Archives for category: Duncan, Arne
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Arne Duncan’s Speech to the National Charter School Conference

By dianeravitch
July 3, 2013 //
72

Valerie Strauss posted Secretary Duncan’s speech to the charter schools conference, without comment. This is the same conference where the foul-mouthed, misogynistic rapper Pitbull was also a keynote speaker.

I am tempted to raise many questions–about the predatory practices of some charters, about the very concept of “chain” schools, about the racial segregation that charters accept as routine, about harsh disciplinary policies called “no excuses” that middle-class parents would not tolerate, about for-profit charters that rip off kids and taxpayers, about online charters that offer shoddy education while raking in millions…..but I leave the questions for my readers.

Categories Charter Schools, Duncan, Arne

Susan Ohanian Joins the Honor Roll

By dianeravitch
July 2, 2013 //
9

Susan Ohanian has been speaking, blogging, and agitating against bad education ideas for many years. Her writing is informed by a finely tuned sense of humanism–that is, she cares about people, especially children, more than big ideas and grand policies that treat people like widgets.

She speaks with honesty, candor, courage, and integrity. She is tireless. She is the real deal. She has taught every grade in school. To Susan, every issue always comes down the same question: is it good for children?

Susan Ohanian is a fearless advocate for children and good education, grounded in reality, not abstractions.

She is truly a hero of American education, and I gladly add her name to the honor roll of this blog.

To get a sense of her work, read one of her latest posts.

I especially enjoyed this tribute to Mr. Rogers.

Susan regularly posts cartoons that lampoon the madness of the NCLB-Race to the Top regime.

See here.

And here.

And here.

And here.

Read her collection of Outrages.

And for more, read her running commentary on the Common Core.

Categories Common Core, Duncan, Arne, Honor Roll, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top

Randi and I to Arne: Please Intervene to Save Public Schools in Philadelphia

By dianeravitch
July 1, 2013 //
58

Last Friday, Randi Weingarten and I wrote a letter to Secretary Arne Duncan, urging his immediate, public intervention to save public education in Philadelphia and to protect the children from massive budget cuts. We hope and believe that the Secretary’s actions might persuade Governor Corbett and the legislature to do what most Pennsylvanians want them to do: save the schools and save the children.

The letter was delivered to the Secretary at the end of the day on Friday and released to the media this morning.

This is what we wrote:

June 28, 2013

The Honorable Arne Duncan Secretary
U.S. Department of Education
400 Maryland Avenue, SW
Washington, DC 20202

Dear Secretary Duncan,

We are writing to ask for your urgent intervention to preserve public education for the children of Philadelphia.

Due to draconian budget cuts, the public schools of Philadelphia are being starved to the point where they can no longer function for the city’s children. Philadelphia is in a state of crisis. We believe your direct and public intervention is required to ensure the existence of educational opportunity in that city.

The cuts imposed on the schools by the School Reform Commission and the state have led to layoffs of nearly 4,000 educators and school employees. This will have a permanent, crippling impact on a generation of children.

Philadelphia’s children will lose art, music, physical education, libraries and the rich learning environments they need and deserve. Everything that helps inspire and engage students will be gone. The schools will lose social workers, school nurses, counselors, paraprofessionals and teachers. Classrooms will be more crowded, denying children the attention they need. Sports and extracurricular activities will be gutted as well as after- school programs that help keep kids safe and engaged. And children will be denied the social, emotional and health services they need. All of these cuts, on top of the mass school closings, have a disproportionate effect on African-American students, English language learners and students from low-income families.

Third-grade teacher Hillary Linardopoulos told us that her school, Julia de Burgos, a North Philadelphia K-8 school, is getting an influx of 250 students due to the mass school closings, while at the same time the school is being forced to lay off a third of the staff.

The Andrew Jackson School, a vibrant neighborhood public school, is losing school aides, its counselor, its secretary, its security monitor, several teachers and even its music teacher, who worked tirelessly to find resources and seek donations for the school’s celebrated rock band. And they won’t have money for books, paper or even the school nurse.

