Arne Duncan spent seven years as U.S. Secretary of Education, imposing bad ideas every year of his tenure.
Now, having been in charge for longer than almost anyone (except Richard Riley, Clinton’s Secretary of Education), Duncan is smearing U.S. education wherever he goes, all to promote his new book.
Nowhere does he admit that everything he did was a failure.
Evaluating teachers by test scores was a massive failure. States used teacher evaluation as an excuse to level fund their schools, leading to a national teacher shortage and massive disinvestment.
Common Core was a massive failure.
Arne’s school turnaround program was a massive failure.
Most states have dropped out of the federal testing consortia, in which Arne invested $360 million.
Expanding school choice set the basis for Betsy DeVos’ privatization agenda.
Charter schools do not get better results than public schools unless they cherrypick their students and kick out those with low scores.
NAEP scores were flat in 2015 and again in 2017, having absorbed Duncan’s failed policies.
Does he ever learn?
No.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This is Duncan stumping for an ed reformer in CA:
https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/08/03/opinion-forget-the-lies-in-the-state-school-superintendents-race/
The marketing change in ed reform is interesting. They no longer exclusively promote charter schools and vouchers. Instead they say they support “public education”.
“Public education” in ed reform encompasses everything, including vouchers for private schools, because in ed reform “public education” means publicly-FUNDED education.
Someone saw some polling, methinks. They dropped (specific) mention of the main focus of their movement, which is charters and vouchers. Must be time for rebranding ahead of November elections! Time for ed reformers to pretend they support existing public schools JUST long enough to get elected.
These folks are political pros. That’s why they make the big bucks.
They are definitely rebranding again. Slimy.
The USA has asked the OECD over and over why they are #17 in the world on PISA. The OECD has answered. 20% child poverty rate compounded by the fact that your poverty is concentrated.
David Berliner gets this.
Finland 5% child poverty. Not concentrated.
^^THIS^^
Hurricane Arne was the best thing to happen for Ed Reform.
More seriously, he remains Uber-dangerous as he fights to preserve his legacy/reputation (same with W). Very much prefer he stays quiet.
He doesn’t care. He’s trying to cash in.
Duncan reminds us of the old adage that it is better to keep your mouth shut than to open it and let everyone know what a fool you are
It is better to keep your mouth shut than to open it and let everyone know what a Dumbcan you are.
Blarney, Bla-a-arney Duncecap, king of the dumb profiteers!
Duncan is SO wrong! The facts reveal the truth and it isn’t what Duncan thinks. Arne Duncan is a paid minion, a liar, and a fraud.
The United States appears on the top Most education Countries in the world lists every year. There are several lists from different sources and the US makes every one of these lists.
The US was #6 on this list
“The OECD defines a country’s adult education level as the percentage of people ages 25-64 who have completed some kind of tertiary education in the form of a two- or four-year degree or vocational program. Based on these guidelines, explore which countries rank as the top 10 most educated in the world.”
http://www.usfunds.com/slideshows/here-are-the-10-most-educated-countries-in-the-world/#.W2h5p5MnaUk
If America’s education system was so bad, why do so many Chinese and other countries send their children here to earn an education?
Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) It may come as no shock to those who live here, but more international students choose to study in California than in any other state. A record high of more than 1 million foreign students came to America for higher education last school year.Nov 25, 2016
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-study-abroad-students-20161124-story.html
The Chinese are known for being obsessed with their children’s education and Chinese parents would not send their children to a country with a failed education system.
“Report Finds China Sends Most International Students to U.S. High Schools
“The report, compiled by the Institute of International Education (IIE), a nonprofit, revealed that around 2 in 5 international students enrolled in American high schools came from China and that the total number of students from China rose by 48 percent between 2013 and 2016.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/report-finds-china-sends-most-international-students-u-s-high-n792681
Duncan should quit bashing public schools and become a sports agent. He tries very hard to spin a pile of straw into gold, but it is a flop just like his term leading the DOE. While he mentions some positives like expanding Pell Grants, he has little to be proud of. He did not improve education for poor students at all despite his false claim. Market based education has caused the quality of education to fall nationally. It scapegoated and fired teachers, promoted the disinvestment in public education and attempted to impose a one size fits all test and punish regimen on public schools. I hope his disgusting book of lies is a total flop like him and all he stands for. Duncan should be exposed for selling lies, and he should be marginalized by the professional education community. He is irrelevant.
In one of the Rumplestilskin stories I read to my daughter some years ago, I recall that the spinner of gold grew so angry that he could not have the child that he stomped a hole in the floor and disappeared, never to be seen again. Given that, your image seems very appropriate.
Well-said!
Thank you Diane for always listing the truth. I am sure his “book tour” will be a HUGE flop – just like he was. My tweet to him today.
