids out of school until we have better gun laws.” Duncan said it’s a “brilliant” idea that’s “tragically necessary. What if no children went to school until gun laws changed to keep them safe? My family is all in if we can do this at scale. Parents, will you please join us?” (The Twitter links are in the post.)
Now, they know that nothing happens quickly in Congress. They know the NRA controls the Republican majority. Even if Democrats won both houses of Congress (a big if), Trump would veto anything bill that offended the NRA? Are they suggesting that schools should close for a year or two or three or four or five?
Should we take this seriously? Or is it grandstanding from a guy who was Secretary of Education for 7 years and said nothing (that I remember) about gun violence?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I never thought I would find myself agreeing with Duncan about something.
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Bob Shepherd, how well do you know Duncan? Before you agree with Duncan, think about this advice from SunTzu.
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
It’s also, “been said that your enemy’s enemy is your friend. But is your enemy’s friend ever your friend?”
Has Duncan done anything in his life we can trust? Words are easy to say, just look at Trump’s endless lies and exaggerations and misinformation, but actions (the history of an individual’s behavior) reveal the real person … someone, we dare not turn our backs on.
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A stopped clock is right twice a day.
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Re: A stopped clock is right twice a day.
Unless it’s on military time, and then only once.
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Here’s another one that I am sure is near and dear to Arne’s heart and that was simply an oversight:
Boycott school until test laws change.
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Or how about this?
Boycott school until Deformers like Duncan change
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No one would get educated then.
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Exactly
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Betsy and her followers would love to see our schools closed. Privateers would jump right into that situation and their goal would be accomplished. Not a good idea.
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Lucy Kemp: whatever the abstract merits of the idea, when it’s coming from a charter* member of the rheephorm establishment, for those that at first glance see some good coming out of this, remember that old saw—
Beware getting what you wish for!
Thankfully, after your incisive and sober comments the thread delved into the nuts and bolts of how this would work out in reality. Not Rheeality, where Arne Duncan lives.
As has been mentioned on this blog before, this emanates from the same people that have arrogantly anointed [“appointed” is too weak a word] themselves the leaders of the “new civil rights movement of our time” with the mission of carrying to a conclusion the “choice” movement of an earlier era [or did it ever really end?]. You know, old wine in new bottles, just that the segregation academies of yesteryear are now replaced with the resegregation academies of the charter schools…and where the rheephormsters have their hands on the levers of power, in public schools as well.
And don’t get me started on vouchers aka “opportunity scholarships.”
Before signing off, I want to make it clear I mean no disrespect to folks like Bob Shepherd and others. Genuine give-and-take, when it starts off, can include a lot of false starts. As a top athlete I read about recently put it, s/he learned a lot more from making mistakes than getting things correct right away.
And a caveat: I too am curious how the Parkland students might react to this.
Wouldn’t it be a hoot if the corporate reform education crowd, trying to hijack mass sentiment, got their own gimmick “hijacked” by [horror of horrors!] people with hearts and souls and integrity?????
😏
Just sayin’…
😎
P.S. *Does anyone think I didn’t use “charter” intentionally????
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Maybe it’s time for 50 million parents to pull their children out of schools to protest what Arne did to public education.
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Boycott Duncan until school laws change?
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I don’t trust that DUNCE. He’s a little cocky sneak with no brains and no morals. He knows nothing, except how to kiss butt.
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Great comment and oh so true! Also, why is it that when these people move out of office suddenly they are on our side. For example I read where Mike Bloomberg is talking about how great teachers are and they need this and that. When Bloomberg was mayor of NYC and in charge of our NYC schools he made a complete fuken disaster of the system constantly talking about firing teachers and closing schools!!!!
As they say, you can’t make this sht up.
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Then the charter schools can take over – and much more easily. Too cynical on my part?
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Since they are both charter school enthusiasts the same thought crossed my mind. Close the public schools, leave the charters open.
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It sounded like a come-on and a set-up to me when he said his “family is all in,” because his kids go to the private University of Chicago Lab School.
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I don’t know about Duncan but I think former President Obama put forth a very good effort to try to regulate weapons- he failed, but there’s no shame in that. He tried.
I don’t know about other public school parents but my days of taking advice from ed reformers on public schools are over. If they want to advise public schools they’re going to have to stop making careers out of attacking them. I don’t think it makes any sense to take advice ON public schools from people who oppose the existence of public schools.
What do the student leaders of the Parkland group think? If they were promoting it I might consider it. They are leaders I might consider following.
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This “brilliant” idea depends on the assumption (pure speculation, really) that 1) Congress would act if a large enough number of students stayed home from school and 2) such a hypothetical minimum would actually stay home.
Where is the evidence that either of those assumptions is true?
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Since when has BLArne ever worried about evidence of his assumptions being true?