The Kensington High School for Creative and Performing Arts has a beautiful dance studio, but it is losing its dance instructor, plus nearly a dozen other staff.

The budget bludgeoning of these schools and the gutting of their programs are likely to cause students to drop out. When public officials send students the message that they don’t matter, that their education is of no concern to those in power, students get the message and give up on themselves and their dreams.

Right now, the Pennsylvania Legislature is set to pass a budget that fails to adequately fund schools while at the same time dedicating $400 million for a new prison and pushing through a set of tax breaks for corporations. This is on top of $1 billion in education cuts over the past two years.
The Legislature is prepared to ignore the pleas of thousands of students, teachers, parents and community members who have called on the governor and Legislature to fairly and adequately fund Philadelphia’s public schools. A group of Philadelphians are so concerned about the impact of these cuts that they’ve been on a hunger strike, having exhausted every other option to get the attention of the governor and state Legislature.

The people of Pennsylvania do not support the abandonment of the children and public schools of Philadelphia. According to a recent poll by Lake Research, voters want the governor and Legislature to increase the funding of public schools.

Secretary Duncan, both you and President Obama have spoken numerous times about the importance of investing in our schools, teachers and students. The children of Philadelphia need your support now.

On behalf of the students, educators and families of Philadelphia, we ask you to publicly intervene. Reach out to Gov. Corbett and the state Legislature to seek additional funding for Philadelphia’s schools. Do not let them die. The children of Philadelphia need your help. Do not let them down.

Sincerely,

Randi Weingarten
President, American Federation of Teachers

Diane Ravitch
Historian, New York University

Categories Budget Cuts, Duncan, Arne, Philadelphia

Secretary Duncan: Skip This Conference

By dianeravitch
June 30, 2013 //
20

Jersey Jazzman reported yesterday that the three keynote speakers at the National Charter Schools Conference are Joel Klein, rapper Pitbull, and Arne Duncan.

Blogger Mother Crusader did some research and found that Pitbull is a flamboyant misogynist.

Would Secretary Duncan speak at a conference where another featured speaker was flamboyantly racist? Or homophobic? Or anti-immigrant? Or anti- any other group than women?

Secretary Duncan, don’t go: Show your respect for women by refusing to share the dais with a man who treats women like sex toys.

Categories Charter Schools, Duncan, Arne

Michele McNeil Fact-Checks Duncan

By dianeravitch
June 26, 2013 //
16

Michele McNeil analyzed Secretary Duncan’s remarks yesterday to the nation’s newspaper editors. She politely said they were not accurate.

Neil McClusky of CATO took the critique a step further.

Duncan needs to pretend that the federal government had nothing to do with the sudden adoption of these unknown standards. It just happened.

He claimed the Common Core was well underway before Obama was elected. McNeil politely says that’s not true.

Categories Common Core, Duncan, Arne

How Pre-K Has Changed for the Worse

By dianeravitch
June 25, 2013 //
43

A teacher comments:

Arne Duncan cannot be taken at his word.

I sometimes teach things in Pre-K that I taught in K against what I know is right. My administrators want to see graphs, charts, accountable talk and levels of depth of knowledge.

When I hear the K teachers giving lessons on nouns and pronouns, verbs and adjectives (yes using that vocabulary), I cringe.

Also my school ordered desks a few weekas ago to replace the kindergarten tables. And the teachers, who are good, defend this saying, “Well they need room for all their books.” No painting easel, few blocks, hardly any dramatic play or manipulatives.. It’s a wonder the state still gives an early childhood license (birth to 2nd grade.)

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, Duncan, Arne

Warning to New Teachers in Houston: You Are Disposable

By dianeravitch
June 25, 2013 //
24

Want to know how well “reform” is working in Houston? Read this. I wish Superintendent Terry Grier would read it too. I would love to get a comment from him in response to this letter.