.@arneduncan tenure as USDOE sec. was a MASSIVE FAILURE – TY @DianeRavitch 4 always publishing the truth https://dianeravitch.net/2018/08/06/arne-duncan-the-u-s-education-system-is-not-top-ten-in-anything-it-runs-on-lies/
Love, A Public School Teacher!
#WeChoose #TBATs
Since most of Trump’s most ardent supporters and followers probably don’t read books because their hero and god brags that he doesn’t read books, they will also not be buying this book unless they do it to keep the fire going in their fireplace.
What a phony he is! Lives ruined, and he blithely peddles the smelly horse manure.
America ruins on Duncan”
America ruins on Duncan
The motto of Deform
Where Arne is the Flunk King
And failure is the norm
I wish it were, America runs from Duncan.
One of the foundations of corporate ed. reform is …
“U.S. schools suck!”
“U.S. schools suck!”
“U.S. schools suck!”
(repeat ad infinitum)
And then anyone who challenges this is in denial. That’s what prompted Arne’s infamous “white suburban moms” comment directed at those moms who actually like their kids suburban schools and teachers, and who don’t want them closed and re-opened as charters, nor do the want charters opened nearby, since those schools with drain funding away from their kids’ schools.
Why, they’re just in denial, and babying their spoiled under-performing children, said Arne. A bunch of “white suburban moms” who — unlike Arne and Arne’s corporate ed reform allies — are unable to be objective and face the fact that their kids and their kids’ schools are miserable failures in need of replacement with Acme Charter Incorporated schools.
Arne’s wholesale, unqualified bashing of U.S. schools brings to mind the infamous commercial that Michelle Rhee and her (now defunct) Students First put on during the 2012 Summer Olympics trumpeting the “U.S. schools suck!” message.
Forget about the fact that this ad viciously insulted millions of dedicated, hard-working teachers, administrators, other school workers, etc.
It compared the U.S. educational system to an inept, obese male gymnast competing against the rest of the world’s top-notch male gymnasts / school systems. Look that fat, effemiinate guy. Just as he can’t compete with the great gymnasts of the world, the U.S. School System can’t compete with the rest of the world’s schools systems.
It also ridiculed overweight people.
It was implicitly homophobic, with the overweight man acting effeminate in his floor routine.
In general, it derives its humor from the cruel bullying and degrading of others. (said someone in the comments section of Gary Rubensein’s article BELOW
Imagine back in August 2012, you’re a teacher, looking ahead to the new school year that’s starting soon. You want to relax and turn on the TV to watch the Olympics, and then you’re subjected to this unspeakable. Nazis-with-Jews level of demeaning propaganda attacking you — broadcast to tens of millions of U.S. citizens, no less.
The one positive development that arose out of this was that Michelle Rhee and company inadvertently and unknowingly dropped the mask they were wearing, and all showed themselves as they secretly and truly are beheath their facade — evil incarnate. They had no idea how much this would and did backfire on them. In spite of the backlash, neither Rhee nor her group Students First ever issued an apology, and the ad remains on YouTube.
Here’s the ad again:
Here’s teacher Gary Rubenstein’s outraged takedown of this:
http://garyrubinstein.teachforus.org/2012/07/22/first-ever-studentsfirst-video-that-did-not-make-me-laugh/
GARY RUBENSTEIN:
“One quote that is pretty inaccurate is when the announcer says ‘It appears that the once proud U.S. program has been relying too much on its reputation. I’d say they’re completely unprepared.’ They are referring to the apparent ‘crisis’ that on the 2009 international PISA tests, the U.S. 15 year olds ranked 17th in science and 25th in math out of 34 countries. The ‘once proud U.S. program’ comment implies that there was a time when the U.S. led the word on these international exams. Actually, we never have done well on these. In the 1964 FIMS test, we were 11th out of 12. These tests are not predictors of future economic strength, obviously since our students from 1964 have helped make the U.S. economy very strong.
“It is also unfair to compare our scores to the scores of the other countries since we have 22% of our students in poverty compared to single digits in most of the top countries. In an interesting analysis here we see that if we compare our schools with countries that have similar poverty levels, we would be at the top of the world in every category.
“But to take this Olympics analogy further, the United States has the highest obesity rate in the developed world. Even so, we still are very competitive in the Olympics. Yet, we still got the most medals (second most gold medals) in the 2008 summer games. So just because we have a higher percentage of students doing poorly on the PISA does not mean that we have lost our competitive edge.
“One other point about the Olympic analogy is that it assumes that these two ‘events’ math and science, are the two most important ones. Surely there are some events in the summer Olympics that the U.S. does not dominate. But we do quite well in the ‘important’ ones like the swimming and the gymnastics. Likewise, U.S. students dominate in the ‘important’ events throughout our history, like having creativity and going on to win Nobel Prizes.
“So I did not find this video amusing, except for the irony that they know about as much about comedy as they do about practical education reform.”