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My big concern is public schools listen to DeVos and the reformers in the federal government and turn schools into grim, joyless, locked-down places where no one will WANT to go.
Please don’t hire contractors and “harden” your schools. None of these people use public schools for their own children. They’ll happily turn yours into a juvenile detention center. Don’t take their advice.
Please don’t take funding from instruction or things children enjoy and put that funding towards turning schools into locked compounds.
Find better consultants. Ask yourselves if Betsy DeVos has done one thing to improve any public school anywhere in her entire career, and if the answer is “no” then THIS will be no different. There are people who believe public schools are valuable. Find one of them to advise you on security.
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While metal detectors did cut down on the number of weapons that came into my last school, enterprising students have no difficulty getting them in. I am not going to lay out how; I’m not sure why the news media is eager to tell us every little detail. The vast majority of kids appreciated the added security, even those who might be inclined to bring weapons. Most of the time it was because of some (misguided?) attempt to protect themselves. With concerted efforts to eliminate them, kids didn’t feel the need to bring weapons. The schools were a much safer environment than their neighborhoods. At some point, though, we have to face the fact that guns are far too easy to obtain. I would rather have an angry or emotionally disturbed kid wielding a knife than a shotgun. Gun laws are too lax.
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According to Everytown.org, there have been 312 school shootings in America since 2013.
“When it comes to American children being exposed to gunfire, these shootings are just the tip of the iceberg. A report by the Urban Institute showed that in a single school year in Washington, DC, there were at least 181 gunshots in the vicinity of schools during school hours and a majority of these gunshots occurred near a small number of schools. And school shootings have long-term impacts on the school community as a whole: a recent analysis of school shootings found that those involving a homicide reduced student enrollment in the affected schools, and depressed students’ standardized test scores by nearly 5 percent.”
https://everytownresearch.org/school-shootings/#
The Washington Post has spent the past year determining how many children have been exposed to gun violence during school hours since the Columbine High massacre in 1999. [Updated May 18 at 4:02 p.m.]
“The Post has found that at least 141 children, educators and other people have been killed in assaults, and another 284 have been injured.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/local/school-shootings-database/?utm_term=.80b4761390d1
Now let’s compare that 141 deaths from school shootings with the total number of homicides in the United States caused by firearms since 1999.
“Gun homicides kill about 13,000 people every year in the United States.”
http://www.health.com/family/gun-violence-statistics-public-health
13,000 x 18 (to the end of 2017) = 234,000 gun homicides in the United States compared to 141 children killed at a public school by a firearm in the hands of a lunatic.
141 is 0.06-percent of 234,000
The facts speak for themselves. Public schools are still much safer than what happens outside of those schools.
Let’s break it down further:
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, there were 98,817 public schools during the 2009-2010 school year. For more information, see other U.S. education facts. In fall 2017, about 50.7 million students will attend public elementary and secondary schools.
What are the odds that one of those 50.7 million students spread out over almost 99,000 public schools will end up dead because of a lunatic shooting up their school?
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I alluded elsewhere that the attacks may be not as as random as it may seem, but this conspiracy theory would be too evil even for Beastie. Dropping school seems the only viable – literally – option at this point, whether Duncan supports it or not. Where else in the world parents send their kids to school as if to a death trap? In Afghanistan, maybe?
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You know that many thousands more kids die in car accidents every year than in school shootings, right?
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Kids don’t die in just school shootings, they also die in accidental shootings when kids get their hands on unsecured guns, suicides, random shootings in which children are killed by accident as “collateral damage” from some gang shooting. Would all those gun deaths of children be equal to the car deaths? I’m sure that probably more die in automotive deaths which proves what? That we should do nothing about gun control because cars kill more people than guns?
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What’s your point?
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Accidents can never be totally prevented, despite all kinds of safety efforts (seat belts, airbags, etc.)
Murders are intentional, not accidents.
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My point is your hyperbole. School shootings, as often as we hear about them, are still very rare and account for very few child deaths, proportionate to all causes of child deaths. Calling schools a “death trap” is risible. You don’t consider your car a “death trap”, do you? Yet your child is more likely to die there than at school.
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dienne what is your point
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Dienne, I don’t see why you are bringing up other ways of getting killed. In doing so you sould like a corporate bean-counter “these brakes can fail in 0.01% and cause fatality, this will cost us so much in damages and then our stock will drop because of the ruined reputation, but re-doing the brakes will cost so much, which is more expensive. Also, re-doing the brakes is a certain spending, while the accident is not guaranteed to happen.” Listen to yourself, these are kids you are talking about. These are not grown-up men who signed up voluntarily to spend their time in the mud, being shelled. These are kids who go to school for fun and knowledge, and they get bullets instead. In your cold-hearted comparison you complietely disgregard the psychological terror of constantly having the fear in your stomach, in your whole body, that – bam! this moment, someone will storm in and kills you or your friends. This is akin Afghanis or Yemenis, who constantly hear buzzing of American-made drones in the sky and they don’t know who will be the target, who will be blown up into pieces along with their family or friends or bride. This is constant, 24-hr day fear. The schoolkids are lucky, they have it for 6 hours a day only, what a relief.
