Just How Bad is Arne Duncan's Dept. of Ed Reform? BAD. Really, Really BAD.

[Smarmie Doofus]

Standardized testing kids w. severe and profound disabilities. Using results to rank their teachers. Not. Too. Bright.

(Good blog BTW; I just found him/her/it.)

>>>>As a public school teacher in Buffalo for nearly 3 decades now it's rare that I agree with Regents Chancellor Meryl Tisch on anything related to education. You'll recall that Tisch toured the state with the petulant and tone deaf NYSED Commissioner John King attempting to shut parents and teachers up with their complaints about high stakes testing and other matters. When the parent and teacher mutiny reached its apogee King found himself being told to shut up and get off the stage. His fragile ego shattered, King tried to cancel the "Listening Tour" accusing parents and teachers of being Special Interests who disrupted his soliloquy. It was suggested the Governor or Tisch told him that wasn't going to work and he was forced to continue albeit in a highly protected and moderated variation of the earlier meetings which exposed his flank to heavy fire from actual citizens whose kids and livelihoods were suffering the effects of King's ridiculous testing regimen.

The point being of course that Tisch has always been a staunch and inflexible advocate of the Test and Punish paradigm put forth by the well funded corporate ed reform lobby and touted by minions like King as the only path to a public education in New York. So when I read the other day where Meryl Tisch admitted if she were the parent of a special needs child she'd think twice about allowing that child to submit to New York State Testing I had to look again. Here is what Tisch offered the other day:

Personally, I would say that if I was the mother of a student with a certain type of disability, I would think twice before I allowed my child to sit through an exam that was incomprehensible to them,” Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch said in Albany.

If you think this sounds a little like Saul on the Road to Damascus I'd have to agree. And I guess the larger question remaining is what on earth could ever push Meryl Tisch to encourage a parent to embrace the Opt Out Movement which has dogged her every step as Chancellor?>>>>>> the rest at:http://b-loedscene.blogspot.com/2015/07/just-how-bad-is-arne-duncans-department.html

[NV Whino]

1. Arnie Duncan...

Is, has been, and always will be, a disaster.

I think Obama could have been a decent president had he rejected and/or ignored his advisors and not appointed half, or perhaps 9/10ths of the people he appointed.

[Smarmie Doofus]

3. Oh.......man. ( or woman.)

Did you just get to the absolute GIST of the Obama presidency in ONE sentence!

>>>I think Obama could have been a decent president had he rejected and/or ignored his advisors and not appointed half, or perhaps 9/10ths of the people he appointed.>>>>>

And where public education is concerned: if you have *zero* background or experience in it, either as provider or consumer ( as is the case w. Obama), you hire someone as Sec of Ed who DOES have it; preferably a TRUCKLOAD of both.

Instead he appoints the only person in America w. *less* familiarity with how public schools work than he himself has.

That must have been quite a search committee.

[zipplewrath]

5. The very first was Rahm.

It was all down hill from there. Dean would have gotten a better ACA deal. A more progressive Sec Treasury would have gotten Summers to propose a larger stimulus. A better Sec Def would have kept him out of an Afgahn build up.

[NV Whino]

6. Absolutely.

[msongs]

2. give a verbal question to a deaf child and expect a verbal answer or gets a zero. nice work eh? nt

[summerschild]

4. Obama did a of stuff right. But Duncan's appointment

wasn't one of them.

[daleanime]

7. K&R.....