Read the COMMENTS section of Gary’s article for more on this.
Jack,
At the time, someone pointed out that the sport in which the flabby U.S. athlete was performing is a women’s sport, which underlines the homophobic message offered up by Rhee.
“Messaging” may not seem like much, but in education policy, which tends to be incredibly faddish, it counts for a lot. The Gates Foundation and other charter school backers didn’t just throw money at new projects. They convinced the public that education needed to change and that hidebound teachers unions were holding kids back. Somehow we reached a point where a lot of Democrats became convinced that tying teacher pay to how their kids performed on standardized tests or letting private operators take over public education was the great civil rights cause of their day. They were evangelicals. LeBron is, in his own way, preaching the opposite: He’s a wealthy, famous, and increasingly vocal civil rights advocate saying that you should work with a city and its public schools, not undercut them”
“Undercut” is a good description of what Duncan does to public schools, and by extension (of course) public school students.
The Obama Administration’s big problem is they can’t point to anything they did that improved public schools.
It will be the Trump Administration’s big problem too.
If you sell your “movement” as “improving public schools” you can’t then switch it up and work as hard as you can to replace public schools with an entirely different privatized model. That isn’t what you told the public you were offering. People in Ohio are pushing back against ed reformers for one very simple reason- they were misled. They weren’t told the plan was to replace public schools with a new system designed in think tanks and universities. They should have been told that.
https://slate.com/business/2018/08/lebron-james-akron-school-why-it-matters-that-i-promise-is-public.html
I feel like in a way public school advocates have left the ed reform “leaders” behind- they’re all but irrelevant for the vast majority of public schools now.
All the energy and action is with public school teachers and other advocates. The most exciting thing that happened for public school families this year was the teachers strikes and ed reformers didn’t have anything to do with that.
DeVos even sounds bored, like she’s reciting a grocery list. They are the status quo.
When does Duncan start pitching ed tech to public schools?
Ed reformers loathe public schools until it’s time to sell them hundreds of millions of dollars worth of programs and platforms and devices.
Buy from people and companies who support public schools. It’s nuts to put money in the pockets of people who seek to eradicate the public schools they’re supposedly “improving”.
Real public educators should refuse to listen to his pitch and reject so called “education in a box” or any other deadly, ineffective techno-garbage product peddled by “reformers.”
Duncan has been a fan of all things Digital since at least 2010.
He is now a managing partner of he Emerson Collective run by Laurene Powell Jobs, a senior adviser to the RISE Fund, board of directors for the tech companies Deambox Learning, Turnitin, and Pluralsight among others. He has pushed everything linked to Digital Nation.
It is in the financial interest of the companies he is now paid to help manage and direct to bash “traditional” public schools and to push tech as a panacea.
Arne Dun-can’t isn’t in the top 1000 in anything other than bogus claims about the imaginary success of the malevolent policies he shilled for. The education policy atrocities of the Obama administration as advanced by Arne were the gateway drug that gave us DeVos. Obama put Bush’s NCLB on steroids. Arne’s book is rear guard revisionist marketing and obfuscation: the reformers don’t care too much which flavor of reform is being imposed at the moment as long as the overall brand idea remains unquestioned. They are more than happy to inflict a tag team Hegelian dialectic upon the nation in pursuit of their agenda. Gates, DeVos, Christian Nationalists, DFER, The Waltons, all of them have the destruction of unions and of the agency of the individual at the core of their ideas. Local control is their enemy. Reform is nothing more than a fight over which hostile corporate takeover squad gets the biggest piece of the tax pie and the most influence over the culture and mindset of the nation.
Visit the Vox website, Aug, 6, 2018, for McMansion Hell, featuring one of Betsy’s Devos’ encampments. Betsy, the logical extension of ed grifting by the hedge funds and tech tyrants, lives part time in a 22,000 sq. ft. monstrosity that has 3 times as many bathrooms as it has bedrooms, bladder problems? Not too far away, her $40 mil. yacht lost its mooring, a metaphor for the indecency of the school privatizers and corporatizers. The ugly excess house is described as follows…the facade is borrowed from the outlet store, White House Black Market, which was then attached to something that resembles a cruise ship that ran aground in a maritime accident caused by the intersection of bad taste and too much redistribution of money, to hollow 0.1%’ ers.
Do you suppose that even 22,000 square feet is big enough for Betsy’s ego?
Or that her many toilets are enough to handle all her crap?
The only “crap” Betsy spews comes from her mouth. The other end is constipated.
Instead of releasing yachts, the kids of the richest 0.1% should be released from their parents’ influence. With hope, they’d shun firms like Amway and Blackwater. The world doesn’t need another privileged generation, who lack the filter on behavior that characterizes humanity.
