i heart george buzzetti or f.u. arne duncan

Recently the US Secretary of Miseducation, Arne Duncan, traveled to Pico Rivera, California to have a 2-hour-long town hall with parents and community leaders, hosted by the US Department of Education. As usual, Arne didn't give a sh!t about wasn't interested in meeting with teachers.  Anyway, over 1,000 people came to ask questions and share their thoughts with Arne. I guess Arne didn't expect such a large crowd, eager to ask questions and tell their stories. So after 20 short minutes of blah blah blah blah from Arne, he split. Yep. He left. After. 20. minutes. Gee, Arne. What happened? Weren't you feelin' the love? Afraid of what the crowd might say? Come on, dude! Where are your cojones? Aren't you the All Powerful Oz??? Oh, that's right. You're not. Bill Gates is. My bad!

But as Arne was trying to slickly sneak outta town, a voice was heard from the audience, "He has no respect for students, parents or teachers, he is now on his way to get money."

OMG! If I'd have been there, I may have had to light a cigarette. Oh, yeah, baby! That was the voice of George Buzzetti (who I am SO gonna Scroogle after I finish this blog)! When an article covering the event was published in the LA Weekly, George commented:

I am the person who yelled to the audience "He has no respect for students, parents or teachers, he is now on his way to get money."  I did not plan that.  It happened as a reaction to his total disrespect, and if not addressed right then and there he would get away with it.  I was not going to allow that to happen as I am the one who originated opening up a closed meeting to all comers through Lydia Grant, Board Member of the Parent Revolution, and Yolande Beckles with the LAUSD Parent District Advisory Council (DAC) and new Parent Union.  I am with the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) of California and requested attendance for three members myself, Celes King IV and Miguel Paredes.  We received that Sunday.  Monday I called Lydia and Yolande to send in requests on their letterhead, they did.  Within several hours both received phone calls, from officials representing Duncan, asking them to bring every student, parent, teacher and community member they can so they can be listened to by the Secretary of Education.  Also, go to the press so we can have as many people there as possible.  This was done.  From San Diego to the edge of L.A. County they came including a bus load paid for by The California Teachers Association (CTA) who helped parents go to this supposedly important event for the public to be heard.  Channel 11 was there and got video of me calling down Duncan and ran on the news he ran from parents.  He was there by helicopter no more than 20 minutes total.

When I went outside with one of his aides, and a lot of police, I ripped his aide apart so much the police started laughing.  Students were watching all of this intently.  The aide left and I spent the next hour plus with many students who told me and my other friends there what is really happening to them.  I also had my laptop and wireless card and showed them the statistical facts.  I took them to the California Dept. of Education (CDE) website and asked them to give me a school and we went there and I showed them how to use the website to do what I do to learn the truth.  They gave me their emails and I am sending them my spreadsheets and the instructions on how to use the CDE website. 

I must ask you to also ask yourselves the same question I asked myself, and that is "Why were they not out there talking with the students?"  Isn't that supposed to be their MISSION!!!!!

Unfortunately, we are seeing the same Arne Duncan as in Chicago.  He helped to ruin the Chicago Public Schools academically and financially.  Please go look at the new University of Chicago study on Chicago Public Schools from 1988 until now.  He did not do good.

Also, while superintendent of Chicago he and Senator Feinstein wrote letters to the California Legislature stating that those before Daley and Vallas took over in 1995 had put the district into $1.8 billion in debt.  I have the financial income and expenditures from 1994 and there was a surplus.  They lied.  Is this who we want for Secretary of Education?  A person with no respect for the public and a liar! 

George, I hope you don't mind that I published your comments in my blog, but they were just too awesome not to share! And, Arne, dude, all I can say is, despite your evidently petite cojones, you are a dickus maximus... and I DON'T mean that in a good way. FUAD and the helicopter you rode in on! Srsly.

arne duncan - the BS whisperer

Sometimes I wonder why I do the things I do. Last year, watching MSNBC's, now annual corporate education deform infomercial, Mis Education Nation, my already hormonally hot self became even hotter. Despite having this prior learning embedded in my schema, I decided to watch the segment, Classrooms in Action: A Window on Great Teaching to see what 'great teaching' looks like because surely, as a veteran educator, I couldn't possibly know. And since none of the corporate ed deformers have been able to substantively define it, I thought maybe this segment would finally crack the code. ...Oh, crap! This segment is brought to me by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation! ...OK. Never mind. I probably won't see any code being cracked in this segment, after all. But since I'd already pointed and clicked, I thought I hang in there to see what my idiotic dimwit of a Secretary of Education would have to say about "great teaching".

After viewing Arne's pick for "great teaching" in action, IN the classroom of the "great" teacher an interesting question was asked:

Anne Curry:  Secretary Duncan, here’s the situation. In this particular school, on paper, is an affluent, suburban middle school: 82.95% white, 90% non-economically disadvantaged. You can see that they have all kinds of materials. There are lots of schools where the students don’t even have pencils, don’t have notebooks, and yet look at what these kids have! So of course these kids have a better start! Isn’t this something we should have for every school, no matter what the economic background? 

Arne Duncan:  Absolutely. (<--That was his answer. Period! Then he goes into empty rhetoric mode. -->)  Education has to be the great equalizer and whether you’re coming from an affluent background, or whether you have parents who neither one graduated from elementary school, every child in this country deserves a world-class education. Teachers like Kyle are just absolutely amazing. Every teacher needs a great great teacher like that but a huge part of our job is to make sure children in traditionally underserved communities, be they urban or rural or remote, have a chance to have a world-class education. As a country, that’s what we stand for.  (<-- BS ALERT! WE DON’T, as a country, stand for that! We stand for war and corporate greed, dude!) We all have to work together, the federal level, the state level, local level ….business community, philanthropic community. If we’re not giving children these kinds of opportunities, we’re just robbing them of their future and ultimately hurting the country.

Me:  Arne, are you really that dim or are you just trying to mess with us? Let me help you out here. Curry was asking you to tell the audience what you could do to make certain children in impoverished schools received those resources as well. Specifically. Empty rhetoric not allowed. But that’s all you gave us. More of the same, empty BS.

Anne Curry:   …Secretary Duncan, I think what we are really seeing here though is that we need to figure out a way for all schools to get the resources to be able to get this kind of opportunity for these students to get hands on learning that seems to part of the equation for creating good teaching. 

Arne Duncan:  Hugely important. (<--That was his response. Then he changes the narrative yet again. -->) I just want to thank Kyle. He’s an amazing amazing teacher. His students are so lucky to have him. You asked me to pick one highlighting great teaching, but let me tell you we have hundreds of thousands of teachers around the country every single day with Kyle’s creativity, passion and commitment. We can’t do enough to shine the spotlight on great teaching. I appreciate the opportunity you’ve given us to do that.

Me:  Arne. Arne. Arne. Curry reframed the question in an attempt to get you to answer it. But again, you didn't! Well, bully for you! Rather than answering questions in a substantive manner, you simply cut and paste a collection your BS sound bites into the dialogue to fill the time. You, Arne, are a chicken. I dare you to tell us how you can make sure ALL schools receive the resources that affluent, suburban schools do! I dare you.

NOTE TO ARNE: While we're at it, saying "great great" or "amazing amazing" is not the way to increase the power of a word. At least try pulling out a thesaurus, dude! You're modeling bad English for our nation's school children. And given your hard-on enthusiasm for world-class academic standards, I would expect the Secretary of Education to be more erudite!