This letter is about a teacher awakening to the grim political reality of what is deceptively called “education reform.” Her letter should go viral.

She writes:

“This is the sick process education reform has created in big city districts. They just churn through teachers, especially new ones, as fast as they can with no regard to the person’s life, skill set, or qualifications. The harm they do to the students by destabilizing their neighborhood schools cannot be measured. They don’t care if you are a blazing success in the classroom; your teaching certificate is basically meaningless to the administration.

She goes on to add:

” In the student’s mind, a standard classroom teacher is a disposable throwaway. They see no reason to follow the rules, do their homework, or take the exams seriously. They know the teacher will probably get fired, possibly in the middle of the year. They have no respect for their teacher, and no reason to believe their teacher has any ability to discipline or instruct.

“This is the message inner city students have been receiving for over a decade. This is the message reformers convey to the students, the parents, and the taxpayer.

“At new teacher orientation you are led to believe something much different; at the job fair, and in the media, you are told that working for HISD is wonderful, with a fair evaluation system, great pay, and fabulous bonuses.

“Working at HISD is the biggest mistake I have ever made.

“I was warned about education reform. I was told not to do this, and I didn’t listen.

“Honestly, I didn’t even know what “education reform” meant…I thought it was a bunch of talented people swapping ideas about how to best educate the children of poverty. I thought it would be fun, challenging, and engaging. In my ridiculous mind, I could see a group of teachers sharing ideas, lesson plans, and stories. I really believed I was going to learn something positive about public school. I didn’t know it was a scam engineered to deprofessionalize the teaching business, and hand the jobs off to cash strapped ivy leaguers that couldn’t find positions in their fields of study.

“Now I know that people like Michelle Rhee made millions off the backs of the teachers she fired. I know that most of these people have cheated, including some in my own Apollo program. The Atlanta Journal Constitution even did a nationwide study, and can prove mathematically that these districts have failed to educate these students in spite of their “so-called” reforms. This wrong-to-right erasure math is indisputable…

“As for me, I don’t need a study; I can tell everyone about the chaos, the achievement gap, the poverty, the filth, the lies, and the smokescreen.

“It is funny that Arne Duncan (Obama’s Secretary of Education #erasetothetop) came out here and toured Lee HS with my SIO, and he listened to a few talented students, and the police cracked down on the school before his arrival, and they managed to sign up all of the students to some kind of college (mostly 2 year institutions) and convince Arnie that it is a “turnaround success.” But you only have to look at him closely to see he is a Walmart kind of guy. And now we have the privatization of the public trust…we have the Walton Foundation, The Broad Foundation, The Gates Foundation, and countless other vultures, and venture capitalists, including Pearson (the great testing empire), all throwing money to this “teacher witch hunt” fully engaged in the age-old philosophy of “you gotta spend a buck to make a buck.” So, they are making the bucks off of me and my students, and I am helpless to stop them.”

Categories Corporate Reformers, Duncan, Arne, Education Reform, Teachers, Texas

NSBA: Dems Support Federal Control of Education

By dianeravitch
June 19, 2013 //
42

On a party-line vote, Democrats on the Senate committee reported out a bill that expands the role of the federal government in education and makes the Secretary of Education the national superintendent of schools. The National School Boards Association describes the legislation here, which NSBA opposes.

Summary of Senate HELP Mark-up of the Strengthening America’s Schools Act, S. 1094

The Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (HELP) Committee approved a bill to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) on Wednesday, June 12, 2013. The Strengthening America’s Schools Act, S. 1094 was passed after two days of sometimes heated deliberation on a 12 Democrat – 10 Republican party line vote. Whether and when the bill will be considered by the full Senate is uncertain, but Chairman Tom Harkin (D-IA) expressed his intention to get it to the floor by the end of the year.