Have you noticed from the reports, that the gunner in Santa Fe school “exchanged shots” with the police, yet miraculously he came out of this unscathed? At the same time, an innocent person who failed to show his bare hands, gets a dozen bullets in his chest and head. Why this happens? Because the police officers are scared for their lives and do not care about others’. They can kill an unarmed person out of fear for their life, but taking on an armed man shooting at them, this they cannot do. Therefore, the police is useless, but they add to the psychological pressure and horror when they keep every student in the sights of their guns, barking them commands to raise their arms and show palms of their hands. This is humiliating and disgraceful.
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Back Again wrote in its previous comment, “Why this happens? Because the police officers are scared for their lives and do not care about others’. They can kill an unarmed person out of fear for their life, but taking on an armed man shooting at them, this they cannot do.”
My reply to BA, “Total ignorant, biased BS!”
I’m a former US Marine and combat vet. Most police, especially in urban settings are also combat vets. Many combat vets, police an/or military, have PTSD from experiencing combat, and this wires them to react without taking the time to think it over because thinking it over before acting will get you KILLED or severely injured.
But there is more to it than that.
That is why I am suggesting you take the time and effort to move out of your programmed, tribal biased thinking and educate yourself so you understand why you think the way you do and how you “might” be able to cure yourself of the thinking you displayed above.
To do that, read this piece from the April 2018 National Geographic Magazine that has nothing to do with PTSD. Read every word and you “might” understand why the police react the way they do in different situations and what’s happening to change that.
“Why Do We See So Many Things as ‘Us vs. Them’?”
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/04/things-that-divide-us/
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Man, I thought I could be slow on the uptake sometimes. What Dienne says is true. It is not only risible but also ludicrous to call schools “death traps”. That is a falsehood and lie and Dienne is right to call you out on it, BackAgain.
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BackAgain – I think I’m making my point clearly, but I’ll try to type slower for you in any case. My problem with your comment is you calling public schools “death traps”. The fact is that schools remain statistically among the safest places on the planet. By calling them “death traps”, you are doing exactly what the rephormers want – denigrating public schools and opening up yet another excuse to close them and funnel money to private schools masquerading as “public” [sic] charter schools. You are also denigrating the millions of people who work in public schools and the students who attend them.
Furthermore, you are in essence supporting the already harmful and draconian policies like “zero tolerance” and “no excuses”, along with things like metal detectors, searches, etc. which are not only harmful to the students on whom they’re inflicted, but are a gross incursion on our rights as citizens (yes, students have rights).
I don’t know if you’re insisting on the “death trap” image because you’re genuinely scared (in which case, please limit your consumption of mass media, most especially cable news), or whether you have some kind of agenda or angle. In any case, your concern is, at best, overstated. Please keep things in perspective. Again, allowing your child to ride in a car is more dangerous than allowing your child to attend public school, yet nearly all parents do the former without thinking of any danger.
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I missed Back Again’s comment about public schools being death traps.
Anywhere the public gathers be it churches, temples, mosques, public schools, crowded farmers markets, crowded nightclubs, charter schools, malls, art fairs, stadiums, big name marathons, award ceremonies, movie theaters, popular sporting events, crowded popular restaurants, are all potential targets of mentally ill people with firearms and Alt-Right Christian racist terrorists and Islamic fundamentalist terrorists.
How about some help. What’s worse than an ignorant, biased idiot? I can’t think of the proper term to label Back Again with.
Politifact published the data on domestic terrorism and who’s behind it. I suspect that Back Again is a member of the far right and his or her people are responsible for almost 50% of terrorist attacks in the United States.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2017/aug/16/look-data-domestic-terrorism-and-whos-behind-it/
PolitiFact also published “The Facts on mass shootings in the United States”
Churches and the Orlando nightclub shooting are mentioned in this piece.
How do mass shootings in the U.S. compare to other countries?
“Mass shootings do happen in other countries. But they do not happen with the same frequency as in the United States. …
“Two researchers — Jaclyn Schildkraut of the State University of New York in Oswego and H. Jaymi Elsass of Texas State University — analyzed mass shootings in 11 countries, covering the period from 2000-14. Aside from the United States, they looked at Australia, Canada, China, England, Finland, France, Germany, Mexico, Norway and Switzerland.
