Perdido 03

Perdido 03

Saturday, November 16, 2013

Arne Duncan Insults White Suburban Moms, Says Kids Aren't "As Brilliant As They Thought"

I wrote this morning how US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan shows us daily with every word he says how he is an exemplar of the "Best and Brightest" this country has to offer.

Duncan underscored that with this doozy from a speech he gave to state superintendents yesterday:

And this:


Do not fear, however - Uncle Arne has a solution for all of this:


Duncan is playing directly from the Common Core corporate education deformer playbook that Rick Hess exposed to us last year:

When I ask how exactly the Common Core is going to change teaching and learning, I'm mostly told that it's going to finally shine a harsh light on the quality of suburban schools, shocking those families and voters into action. This will apparently entail three steps:

First, politicians will actually embrace the Common Core assessments and then will use them to set cut scores that suggest huge numbers of suburban schools are failing. Then, parents and community members who previously liked their schools are going to believe the assessment results rather than their own lying eyes. (In the case of NCLB, these same folks believed their eyes rather than the state tests, and questioned the validity of the latter--but the presumption is that things will be different this time.) Finally, newly convinced that their schools stink, parents and voters will embrace "reform." However, most of today's proffered remedies--including test-based teacher evaluation, efforts to move "effective" teachers to low-income schools, charter schooling, and school turnarounds--don't have a lot of fans in the suburbs or speak to the things that suburban parents are most concerned about.

And this brings us to the crux of the matter. After failing miserably to convince suburban and middle-class voters that reforms designed for dysfunctional urban systems and at-risk kids are good for their children and their schools, Common Core advocates now evince an eerie confidence that they can scare these voters into embracing the "reform" agenda. And this conviction has become the happy Kool-Aid that allows would-be reformers to ignore the fact that they're not actually offering to tackle the things (like access to exam-style schools, world language mastery, music and arts instruction, and so on) that suburban parents are passionate about.

Here's the problem Duncan and his merry men and women in corporate reform are facing with this task of convincing suburban moms their kids' schools suck and their kids aren't as smart as mommy and daddy think they are - most people in the suburbs and elsewhere aren't buying it.

That's what NYSED Commissioner King and Regents Chancellor Tisch are discovering as they go on their Common Core listening tour from Syracuse to East Setauket and meet crowds that are overwhelmingly anti-Common Core and not convinced in the least that the plummeting Common Core test scores in NY State are emblematic of anything other than that the test scores were rigged to plummet.

Duncan can spew his ed deform playbook propaganda to state superintendents and his fellow ed deformers all he wants.

I'm sure he gets plenty of assurances from these folks that he's right and parents in the suburbs will come around soon enough to his way of thinking.

But the evidence is in already as the anti-Common Core movement grows and grows by the month - parents aren't buying the ed deform snake oil Uncle Arne and his fellow corporate ed deformers are selling and I just don't think insulting "white suburban moms" to get on board with the Core is going to save the sinking ed deform ship.

Quite frankly, the Duncan quote that white suburban moms are shocked to find out that their kids aren't "as brilliant as they thought" can be applied to Arne Duncan and his fellow men and women in corporate ed deform.

They are the "Best and Brightest" this country has to offer and they continue to show that with each delusional statement they make and each delusional program or proposal they put into place.

19 comments:

  1. I have news for those that are saying white moms arent happy with common core b/c of these silly reasons... MOMS in general should take a second look at CC and find out the TRUE meaning of these "national" standards.

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    1. And when they do that, the majority come to realize how harmful and destructive they are. It's happening all over the country, and the deformers are getting scared as the anti-Core, anti-testing, anti-data collection movements grow.

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  2. Does this attack on "white moms" fall under the rubric of racism?

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    1. Yup - in the end it will be an ineffective strategy however. It's backfiring already - I see Drudge picked it up. It will go far beyond the ed world and have reverberations for the Obama administration as a whole -something they can't deal with right now, given the ACA mess.

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    1. Alas, after Arne said Katrina was the best thing to ever happen to New Orleans because it allowed for the charterization of the whole system, it is only too believable that he would say something like this. The reformers believe it. They think there are no problems with the Common Core/reform agenda - just with the criticism of it. That is the unbelievable thing to me.

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  4. Unfuckingbelievable...except that suburban kids do way better in college AND suburban parents support their teachers more than urban parents so Arne is in for a very tough fight if he thinks he is going to charterize and privatize suburban school districts. Suburban teachers in certain areas also have lots of academic freedom and they won't give that up.

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    1. And Duncan and his merry men and women in reform are learning that very thing. See my latest post on that:

      http://perdidostreetschool.blogspot.com/2013/11/suburbia-is-where-education-reform.html

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  5. Arne Duncan needs to be impeached and run out of town. He consistently violates the law by imposing a national curriculum on local school districts.

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    1. That's right - the NCLB waiver mandates are totally unconstitutional. But this administration doesn't seem to concern itself with legalities or constitutionalities too much.

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  6. Arne is a complete idiot. His arrogance amazes me. The more he speaks the less intelligent he seems.

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    1. And yet he still goes on Morning Joe and gets feted by the Morning Joers. All he does is read his memes from cue cards. But they love him. We'll see if they still love him after this.

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  7. I am a teacher. Duncan is a Chicago communist thug. http://www.nhteapartycoalition.org/tea/2010/04/09/evil-arne-duncan-drunk-at-prom/

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    1. Duncan seems to be very popular with the business roundtable people, the Chamber of Commerce people, the hedge fundies who back education reform.

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  8. I guess I'm one of those white suburban moms Arne is talking about. I was very angry when I addressed Commissioner King and Chancellor Tisch at Ward Melville last week. I can't explain how satisfying it was to look directly into his eyes and describe how his policies are destroying my daughters' love for school. But if I was angry before, this just lit another fire under me. Arne is really going to regret these comments...

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    1. That has to be a good feeling, to look King in the eyes and tell him the harm he is wreaking with his policies.

      While King and Tisch continue to say "We hear you, we hear you," they've made it clear they will change nothing about the SED/Regents reform agenda, but you can see how these protests are wearing on them, how having to face parents like yourself as you describe the destruction they are unleashing across the state is taking its toll on them.

      I'm sure they cannot wait for these meetings to be over.

      But that will not stop these protests, and now with Duncan throwing fuel onto the fire with these comments.

      They're going to have a battle on their hands that will not end so long as they continue to impose these destructive policies on children.

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    2. Wow! I am also one of those "white suburban moms" who was cheering at Ward Melville when you spoke, Alie! There were a couple of other speeches posted on Fb, but I was looking for yours as well! Thank you for your courage!! Fight on!! --Ann Gray

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