more stupid sh!t arne says...

“We have so many great teachers, but we haven’t listened. And teachers are so nice they haven’t demanded a seat at the policy table…"

Arne Duncan

US Secretary of Education

O.M.F.G! D.E.L.U.S.I.O.N.A.L.  (Except for the "we haven't listened" part.)

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!

sh!t arne says

We also want you to enjoy so many other enriching experiences that are so important to a complete education. We know you have great music, art, and physical education teachers at your school, and we believe that these subjects are essential for a well-rounded curriculum. And so is recess. We want you to have fun!

Arne Duncan

An Open Letter from Secretary Arne Duncan

and Karen Duncan to Their Children

Arne, I'm really happy for you that your kids attend a great school that provides them with such a rich educational experience. I truly heart how you think music, art, physical education and recess are important! That your children's elementary school actually has teachers for those subjects is remarkable! And Arne, though it may be hard for us to believe, it would appear that we actually agree on something! How 'bout that?

But here's the thing, Arne. Schools in my city don't have such enriching experiences for our children. (BTW - Elementary schools in my city have NEVER had specialized teachers for music, art, or physical education.) And thanks to NCLB and RTTT, rich educational experiences are not part of my kindergarteners' day. While your kids are rockin' their rich educational experiences, my 25 students' day looks like this:


  8:35 - Greeting, roll, lunch count, news
  8:55 - English Language Development
  9:25 - Learning to Read, Word Work, Writing & Language
10:25 - Strategic Support for English Language Arts
10:40 - Nutrition Break
10:55 - Math
11:25 - Strategic Support for Math
11:45 - Lunch
12:15 - Dismissal


Yep. Welcome to my world! Tell me, Arne, does the above look like a rich educational experience for my 4 and 5 year olds?  (Hint: Hell to the no!) Instead, our world delivers to America's future a "Sit-down-Shut-up-Listen-and-remember" educational experience. We have one workbook for Language Arts, one workbook for English Language Development, and two workbooks for Math. Lots of seat time and paper and pencil activities for these young learners. Sadly, you probably don't even get why this is a bad thing. And why don't you get that? ANSWER: BECAUSE YOU AREN'T A TEACHER! Not to mention you've never studied education theory or child development. Other than photo ops, public schools haven't really been part of your life experience - especially high poverty public schools.


So Arne, it just seems that every time you open your mouth you say something that is guaranteed to piss me off. Our mandated curricula sucks. It's developmentally inappropriate, narrow narrow narrow, greatly irrelevant (I mean who cares what a possessive pronoun is, anyway? Srsly!) and BORING! And thanks to the stupid sh!t you keep promoting through your Federal Education Bribery Schemes... Well, regarding irrelevant, boring education... I'm thinking we ain't seen nothin' yet!


I have no faith in you, Arne, as the Secretary of Education for our nation. Maybe I'd look more kindly on you if you'd put your own kids in one of the many high poverty DC public schools near your workplace and let them experience all the richness that our test prep factories have to offer. Hey, you can even put them in one of those high poverty DC charter schools you're so enamored with, hopefully in a classroom with a Teach for America 'teacher'! You know, one of those best and brightest! If you did that, then maybe I'd believe that you think that what you're doing IS what's best for kids.


Come on, Arne. I dare you!

got signs?

And the winner is....

Thanks to all who voted!!!

I'll be bringing this to DC!

what i'd really like my sign to say.....

With all due respect,

F@#k You, Arne Duncan!

...and I don't mean in a good way! 

Ok. I'll go put myself in a timeout now.

protest signs for the sos march

Teachers Are More Than a Test Score!

Arne Duncan is Far Below Basic!

 NCLB Put Us on a Trajectory to Failure.

DON'T REAUTHORIZE!

Teachers Put Kids First Every Day!

$pend $$$ on Kid$, NOT Te$t$!

Tests are Harmful for Children and Other Living Things!

Fire Arne!

Bubble Tests Create Bubbleheads!

Fire Arne, NOT Teachers!

NCLB - Don't Reauthorize! EUTHANIZE!

Arne Duncan, Proudly Pushing Ideology Over Evidence, 24/7!

Failed Policies Coming to a School Near You!

Just Say No to Arne!

 Teachers Vote!

Arne, STFU... Please!

It's Poverty, Stupid!

breaking up is hard to do

Barry, baby, it's just so hard.... lemme sing it for you...

            

   

Vocals: Me

Piano: Philip Epstein

http://www.philipepstein.com/

hangin' out with arne ~ one blogger's experience

Recently, a friend from the tweetosphere posted this blog. I found it to be an interesting discourse!

When I checked into the tweetosphere this morning, I was thrilled to see my bud, Arne Duncan, tweeting his little (literally) brain out. In case you don't know, he's at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado, ready to spread more of his incredible bullshit wisdom to any sucker ivy leaguer interested parties willing to listen. Well, I was so excited to see him on twitter that I thought I'd just jump in and join him. I mean, who would I rather get into an early morning convo with than Diane Ravitch Stephen Krashen Susan Ohanian Arne Duncan? So, I started tweeting away in response to his tweets (I, like, so can't believe I was tweeting with Arne Duncan!) I'm gonna keep those tweets forever and I thought it might be nice to share them with you. BTW: You may notice that Arne's not that good about answering questions, etc., but hey, it was early in the AM.