“The United States has more mass shootings — and more people cumulatively killed or injured — than the other 10 nations combined, according to their research. While part of this is because the United States has a much bigger population than all but China, the difference can’t be explained by skewed population numbers alone.”
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2017/nov/08/facts-mass-shootings-united-states/
And let’s not forget what happened at the music festival in Las Vegas last year.
“The 2017 Las Vegas shooting occurred on the night of Sunday, October 1, 2017 when a gunman opened fire on a crowd of concertgoers at the Route 91 Harvest music festival on the Las Vegas Strip in Nevada, leaving 58 people dead and 851 injured.”
Has there been even one public school shooting that comes close to the 2017 Las Vegas shooting at that music festival?
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Señor Swacker: ah, public schools are “death traps.”
Goes right up there with “factories of failure.”
On second thought, and it gives me no pleasure writing this, that’s a new low…
😧
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Lloyd, I could care less about their PTSD, because the police surely does not care about the citizens’ PTSD or asthma for this matter. What I DO care is not getting killed, and I would also prefer not being humiliated or beaten up in the process. There have been voices to explicitly prohibit former military servicemen to join police, and your comment confirms the necessity of that. The police must be de-militarized, and the policemen must be recruited from those who DID NOT serve in the military.
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It is obvious that you did not take the time to read that piece in the National Geographic Magazine that I provided a link to.
BackAgain is not interested in anything but spreading his misleading propaganda. The facts do not support what BackAgain spouts from his or her biased finger tips.
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“BackAgain – I think I’m making my point clearly, but I’ll try to type slower for you in any case.” – That is ok, I read as fast as usual.
“My problem with your comment is you calling public schools “death traps”. The fact is that schools remain statistically among the safest places on the planet.” – You seem to have disregarded the psychological aspect of constantly expecting a shooting, and you concentrated on the numbers and statistics again. It is not only how many people die, it is how they die, how do they expect to die, and what do they feel while expecting to die every frigging second.
“Furthermore, you are in essence supporting the already harmful and draconian policies like “zero tolerance” and “no excuses”, along with things like metal detectors, searches, etc.” – Nope, I do not support them. They do not work, and only turn schools into prisons, that’s all they do. Pointless. Humiliating. Demoralizing. Dehumanizing.
“I don’t know if you’re insisting on the “death trap” image because you’re genuinely scared” – I genuinely am, this surprises you?
“In any case, your concern is, at best, overstated.” – How can you measure the sinking feeling in my stomach? How can you measure it for each of the students? What do you suggest, bring more concelors?
“Please keep things in perspective. Again, allowing your child to ride in a car is more dangerous than allowing your child to attend public school, yet nearly all parents do the former without thinking of any danger.” – As I told you, you are a bean-counter. But even in this case, it is very unlikely I kill ten other kids along with mine in a car crash. It is unlikely I can do it from a hundred feet away. Also, in case of a car crash one would try to avoid the worse, while in case of killing one wants to inflict the most damage. The psychological aspect of this is completely different as well.
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BackAgain, public schools certainly are not “death traps” in the literal sense that there is an appreciable likelihood that children who attend them will die. If school shootings have had such a severe psychological impact on you or your children that you have no choice but to withdraw them, that’s a shame, and I wish you the best. I have two kids in public school. One of them attends a high school that was the terminus of the West Side Highway terror attack last fall. I’ve asked her how that incident affected her, and she shrugged her shoulders. I’m glad that was her reaction, because it’s the rational reaction. Similarly, I live in NYC. I’ve “seen” a few terror attacks (including one up close, in 2001) in this city, and every time I stop to think about it, I’m stunned that there haven’t been more. I fully expect that, one of these days, someone’s going to get an AR-15 to Times Square, or Herald Square, or Central Park, or Fifth Avenue, or any other heavily trafficked spot in the city, and murder scores of people. So far, I don’t live in any fear of this happening, which is good, because, again, it’s the rational reaction to a risk that is statistically very low.
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All I can say, BackAgain is seek mental health assistance. That kind of fear is not healthy and is basically irrational. The reality is that there are threats all around us and any number of unpleasant ways you could die every day and there’s nothing you can do to be completely safe. But the other reality is that humans are remarkably resilient and, in fact, most of us don’t die from freakish things like school shooters. Most of us die from boring things like heart failure or stroke, usually at pretty advanced ages, and often caused by not taking care of ourselves very well. So go out and get some exercise, eat a healthy meal, spend quality time with your loved ones, get right with your higher power if you have one, and stop worrying about schools being “death traps”.
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“The reality is that there are threats all around us and any number of unpleasant ways you could die every day” – Yes, and those caused by the usage of firearms are completely preventable. Compare number of school killngs and number of fatalities with the whole other world, really, do so, there is statistics on Wikipedia.
