Did Arne Duncan's attack on suburban parents help Trump win the election?

Arne Duncan at Boston DFER meeting supporting unfettered charter expansion. MA voters disagreed and defeated Question#2 and Trump in the process. 

It was back in 2013 parent protests against Common Core testing were bubbling up around the country and the opt-out movement was moving ahead full-steam.

Instead of uniting with or at least trying to understand parent/teacher discontent with testing madness, former Ed. Sec. Arne Duncan, representing Pres. Obama, lashed out at what he called, "White suburban moms’ upset that Common Core shows their kids aren’t ‘brilliant’".

At anther appearance at the National Press Club in Washington, Duncan claimed that opposition to the Common Core testing had been fueled by “political silliness.” He told a convention of newspaper editors that his critics were misinformed at best and laboring under paranoid delusions at worst.

Aside from being a terribly misleading statement -- tens of thousands of urban parents, black, white and Latino joined the opt-out movement -- it was an insulting sting, not only for parents, but their children, that left a permanent mark. 

As a parent and grandparent of public school students, in a city like Chicago, where Duncan once ruled the education roost, I can tell you that calling parents "paranoid" and "delusional" is probably not the best way to win an election for your party. 

Did Duncan's disdain for white suburban parents have an impact last week's election results and the Democrat's failure to pull votes from suburban districts that went for Obama in '08 and 2012? Especially in the swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania. 

It's hard to document that right now. 

But we do know... Duncan, who in the past has been on the stump for Democrat corporate-reform Democrats, was kept well-hidden during the Clinton campaign. Not only were the words, "Race To The Top" never once mentioned by Hillary and the Dems, issues confronting public education, which are of prime importance to parents, were consciously left out of the policy debates with the Republicans.

We also know that the Democratic Party's education platform, adopted by the delegates at the convention, was in many ways, a repudiation of Duncan's "reform" agenda. But those platform points never made their way into any of Hillary's campaign speeches.

Last point on this... In Massachusetts, where education issues were made a centerpiece of the campaign and where leading Democrats like Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Boston Mayor Marty Walsh opposed Duncan-supported unfettered charter expansion, the Democrats defeated the charter expansion bill and Trump, handily. 

After all the threats and bullying of parents, IL dumps the PARCC

"I think the promise of PARCC is greater than the promise of most of the other assessments we’ve ever had. Kids can test to the edge of their knowledge." -- IL State Supt. Tony Smith in 2015.

Stunning reversal...After all the threats to students and parents who opted-out of the PARCC exam last year, ISBE now says, it's ditching the test for IL high schoolers altogether.

However, the move won't mean less time spent on high-stakes testing and test-prep for teachers as resisters have been demanding. Nor will it mean a shift towards authentic assessment and teacher evaluation. Just more pressure on students and more confusion for parents who still have no way to measure student growth from year to year as the SAT replaces PARCC as the test de jour. SAT unfortunately, gives no more information to teachers than PARCC did.

Miserable results from last year's PARCC tests.

The move comes after two years of PARCC testing in Illinois were highlighted by low scores and thousands of students skipping the tests and amid calls for more equitable access to college entrance exams. Students in third through eighth grade in Illinois will continue to take the PARCC tests.

The IL pull-out also badly weakens the consortium of states using the common math and English tests, called the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers. The exams are built around the so-called Common Core Standards which in fact are little more than a test-driven curriculum with companies like Pearson marketing the text books and designing faulty exams.

In 2015-16, only seven states out of the 20 original consortium members and the District of Columbia administered the exams. The Bureau of Indian Education and Department of Defense schools also still participates.

Remember BBB was critical of PARCC implementation and tried to delay last year's testing until she and the district were threatened by Gov. Rauner and Arne Duncan, with sanctions, including loss of $1.4 billion in federal funding. Rahm's hand-picked schools chief had asked CPS be allowed to give the PARCC  only to 11th-graders and a sampling of grade school students.

Now she's are her way to prison and PARCC won't be given to 11th-graders.

Ah, the sweet irony.

When Illinois started PARCC testing in 2014, the state spent abut $34 million. #brokeonpurpose https://t.co/llRtaL0YXQ

— ChicagoTeachersUnion (@CTULocal1) July 12, 2016

Hillary throws Randi a bone on Common Core "roll-out". Is this all we get for her endorsement?

