Arne Duncan Could Have Gotten Worse

Arne Duncan got booed at an American Educational Research Association event in San Francisco.

A writer from Gates Foundation Education Week apologized to Duncan on behalf of education researchers everywhere.

I thought Steve Koss summed up quite well why nobody needed to apologize to Duncan for this:

When those in positions of political power are actually willing to listen and
contemplate opposing views and provide genuine open forums for discussion, when
they are willing to consider that their experience may not be as deep as others
and that their policies might not be one hundred percent correct, when they
begin to treat those with opposing views as people who have equal concerns
rather than ignoring them or continually dismissing them as "special interests"
(yes, Mr. Bloomberg, parents ARE "special interests" when it comes to their own
children), then perhaps they will have earned the right to dignified treatment
from an audience who feels it has been treated the same way.

Until then, I see no problem whatsoever with booing as one of the few ways
left for the disregarded to express themselves.

That's exactly right .

In this day and age, booing is a genteel way for the disregarded masses to let those in power know how they're feeling.

Quite frankly, Duncan could have gotten a lot worse.

Hell, Rupert Murdoch was attacked with shaving cream at a Parliamentary committee hearing.

George W. Bush had a shoe thrown at him by an Iraqi journalist while Bush was in the Green Zone (throwing a shoe at somebody in Arab culture is a supreme insult.)

PETA tosses red paint on celebrities they think glorify hunting or meat-eating or whatever.

Had any of those things happened to Duncan at the American Educational Research Association event in San Francisco, then sure, apologize to him.

Those would have been over the line.

But booing him?

Please.

Duncan's heard worse on the basketball court and if the people in power are so fragile and soft that they can't handle a little verbal accountability every now and then, they shouldn't be in power.

That goes not just for Duncan but for Bloomberg, Cuomo, Tisch, King and the rest too.