“But the other reality is that humans are remarkably resilient” – any other time I would agree with you, after all this planet is several billions people overpopulated. But go and say this straight in the face of the parents and classmates of those kids. Again, driving the car I do not feel like I am trapped in a prison. I do not feel that someone wants to kill me – they might involuntarily, but they do not want to. I know that if there is a rogue driver a hundred feet away, he is unlikely to get me. The whole dynamics is vastly different, so you cannot compare cold numbers.
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I’m gathering that something specific has happened to you that you have not processed. You are far too worried for this to be vicariously induced PTSD, unless you live on cable news practically 24/7. In any case, my advice stands. Please seek help. It is neither rational nor healthy to be that afraid of something that is that unlikely to happen to you. As FLERP! points out, New York was the scene of the biggest terror attacks on U.S. soil and numerous smaller attacks since, yet millions of people go about their daily lives there and hundreds of millions more willingly visit there every year. Constant gut-wrenching fear of what could happen is debilitating and you deserve to live better than than. I wish you the best.
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Did Duncan come out in support of the teacher strikes in WV, AZ, KY, etc.?
Sounds like grandstanding.
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Erich, If Duncan endorsed the teachers’ strikes, it was a closely hidden secret.
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Grandstanding (and trying to distinguish himself from Secretary DeVos).
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In many ways Duncan was worse and more dangerous than DeVos. As many folks of color point out, a frothing racist is better than a mealy mouthed one. At least you know where you stand. DeVos is obvious and ineffective. Duncan was a bit smoother, but did more damage.
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Agreed that this is just political grandstanding, triangulating as Third Way calls it, and agreed that Duncan is a far more dangerous version of DeVos. As a matter of fact, they’re really in the same camp. The boycott will not happen. But if it did, I theorize that it would give DeVos-Duncan an excuse — as with a natural disaster like a flood — to charterize the entire country.
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Imagine the secure area in an airport. The area past where you go thru the metal detector. Now imagine spending 180 days a year for 12 years there, from the time you are 5 until you are 17. That’s what President Trump wants for your kids.
We can do better than that. Tell the politicians to go back to the drawing board and come up with some better ideas. That’s a non-starter.
Or, better yet, why don’t people who work in, use and value public schools design security. They’ll do a better job.
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For many kids, including my own high schooler, that’s the way school already is and it has nothing to do with Trump.
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I’m sorry to hear that but my son likes school, generally, and I would like to keep it that way.
I don’t want to spend school funding on some rip-off “security” contractor based on the recommendations of Donald Trump.
I don’t know what it is with these people, comparing schools to other places- they’re not banks, or airports, or food trucks, or Uber.
They’re schools, and ed reformers have done enough damage without imposing more of their faddish schemes on more public schools.
They should just leave us alone. They’re not helping.
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America. Insanity. I’ve written this sentiment over and over again, but it bears repeating. The focus on school safety, school security and lock down or active shooter drills is a useless distraction. Students gather outside schools at arrival and dismissal. Students go on field trips. Students attend athletic events. Students have recess on playgrounds. A boy or man intent on mayhem has no shortage of vulnerable targets. This madness will not end until we have severe restrictions on gun possession. This madness will not end until we have an honest discussion about masculinity in our culture. Boys are steeped in violence and the country is steeped in weapons. Boys are absorbing violence in video games, films and sports, particularly the ugly mixed martial arts. The message is “get even.” When boys are isolated, lonely, bullied, shamed, shunned or marginalized, the narrative they fall back on is “get even.” Boys need love and acceptance. Schools must teach empathy, not competition. Our society is ill and our pathetic response is to quarantine and pray without addressing the disease.
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¡Sí señor Nelson, Exacto!
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School violence is one more reason to enact school choice/voucher/ESA programs. Parents should have the right to opt-out of publicly operated schools, for any reason, or for no reason.
Failure to properly provide for safety of school children, certainly constitutes ample justification for withdrawal. As it stands now. families are compelled to pay taxes, to send their children to schools, where their children may have to come home in body bags.
(Some) Public schools not only are incapable of providing an education that is adequate, they cannot even protect the lives of their students and faculty (Two teachers died last Friday).
Secretary Duncan, might just have the impetus to force governments to being in meaningful school choice.
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Charles, that’s enough from you for today. I can take just so much, no more.
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Charles, obviously was sarcastic. Well played, Charles, to some you may come across as overboard. But this is what we should do in times like these, to break through people’ protective bubbles.
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@BackAgain: I am not repeat not being sarcastic. I am 100% on the level. I am serious. There are a number of factors behind the national push for school choice. I am just saying that school safety is becoming one of them.
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Stop, Charles, you want government to pay for religious schools and even home schooling. You have said so repeatedly.
Honesty is the best policy.
