Are the supporters of corporate reform coming unglued?
Mike Klonsky thinks so. Of a sudden, Secretary Arne Duncan says his critics are “inhabitants of this alternative universe.” What has happened to make him angry? Why would he mischaracterize critics as people who insist that we can’t fix the schools until we fix poverty. I don’t know anyone who makes that claim. Duncan, au contraire, seems to think that the way to “fix” the schools is with more testing, more merit pay, more charters, more test-based evaluation of teachers, more school closings. No one, including Duncan, has ever explained how his way will fix the schools or someday fix poverty.
Jersey Jazzman says that Duncan’s rant reached “new depths of sanctimony.” He writes: “No one is saying schools shouldn’t be improved. Perhaps someone should draw a warm bath for the SecEd so he can rest his weary, weary arms after the toil of building so many straw men. The plain fact is that no one here in the “bubble” has ever said our schools are “just fine.”
The Jazzman offers a simple list (created by Rutgers’ Bruce Baker) of the determinants of low-performing schools. These are the factors that stand out: high proportions of low-income students; high proportions of minority students; high proportions of English language learners; larger class sizes.
Here, says Jersey Jazzman, is what Secretary Duncan doesn’t know or refuses to acknowledge:
The link between poverty and learning is the most obvious thing in the world. It is ridiculous to pretend that firing a few more teachers based on student test scores or starting a few more charter schools or giving out vouchers or implementing merit pay will overcome the challenges facing a child living in poverty.
I, and everyone else in the “bubble,” do believe well-resourced schools can help ameliorate the effects of poverty — to a degree. But the problems of chronic poverty and inequity in this country have far more to do with a regressive tax code, a capital market that is little better than a rigged casino, a lack of a living minimum wage, a monetary policy that puts full employment on the back burner, and a whole host of other public policies that have nothing to do with public schools.
Wendy Lecker, a civil rights attorney
writing in the Stamford (CT) Advocate, says that Arne Duncan is living in an “alternate universe.” She says that Duncan insists that standardized tests are necessary to tell us the truth about our students’ poor performance, but Lecker points out that state officials game the system to tell us whatever they want about the test results. In some states, they set the bar high, to produce failure, while in others, they adjust it downward to make themselves look better. She writes:
These test scores are not objective. Student success, school quality and teacher effectiveness are all political moving targets, set by officials far removed from students and schools. Secretary Duncan is the one in an alternate universe, and our students, teachers and taxpayers are paying the price.
Secretary Duncan is angry because his narrative, his claim that our schools are failing, and only his plans can save them, is falling apart. Teachers and principals are angry and demoralized. The backlash against high-stakes testing gets larger every day. The opt out movement is growing.
Education Week reported that Duncan has spent $100 billion, and what results are there?
According to the same story:
In contrast to the early years of the Obama administration, Mr. Duncan is now “wildly unpopular,” said Maria Ferguson, the executive director of the Center on Education Policy at George Washington University. “He’s got three years to secure his legacy and defend his record,” she said. “I’m not sure he’s going to have the ammo to do that.”It is easy to be popular when you are handing out $100 billion. Not so easy when all you have left is a bully pulpit to urge people to keep doing what doesn’t work.
