A little known group called Educators for Shared Accountability designed a rubric for evaluating Secretaries of Education. It incorporates multiple measures.
By its metric, Richard Riley was our best national leader.
Check out Secretary Duncan’s value added rating.
I previously named Joshua Starr, superintendent of Montgomery County public schools in Maryland, to the honor roll for his courage and wisdom.
He rejected Race to the Top Funding because his schools have a nationally acclaimed peer review evaluation system. He called for a three-year moratorium on standardized testing.
For daring to be different, he is now under attack.
He is wrong, says Checker Finn of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, for not following in the footsteps of Arne Duncan, Michelle Rhee, and Joel Klein.
Who thinks that Chicago or DC schools are a national model? In NYC, only 26% of voters approve of the Bloomberg-Klein reforms.
Josh Starr has dared to say what parents, teachers and 99% of educators believe. He belongs on the honor roll.
Our policymakers have lost sight of what schools do.
They have forgotten what teachers do.
They don’t remember what children need.
Peg Robertson does
Tell them..
In this video, a father tells a scary story to his little girl as he tucks her in at night.
It is about the greedy Fatcats who are trying to close Chicago’s public schools and take them private.
This is a creative use of social media to educate the public.
A group of educators asked me to post this petition. You may recall that Linda Darling-Hammond was President Obama’s education spokesman when he ran for office in 2008.
Dear Concerned Educators,
The Coalition for Justice in Education (CJE) has started the petition “President Barack Obama: Replace Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, with Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond” and needs your help to get it off the ground. CJE believes it’s time that we let President Obama know how we feel about the education policies he and Mr. Duncan are enacting.
Will you take 30 seconds to sign it right now? Here’s the link:
http://www.change.org/petitions/president-barack-obama-replace-secretary-of-education-arne-duncan-with-dr-linda-darling-hammond?utm_source=guides&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=petition_created
Here’s why it’s important:
The Obama/Duncan education policies have been totally unsuccessful in terms of creating significant, positive changes to help students become proficient citizens and scholars.
You can sign CJE’s petition by clicking here.
Thanks!
Dan Drmacich, Chairman
Coalition for Justice in Education
ps: Please help with this effort by sending it to friends & organizations who might sign it as well. Thanks for your help!
In another smart column, Rick Hess dissects Thomas Friedman’s fawning praise for Arne Duncan.
What puzzles me is why so many knowledgeable commentators continue to speak of Duncan’s great success in Chicago. I get confused about whether it was Paul Vallas or Arne who “saved” Chicago. Despite a string of saviors, Chicago remains un-saved.
In this column, Hess has it both ways, simultaneously praising Arne’s run in Chicago and pulling it apart.
Whatever: he remains the reigning iconoclast of the right.
Nikhil Goyal is a high school student who has sharply defined views about how to reform education.
He is a child of No Child Left Behind and the Race to the Top.
He thinks it is time for a change, but he sees four more years of the same-old same-old ahead.
He thinks American kids deserve better.
Thomas Friedman of the New York Times thinks that Arne Duncan should be the next Secretary of State. He would like to see Race to the Top applied to our international relations.
Readers have reacted. Leonie Haimson in New York City suggested that Arne could close embassies that can’t end wars and conflicts.
Here is another good idea:
He could start an innovative new trend of “Charter Embassies.” They would be U.S. embassies that are publicly funded, but cheaper to maintain and not beholden to rules of international law.
Actually, if you take it to its logical conclusion, every embassy would have its own foreign policy.
Jeb Bush claims the mantle of King of Education Reform.
He touts the Florida Miracle.
His ingredients for success: testing, testing, testing, school report cards, privatization, charters, vouchers, and big investments in online learning.
Here is one careful review of the Florida “miracle.”
Here is yet anothergood analysis of the Florida Miracle.
Bush is pushing the digitization of schooling pretty hard. His Foundation is funded by technology companies. Tony Bennett of Indiana and Tom Luna of Idaho carried the Bush banner in the November elections, and both got whipped.
There is neither research nor any evidence that kids learn more or better if they are doing it online. But this was not mentioned this at the big Bush conference in DC (Arne Duncan was the keynote speaker, boosting Bush’s credibility as an education reformer and a candidate in 2016).
Question: Will Jeb Bush’s Florida Miracle go the way of George W. Bush’s Texas Miracle?
Can we survive another such miracle?
Hmmm. A nation of digitized children.
You may recall that Thomas Friedman of the New York Times proposed that Arne Duncan should become Secretary of State and extend his Race to the Top internationally.
Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters in New York City sees the implications:
“Close &/or privatize embassies that are struggling in terms of diplomacy & conflict resolution?”
Any readers with better ideas?