The issues voiced by NSBA in its letter to the Committee were raised frequently during the two days of discussion and voting. In fact, Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) read from and held up NSBA’s letter during his opening statement as evidence of the strong objections to federal overreach and the overwhelming increase in reporting requirements in S. 1094 as introduced.

Without doubt the fulcrum of debate at the mark-up was the proper role of the federal government in education. Unfortunately, the partisan gap continues on what that role should be. Chairman Harkin characterized the bill as “a new partnership of shared responsibility,” and passed an amendment clarifying that states and districts could refuse Title I, Part A funds, and thereby be free of federal requirements. Meanwhile, Ranking Member Lamar Alexander (R-TN) repeatedly asserted that S. 1094 creates “a national school board.”

The partisan gap prevailed in the Committee’s efforts to address all major issues. Of the 23 amendments offered, all but one Republican amendment was rejected, whereas all but 1 of the Democratic amendments were accepted to the base bill. This was despite recognition – acknowledged by Chairman Tom Harkin (D-IA) himself – that the Department of Education has exceeded its authority on ESEA waivers, and Congress has exacerbated the problem by failing to reauthorize ESEA. For example:

Role of the Secretary: The role of the Secretary of Education appears to have increased substantially in S. 1094. Throughout the bill, the Secretary is authorized to determine the overall quality and effectiveness of greatly expanded state plan requirements that will, in turn, impact the local level. The Secretary would appear to be involved in the design of programs, directing the specifics, for example, in addressing parent/community engagement and extensive data collection. In the case of data, the bill calls for multiple cross tabulations of a wide range of academic and non-academic student data that we believe will be overwhelming for many school systems to produce. The same can be said of new local plan requirements. Amendments described by their sponsors as attempts to eliminate new or onerous reporting and federal oversight requirements were rejected by the Committee. In fact, amendments were approved to create additional reporting requirements on military children, interscholastic sports, and career and technical education.

Turnaround models: Local educational agencies, including those receiving NCLB waivers from the Secretary, continue to be concerned with the limited flexibility in designing and implementing turnaround models for low performing schools. Several amendments intended to increase flexibility on how States and LEAs identify and improve low-performing schools were not approved.

Comparability: NSBA supports the concept of comparability and believes it is important to ensure that Title I schools receive comparable educational support. The proposed comparability provision in S. 1094 would change the method for how LEAs determine whether comparable services are being provided from local resources to Title I schools compared to other schools in the district. It would require local educational agencies to show that they spend no less at each Title I school – as determined by the combined state and local per-pupil expenditures for personnel and non-personnel – than they do at the average non-Title I schools in the district. Local school officials have determined that the provision is burdensome and not geared to achieving the desired educational outcomes. Efforts to address comparability were rejected by the Committee, so the unworkable language in the base bill stands.

Public Charter Schools Expansion: Local educational agencies continue to be concerned with the increased congressional support for public charter schools in the legislation and the apparent willingness of Congress to not hold public charter schools to the same accountability requirements as traditional public schools. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) offered, but then withdrew an amendment to hold charter schools to the same accountability requirements as other public schools. Chairman Harkin pledged to work on an amendment for the floor, however.

Other amendments on ESEA flexibility waivers, vouchers, Race to the Top, college access, special education, and teacher and principal effectiveness sparked spirited discussion and even a little table-pounding before S. 1094 was reported out favorably by the Committee on a 12 – 10 party line vote.

NSBA is not able to support S. 1094 in its current form, and will continue to urge Congress to reauthorize an ESEA bill that supports local school district governance. In preparing for the full Senate floor vote, NSBA will prepare amendments and work with the engagement of the state associations to secure support from targeted Senators.

House Action – Committee Mark Up Tomorrow – June 19

The Committee on Education and the Workforce in the U.S. House of Representatives has released its version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) Reauthorization, entitled The Student Success Act, H.R. 5 and it is scheduled for mark up this Wednesday, June 19, 2013. NSBA sent this letter Committee members.