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I am 100% honest, and I never use sarcasm. I support school choice. Individuals receive BEOGs at the university level, to attend religiously-based universities. Families receive vouchers, to attend religiously-based K-12 schools.
People who are opposed to governments providing financial assistance to families, who opt-out of public schools, should be supportive of ESAs, where the families can use their own money, to meet the costs of non-public schools.
“Opportunity scholarships” where corporations and individuals can assist families in educational choice, are a terrific way, to extend educational choice to families, without involving direct government payments (which some people are opposed to).
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Charles,
Perhaps you didn’t notice that this Blog is dedicated to the strengthening and improvement of public schools. I am unalterably opposed to vouchers for religious and public schools as well as any other form of privatization, such as cybercharters and other privately managed schools. You are entitled, of course, to differ, which you have done hundreds of times on this blog. I warn you, however, that if you have nothing new to add, your repetitive posts about “school choice” (which originated among racists in the 1950s) will be deleted.
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Now that takes the cake, Charles. Using mass murder to justify the creation of more charter schools and voucher programs. Know you no shame?
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Steve Nelson, obviously, Charles has no shame whatsoever. He’s pretty much a one-note wonder. “More vouchers! More charter schools!”
That’s Charles, all right. He apparently hates to pay taxes for the public good, and I think he has chosen public schools as one of his bête noires.
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@Zorba: It is not a question of shame. Parents need options to secure a safe and proper education for their children. I am not opposed to the paying of taxes to provide for an educated society. I live in Fairfax County VA, which has some of the finest publicly-operated schools in the USA.
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What?!?
This is a new low, even for you, Charles.
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Charles, I can see the scenario play out where a parent moves their child to a “choice” school and the “choice” school gets shot up.
Well then Charles, does the voucher system guarantee your child safety in another school? I don’t think so.
Your comment fails to recognize that the shooter kids parents moved him to a “voucher” school also and then he shot up that school now instead. Oh well then you might want to contact Betsy.
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@Shooterkid: There is no guarantee, that moving a student from a public school, to a non-public school will give that child immunity from school violence.
Nevertheless, as of now, non-public schools are statistically safer that public schools. And you never hear of a home-schooled child being shot by a deranged student. see
https://info.richmondalarm.com/news/are-private-schools-statistically-safer-than-public-schools
Transferring a problem student (potential shooter) to a different school, does not mean that the student is less likely to become a school shooter.
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Charles,
You have hit upon the solution. Every child should be home schooled. Of course. One parent must stop working. The nation goes backwards as few students gain access to advanced courses in math or science. Sports teams dissolve. Only the rich can afford tutors. All schools close. Trust you to find the key to the new Dark Ages.
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I have never advocated for universal home schooling. Never. There are over one million American families currently educating their children at home. It is quite reasonable to assume, that if families can get vouchers/ESAs, that more families would be able to have one parent stop working outside the home for wages, and thus enable an expansion of the number of families, who choose this option.
School choice may be possible for some families to have “partial” home schooling, and then have their children attend the local public school for some classes, and have other classes taught at home. Public schools will still be able to support extra-curricular activities, and home schooled children can participate.
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I nominate this for the weirdest comment of the day.
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Yeah it was the school’s fault. Dad who didn’t secure his weapons has no culpability. Charles, midday vodka and web comments are a bad combination.
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There is enough blame to go around, for the recent shooting(s). The alleged perpetrators had easy access to deadly weapons. The parents did not properly secure their weapons. The Florida shooter had 39 separate police calls to his residence. The Texas shooter broadcast “born to kill” on his social media page.
Law enforcement personnel were held off for 30 (thirty) minutes, by one teen maniac with a shotgun and a pistol.
School policy and lack of preparation, were certainly “contributory factors” in the shooting, but the school does not hold sole responsibility.
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The school employed two fully armed polic officers.
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I guess they were supposed to charge the offender guns blazing. I guess one officer was critically wounded, so he fulfilled his duty (snark alert).
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Ouch. How dare you use the death – the murder – the calculated terrorist attacks on schools to promote charter schools.
“They cannot even protect the lives…” That’s just sick.
So much more to say but why bother.
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@Wait,What: I am just pointing up, that all of the recent shootings have occurred in publicly-operated schools. Obviously, these schools were not able to properly provide a safe environment (there were other contributory factors, as well).
If parents have legitimate concerns, that the public schools are unable to protect their children’s lives, then the parents should have the option to withdraw their children from the unsafe schools.
I do not see how these recent attacks are “calculated terrorist attacks”. The Valentine’s day massacre in Florida and the Santa Fe shootings were perpetrated by lone individuals. These attacks were terrible, but I do not believe they were “terrorism” as the term is commonly understood.
The national push for school choice, is based on many factors. Academics, are of course, a major impetus. The desire of over one million American families to pursue home-schooling, is another.
