"nea hearts arne" or "WTF? are you crazy!!!"

New Business Item 36 called for the removal of Arne Duncan as Secretary of Education. Despite several well-informed speeches in support of this NBI, it was defeated. It is a mystery to me how a room full of educators, all of us victims of Duncan's horrific education policies, could continue to support Arne Duncan. His policies are harming our nation's non-elite children and the majority vote seems to send a message that that's OK with the majority of teachers. WTF? Either there's not much critical thinking going on among the delegation, or people are just plain stupid.  Here's what I had to say...

ATeacherAnon addressing 10,000 delegates at the NEA RA 2013

 

My name is *ATeacherAnon* from California. I am a proud member of the Badass Teachers Association. I am speaking as an individual in support of NBI 36.

As CEO of Chicago Public Schools, Arne Duncan instituted policies that were harmful to the city's children. In Chicago, he instituted school turnarounds, firing the staff and turning schools into charter schools managed by for-profit management companies.

He closed neighborhood schools, forcing children to walk through the communities of rival gang members and attend schools along with those gang members. This policy resulted in increased violence, including murder.

Arne supports charter schools, as well as the highly unqualified Teach For Awhile program which sends recent college graduates with 5 weeks of training into schools serving our neediest children.

He supports evaluating teachers by test scores.

He supports high stakes testing.

He reveres truth-challenged Michelle Rhee yet doesn't support public school teachers.
(See Rhode Island and New Orleans)

Race to the Top and Son of Race to the Top are nothing more than bribery schemes. Education is not a competition. Bribing financially strapped districts to adopt expensive, bad ideas is unconscionable.

And non-educator Arne Duncan, along with Bill Gates's former staffers, have been working diligently to impose Duncan's failed Chicago strategies on our nation's public school children.

As Secretary of Education, Arne totally sucks... And not in a good way.

We need a lifelong educator as our Secretary of Education.

Support NBI 36