@arneduncanArne Duncan 

High performing countries invest in education differently than we do#AspenIdeas

@traceydouglasoutside the box

@arneduncan Yeah, like not investing in high-stakes testing and test prep or having a narrow curricula. And how about small class sizes?

@arneduncanArne Duncan 

We're not giving enough resources to the kids in the communities that need the most help #AspenIdeas

@traceydouglasoutside the box

@arneduncan That's b/c U R giving all of R money away 2 consultants, test makers & textbook companies, none of which increase achievement.

@arneduncanArne Duncan 

Thanks to #RTTT we've seen more reform in the last two years than in the last decade.

@traceydouglasoutside the box

@arneduncan Yeah but those reforms suck. Proven failures. Fire yourself Arne. You're bad for our kids.

@traceydouglasoutside the box

@arneduncan Real Reform vs Faux Reform http://bit.ly/k5nPI6

@arneduncanArne Duncan 

We all need to take on the status quo -- mayors, governors, unions, school board members #AspenIdeas

@traceydouglasoutside the box

@arneduncan Arne you and your buds are the biggest defenders of the status quo.http://bit.ly/jTHtiO

@traceydouglasoutside the box

BTW @arneduncan Bill Gates is a computer guy. He doesnt know sh!t about education. Seriously! Y R U letting him call the shots?

@arneduncanArne Duncan 

Folks who say poverty is destiny--that's one of the biggest challenges we face in education reform today #AspenIdeas

@traceydouglasoutside the box

@arneduncan Cut the crap, Arne. Who has said that? Srsly!

@arneduncanArne Duncan 

Part of why high other countries are outpacing us is because they are recruiting the top 1/3 of college graduates into teaching #AspenIdeas

@traceydouglasoutside the box

@arneduncan Arne, how does poverty affect student achievement? BTW: 21%+ of our kids live in poverty.

@arneduncanArne Duncan 

We need to pay teachers more #AspenIdeas

@traceydouglasoutside the box

@arneduncan How about : "I need to respect teachers more." That "I" means you, Arne

@arneduncanArne Duncan 

We should pay great teachers $150,000 a year #AspenIdeas

@traceydouglasoutside the box

@arneduncan How do you define 'great teacher'?

@arneduncanArne Duncan 

We need to have a high bar, high standards, recruit great teachers and principals, and give districts more flexibility #AspenIdeas

@traceydouglasoutside the box

@arneduncan Re: high bar, high standards... You need to start with the Secretary of Education position first. Major fail currently.

@arneduncanArne Duncan 

Anyone who thinks that great teaching doesn't matter devalues the profession #AspenIdeas

@traceydouglasoutside the box

@arneduncan Oh, and re: "devalues the profession". You don't wanna go there, Arne, because re: valuing the profession - U R Far Below Basic

@arneduncanArne Duncan 

Do unions have to change, absolutely. So do school boards, principals, and we as a department #AspenIdeas

@traceydouglasoutside the box

@arneduncan Does the Secretary of Ed need to change? Oh yeah!!! Got facts?

@arneduncanArne Duncan 

Where we have courageous unions, we need to celebrate and reward that. #AspenIdeas

@traceydouglasoutside the box

@arneduncan Yep because courageous unions would have stood up to u and your deformer pals instead of rolling over 4 a place at the table!

@arneduncanArne Duncan 

Or goal is pretty simple, we want to lead the world in college graduates by 2020 #AspenIdeas

@traceydouglasoutside the box

@arneduncan Why?

@arneduncanArne Duncan 

The countries that out-educate us today will out- compete us tomorrow #AspenIdeas

@traceydouglasoutside the box

@arneduncan Really? Then I am so scared of Finland. /eyeroll/

@traceydouglasoutside the box

@arneduncan BTW: Education is NOT a competition!

@arneduncanArne Duncan 

When you see high performing schools they're not teaching to the test everyday. The test scores take care of themselves #AspenIdeas

@traceydouglasoutside the box

@arneduncan That's right. Only schools w/ poor black & brown children are teaching to the test all day every day.

@arneduncanArne Duncan 

When students drop out of school they're condemned to poverty and social failure #AspenIdeas

@traceydouglasoutside the box

@arneduncan Would u stay in school when all that's valued is a test score & yours sucks? When all u do is ELA & math test prep

@arneduncanArne Duncan 

We're investing $350 million to come up with the next generation of assessments, we need to move beyond filling in bubbles #AspenIdeas

@traceydouglasoutside the box

@arneduncan Sorry Arne but that just shows what a dolt u r. We don't need more tests!!! We need equitable & full funding 4 r schools!

@arneduncanArne Duncan 

We want to expand access to early childhood education, but access to quality #AspenIdeas

@traceydouglasoutside the box

@arneduncan Hey, there's a good idea! ...as long as you don't test them 2 death.

@arneduncanArne Duncan 

Reforms in IL are a model for the country #AspenIdeas

@traceydouglasoutside the box

@arneduncan RUFKM?

And on that note, our tweetversation was over. /sigh/ I wonder if he'll be tweeting tomorrow morning.