Top ten reasons the US Department of Education is such a mess
Betsy Devos
Bill Gates
Arne Duncan
Arne Duncan
6.Arne Duncan
5.Arne Duncan
4.Arne Duncan
3.Arne Duncan
2.Arne Duncan
1.Arne Duncan
“Worst ideas all the way down”
Duncan’s worst idea
Is resting on another
And what is very clear
Is that one had a mother
Numbers got lost on 10 thru 7, but the main thing is that Arne is #1
Duncan’s legacy skulks forward at the Center for American Progress? (John King and Duncan’s Chief of Staff is at CAP.)
Marketing CAP as a brand that competed against right wing think tanks was clever- the result opens the doors wide open to education grifters, because there’s no counter narrative in the media. The coupled demands from the donor class and CAP for “accountability” (evidently, limited to grinding down labor and setting the stage for privatization), forces, on public education supporters, a defense strategy, a much weaker position. Again, clever.
Oh, the irony- accountability, but not for those at the top-Hillary’s failed campaign efforts by Neera Tandem/John Podesto (both from CAP) packaged, as beyond the participants’ control…but then, there’s that nagging reminder that Michael Moore forecasted, in a national forum, exactly how Hillary was going to lose, unrelated to the proffered excuses.
Do you have proof that Arne Duncan, and the others on your list, were not spawned by the Devil?
But……
The ideas that Arne Duncan promoted, stood for, and still stands for have in no way been defeated in the broader public sphere. They are still the go-to fixes. We are the only ones who see them as fraudulent and shams.
Arne Duncan and those ideas are winning. We enumerate the failures among ourselves, but our criticisms have not taken hold. The broad left-wing and its candidates and seated politicians are still a hit-or-miss collection of folks on education. Any likely savior from Trumpism is just as likely an ed reformer.
We must not think for a second that the failures of the ed reform movement that we so clearly see and enumerate in forums like this are in any way being assembled into a cohesive anti-ed-reform narrative in the broader public. They distinctly are not.
Thats the problem.
Arne’s Ideas still are believed by legislators and policy makers but all of them have failed. You can’t keep replicating failure again and again. His North Star is the attainment of higher test scores. Yet scores on NAEP were flat or declining in almost every state and urban district in 2015 and 2027. He owns that.
Well, I know that we both want to believe that you “can’t keep replicating failure again and again.” That said, it doesn’t play out. Perpetual failure replication happens constantly, now and in the past. Neo-liberal economics is an example. We may say that we are reaching a crisis-point globally regarding supply-side economics, but in the end, economic policies that favor the rich will not be going away. No, they don’t work. They harm huge swaths of people in very tangible ways. The failures are observable and enumerated.
What is really on the table here is this belief that those of us in the anti-ed-reform camp really need to purge ourselves of….that somehow, some way, the right…the just….will simply prevail. That the universe bends towards justice. Thats nonsense. Especially in the time-frame of people’s lived lives. The right…the just….has to be won and taken. Step one of that is winning the narrative war.
Nobody is holding Duncan to task for the 2015 NAEP scores, especially in the press or in the larger public sphere. He is owning something that doesn’t ding him to anyone but us….folks who loathed him in the first place.
Hold him accountable for NAEP scores in both 2015 and 2017.
Common Core and all the other nonsense he spouted produced no gains whatever.
Duncan=Stagnation.
He has the courage to impose stagnation on everyone.
Mr. Duncan was a failed School Superintendent of Chicago. He became the man in charge of education because of his connection to President Obama and the fact that his brother was a hedge fund manager. Wall Street is in bed with public education sucking the breath our of public schools. Mr. Duncan had his children in private school and closed schools in the minority community.
Book tours are full of lies and Mr. Duncan who is an elite doesn’t have to worry about where he is going to put his head down every night, what hotel etc. Mr. Duncan needs to look at himself in the mirror and think about how he took away any opportunities children had to improve their lot in life.
Thank you for seven wasted years Mr. Duncan , I think about all the educators who never took a stand to improve the lives of children.. Union leaders, city council people, politicians who took money from the Ed reformers , yes the enablers who did not care one way or the other. As long as I am getting my fame for saying nothing but hot air.
I applauded the teachers from red states who stood up for themselves and said no more.
My children know what it is to stand up for themselves and everyday education is taking place in there classroom because I stand up for my children and force the city council to do the same..
[…] Although President Obama’s 2008 campaign and transition team signaled a similar willingness to protect public education and fight the influence of standardized testing, he chose a different path after becoming president. Almost immediately, Obama allied himself with Democrats for Education Reform, a Wall Street-backed PAC pushing standardized tests, expansion of unaccountable charter schools and attacks on teachers’ right to unionize. His education secretary, Arne Duncan, went on to promote DFER priorities throughout his tenure, and this disastrous lack of leadership “set the basis for Betsy DeVos’ privatization agenda.” […]