School safety, is fast becoming another contributor, to the campaign for expanded school choices for America’s most precious resource, our children.
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Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education and commented:
While the initial thought of this sounds like it has possibilities. Somehow, the DeVoss, the Waltons, Kochs, and Jeb Bushes of the world would try to twist this into another excuse to promote vouchers and charter schools.
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“Boycott Duncan”
Boycott Duncan
Even help
Change to pumpkin
After twelve
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Duncan spoke out quite often vs gun violence and the need for stronger gun control as did Obama.
Duncan gave his last speech as Ed Secretary about this in 2015 https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/arne-duncan-calls-for-addressing-gun-violence-in-final-speech-as-education-secretary/2015/12/30/de05521c-ada5-11e5-b711-1998289ffcea_story.html
He also talked about it in this video interview after Newtown http://www.pbs.org/video/after-newtown-interview-secretary-education-arne-duncan/
Also here in 2013: https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2013/01/18/now-time-reduce-gun-violence-schools-and-communities
He also spoke at a gun control rally in DC the same year: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-guns-march/thousands-march-against-gun-violence-in-washington-idUSBRE90P0DE20130126
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I think the real question here is why should we listen to ANYTHING Duncan or his brain say at this point?
These two clowns are the exact opposite of “brilliant”.
This idea is just dumb. There is no evidence it would have the desired effect on Congress even if it could somehow be carried out.
Do Duncan and his brain have any idea how hard it would be to get even a million parents to agree to take their kids out of school? (For how long and with what repurcussions and with what guarantee that it would have any effect on Congress what’s over?)
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Last week I mentioned that I had formed an impression of Secretary Duncan as a dim bulb. This pronouncement serves as evidence for that, by any standard I am prepared to accept.
What are working parents to do with their children in these circumstances? I work with kids whose parents–both of them–are working at least one job, and often two or three. S\
So these kids will lose the one structured, supervised environment in which they spend time each day?
This is monumentally stupid.
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Duncan and his brain obviously did not think about all the kids who would be at home unsupervised with unsecured guns in their homes.
But hey, logic is not one of Duncan’s strong points.
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I keep seeing ‘Duncan’ and ‘brain’ together in the same sentence which is very confusing. What brain has a sycophant? Duncan’s brain is like Dick Cheney’s heart. Both were replaced with artificial devices long ago.
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Privatization proponent, Peter Cunningham responded to blogger Fred Klonsky’s criticism of closing schools until something was done about guns with the question,
“Do you have a better idea?”
Klonsky responded on his blog today, calling Peter Cunningham’s response “the perfect metaphor for corporate school reform.”
Two things are wrong with this idea.
First, the plan has no evidence to show that it works…just like closing schools and opening charters or giving kids vouchers, the “reformer” would say, “Do you have a better idea?” Just because one has an idea doesn’t mean it would work.
Second, as per Klonsky’s tweet, there were 32 shootings in Chicago this past weekend. None were in a school. Closing schools won’t solve that gun-related problem.
Reasonable, common-sense gun laws and enforcement, will reduce gun violence. It’s had an impact in other countries…but they didn’t have the NRA.
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I love the “do you have a better idea?” argument. So you’re in the hospital with some as yet undiagnosed illness that the doctors can’t seem to figure out. Some unqualified consultant shows up with a chainsaw and declares that it’s time to amputate your leg. Your protestations are met with, “well, do you have a better idea? Clearly these medical people don’t know what they’re doing.” Okay, well gee then, saw away I guess.
Of course, that wouldn’t happen in a hospital (yet) because the rephormers haven’t (yet) decided that they’re qualified to practice medicine, but the equivalent happens at schools all the time, very often with the full consent of the adminimals running the school.
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Where have I heard that before?
Ah, yes
“Got a better idea?”
“Stop hitting teachers
With a VAMmer”
“Got a better idea?”
“Stop supporting
The charter scammer”
“Got a better idea?”
“Stop flooding schools
With techno-glamour”
“Got a better idea?”
“Stop pushing all
The flim and flam here”
“Got a better idea?”
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If it were possible to get most parents on board for a one day demonstration during school time or on a holiday, Saturday or Sunday, it would send a strong message to the politicians that the parents have had enough of the slaughters. The kids walked out of schools during class time to send a message to the politicians, why not the parents? This is not to complement or endorse Duncan in any way, shape or form. He is anti-public schools, he’s been an utter disaster for the schools and his remarks concerning New Orleans were despicable and beneath contempt.
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Is there something about elevation to high office that causes cerebral anoxia?
Or is brain 🧠 death 💀 just one of the qualifications for high office?
Inquiring minds 🤔 want to know.
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My vote is that brain death is a qualification for high office.
