Is poverty just another excuse for low test scores?

It's as if we've returned to the Nixonian era of  "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps." 

Arne Duncan claims that poverty is being used as an "excuse" and threatens  he's lost patience with all those "bad teachers" and "failing schools" who tick off all the reasons why their poor or minority students can't score as high on standardized tests.. He assures us that "poverty is not destiny" and that new privately-run charter schools will overcome poverty's downward push on measurable learning outcomes, even while millions of children remain living under intolerable conditions of poverty and homelessness amidst great affluence. Sadly, this is what passes for leadership in the current administration's Department of Education. 

See my latest post at Huffington: "The Year They Began Calling Poverty and Homelessness an 'Excuse"