Reminder: The Committee on Education and the Workforce determines the provisions in the law that best help local school boards to improve academic achievement for our students. Please contact your member of Congress if he/she sits on the Committee on Education and the Workforce in the U.S. House of Representatives through the Capitol Hill Switchboard (202-224-3121) as soon as possible.

Your Message to Your Member of Congress

As a local school board member, I urge you to:

1) Support the House Committee bill, The Student Success Act, H.R. 5 because the bill eliminates unnecessary and overwhelming administrative requirements and restores flexibility and governance to local school boards who are in the best position to address the needs of students in our local communities; but

2) Re-instate the maintenance of effort provisions for education to ensure that states provide at least the same level of funding for K-12 education from one year to the next.

Thank you for responding to our call to action. Please provide any feedback to kbranch@nsba.org.

Sincerely, Kathleen Branch & NSBA’s Advocacy Team

——————————————-
Kathleen Branch
Director, National Advocacy Services Programs
National School Boards Association
Alexandria, VA
——————————————-

Categories Duncan, Arne, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top

Reader: How to Describe Corporate Reform in Plain English

By dianeravitch
June 17, 2013 //
31

A reader commented on an earlier discussion with these thoughts:
***************************************************************************

“”Does anyone else feel like we are basically being ignored?” – 2old2tch

While I applaud the sentiment and aspirations of this letter I am saddened with the weak tea rhetoric and carefully qualified points in academic insider language. This is how academics exchange views at conferences. Arne Duncan is not an academic and he has yet to show any respect for or interest in anything academics have to say.

Offering a long list of research citations is great if your are publishing in a peer-reviewed journal. Otherwise they indicate a false belief in the authority of the research, which the reform movement has largely ignored and dismissed all along. This high flown rhetoric doesn’t stand up well to Duncan’s canned talking points outside of academia.

A non-academic reading this might well ask: So what exactly are they saying? What exactly are they asking for? Where’s the beef?

Can we get a plain-spoken English translation, something like: You are destroying public schools and the teaching profession. Standardized testing is out of control, cruel, and useless in determining success of students and teachers. Your “Race to the Top” creates losers as well as winners. These programs have been tried over and over and always fail — why are you still promoting them?

If the purpose was to convince other academics then it serves that purpose well, a preaching to the choir moment. If the purpose is to impact and change wrong-headed policies then the audience should be much broader and the language much less academic and their tone much more forceful. That’s how the game is played today.

“Does anyone else feel like we are basically being ignored?” – 2old2tch

“Yes.”

Categories Corporate Reformers, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, For-Profit, Privatization, Vouchers

The Néw High School: Deja Vu All Over Again

By dianeravitch
June 10, 2013 //
36

Arne Duncan announced that he plans to hold a national competition for a redesign of the high school. He wants to dangle $300 million (if Congress agrees) for those who come up with the best redesign of the American high school. He is thinking STEM, technology, and other such big ideas.

As I read of this idea, I couldn’t help but remember back to 1991 when the first President Bush assembled smart people like Lamar Alexander as secretary and David Kearns (CEO of Xerox) as deputy secretary. David Kearns created a national competition to design the school of the future. The prize was $50 million (raised in the private sector) for the best plan to create “Néw American Schools.”

A new non-governmental organization was created to oversee the competition. It was called the Néw American Schools Development Corporation. Ten or 12 teams won the money. Their ideas were all over the place. The money was duly awarded.

So far as I know, not a trace remains.

Corporate types love the idea of incentivizing bold innovations by holding out big money for the winners.

But it is not the way to change schools. Schools are embedded in their communities. They reflect their communities. Schools change and evolve as society and the economy change.

Someday our educational leaders will grow a sense of humility. We may someday have leaders who don’t try to treat schools like businesses. Schools are not part of the free market. They are community institutions, and their values, practices, and mores are not those of the market economy. They do not compete to win. They exist to nurture students and educate them, not to turn a profit.

Categories Duncan, Arne, Technology, Computers, U.S. Department of Education
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