That and being able to shoot hoops (in Duncan’s case)
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I read that as cerebral ANOREXIA, which perhaps works as well. The school reformers have so very blatantly been starving their larger understanding of the world down into the tiniest of formats.
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I remember when Arne closed schools in the Chicago neighborhoods and forced children to walk and take the bus to schools in gun and gang infested areas. Funny he didn’t have anything to say then. Google it and you will see the headlines. All those youngsters being murdered in Chicago and no one cared. He didn’t do anything to address the Chicago crime issue now he has plenty to say because children in elite zip codes are being murdered. EVERY child is important and doing nothing is non acceptable no matter what your name is.
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Leave it to the bafoon Duncan to come up with something so utterly evil. Sure, everyone should withdraw their children from public schools to homeschool and then they would have to enroll their children into online schooling. This would be perfect for the edtech sector. Billy Gates and Marky Mark would be the richest men on the planet. Duncan should subject his own children to his hairbrained ideas before he opens up his pie hole to comment on the rest of Ameerica’s children.
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For the fifth time since the start of last year, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos will testify publicly before Congress on Tuesday.
Watch and see if any of your elected representatives bother to mention public schools.
I predict 90% of the K-12 discussion will be charters and private schools.
They may veer off into the public schools 90% of their constituents attend, but only to compare them unfavorably to charters and private schools.
There’s really something wrong with an entire federal government that utterly ignores 90% of schools. It doesn’t have to be like this. We could hire and pay people who support public schools. That’s an option.
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Of course you’re right, Chiara. But this “federal government” also ignores 90% of every other public good. This is no longer a federal government. It is the enforcement arm of the plutocrats.
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The question, unfortunately, today is who will kill this week? I am actually for Arne’s idea: the only way things will change concerning killings, guns, and testing is if parents rise up and do something drastic. If the whole school is absent, it would make a statement. They say that the state of mental health has worsened over the last few years. I would say it follows the increase in forced testing. Who’s to say whether the kid who killed in Texas wasn’t perhaps overwhelmed with the testing situation?
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I will be the one to say that testing was not a direct cause of the shooting, at least not an immediate cause. Establishing causation is difficult for the historian, so historians and other detectives are trained in caution.
I do, however, take your point that testing has contributed to the atmosphere in school that makes more children with more mental difficulties stay in school. This is more true of graduation requirements and other punitive rules put in place by reformers during the past two decades or so.
That said, closing down school until Arne gets his political will done sounds a bit looney. Maybe we need to have a mass march to protest all that Arne has done to move the climate of school in the direction of shooting. I have a slogan:””go away , Arne”
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Sorry but some of these posts sound like conspiracy theory or sadly self-serving.
Leave your politics and anger at Duncan at the door – he put a spotlight on violence that most have ignored for decades.
Kids and adults died. They were murdered in a terrorist attack. The school folks did all the right things to slow down the shooter. That’s the goal. You can’t prevent a terrorist attack unless you intercept the planning (and schools DO do that). But how about leaving testing and charters out of the picture. You sound like the NRA blaming everything but the root cause.
As for Arne Duncan – maybe others spoke out but he was one of the first people to recognize and acknowledge that kids have been dying AROUND schools for years in the streets and no one has said a word – no one has protested – and if they get covered at all it’s sensationalized to get people to watch the evening news or it’s on page 15 buried in the newspaper.
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“They were murdered in a terrorist attack.”
No they weren’t. The killer was/is a deranged person. I do not see how you can assign a “desire to instill fear in the population” as a motive for this tragedy. A terrorist attack is specifically designed to cause that fear in others. That is not the case here, at least from what I’ve read.
Using that “terrorist” designation only serves those who seek to control and limit other people’s freedoms.
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In Utah, the money schools receive is based on average daily attendance.
This idea would destroy school budgets, and probably close many schools, throwing teachers out of work and students to go who-knows-where.
Arne Duncan had AMPLE opportunity to speak to this issue for the almost-eight years he was in power at the DOE. What did he say, particularly after Newtown? Nothing? Next to nothing? He sure didn’t use his bully pulpit to help push real gun reform through.
His suggestions, coming now when he has no concerns about staying in power, are ludicrous.
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When a mass shooting occurs in a public school, the reaction is to “harden” the site: add more police, add more surveillance cameras, add more door locks to prevent entry, issue IDs and uniforms, build higher fences around the property… and as public schools “harden” charter schools who carefully screen children look better and better… But in our country, the rights and liberties of gun owners seem to be more important than the rights and liberties of children…
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Sorry, but this has a whiff of ulterior motive to it. I can envision a campaign touting the “safety” of non-public and charter schools.
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You are correct Ernie about that “whiff”. Except I would call it stench as bad as when the pig farmer down the road spreads the hog manure on the fields.
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