Hillary at Newsday

"Well, I have always supported national standards. I've always believed that we need to have some basis on which to determine whether we're making progress, vis-à-vis other countries..." -- Hillary Clinton tells Newsday

 “I believe the Common Core State Standards may prove to be the single greatest thing to happen to public education in America since Brown v. Board of Education.” -- Arne Duncan, June 25, 2013

Looks like Hillary Clinton threw a bone to Randi Weingarten Monday night, when she called the roll out of the Common Core education standards “disastrous”. 

They didn't even have, as I'm told, they didn't even have the instructional materials ready. They didn't have any kind of training programs. Remember a lot of states had developed their own standards and they'd been teaching to those standards. And they had a full industry that was training teachers to understand what was going to be tested. And then along comes Common Core and you're expected to turn on a dime. It was very upsetting to everybody.

Was this payback for Randi's premature (before Hillary even announced her candidacy) endorsement? If so, is this all we get in exchange for her toadyism? Or was HC simply re-positioning herself (triangulating) vis-a-vis her likely opponent in November, Donald Trump,  who attacks Common Core from the right?

Hillary, and the Democrats have been long-time supporters of Common Core, but she been trying to avoid the subject during the primary because of CC's unpopularity with parents and educators from left to right on the political spectrum. For that matter, so has Bernie Sanders.

But why criticize just the roll-out?

This focus on the "roll out", with little mention of the dis-empowerment of classroom teachers, or the mandated testing regimen which now drives curriculum and teacher evaluation, echoes the rhetoric of the AFT and NEA leadership. Along with the Democratic Party leadership, they were originally all-in on this "bi-partisan" (Jeb Bush's baby) legislation. Just like they were on No Child Left Behind and its latest incarnation NESA. But resistance from parents as well as from their own rank-and-file has forced them into a more critical stance.

After the Chicago Teachers Union passed its anti-CC resolution in 2014, Randi came to Chicago and sounded a little more like CTU Pres. Karen Lewis. She even called the standards, "developmentally inappropriate". A big leap Hillary hasn't yet made.

Hillary did tell Newsday that she opposes evaluating teachers based on student test results "as long as the tests are flawed" and thinks the question of whether they’d ever be good enough to rate teachers on is "too hypothetical to answer right now". That's about as good as it's going to get from Hillary and the Democrats.

But she added, that she wouldn’t opt out granddaughter Charlotte from New York’s standardized tests (even if they are flawed?).

Poor Charlotte.

In the Mailbox: Testing at New Trier

My good friend at New Trier High School told me that the parents in Winnetka could care less about the PARCC test. He tells me that the high school was a ghost town on the day the tests were taken.

Only 35% of the students took the test. New Trier is considered by many to be the best high school in the Chicago area and the scores of those who took the test were very low. They apparently they did not teach to the Common Core in Winnetka township, the equivalent of Pelham Manor, Rye, Larchmont, or Stamford in New York and Conn. or Marin C in the Bay area.

Valerie [Strauss] might recall that many New Trier teachers signed a letter that she published a couple of years ago signed by New Trier teachers, Lab School teachers, and the CTU about standardized testing. (it took me a week to organize)

I will link it here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2013/02/15/open-letter-to-arne-duncan-from-chicago-teachers/

Paul Horton
History Instructor
University High School
The University of Chicago Laboratory Schools

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Brother Fred

Mercedes Schneider

Duncan is gone, and the USDOE test worship continues. -- Deutsch 29

Valerie Strauss

[New Ed Sec. John] King was so enamored with test-based “accountability,” he pushed new Pearson-developed tests aligned to the Common Core before teachers had enough time to learn the standards and develop new curriculum and lessons. -- Washington Post

S-T sports columnist Rick Telander

Can you imagine the Chicago we know today inviting the world into our living room soon? I can’t. Nor will we. -- Thank goodness Chicago won't host the 2016 Olympics

Recall expert Joshua Spivak

 “There’s no jurisdiction I know of that have just one guy” open to recall. -- Sun-Times

Even under new law, Common Core still impacts curriculum

Abandon the notion of subject-matter as something fixed and ready-made in itself, outside the child's experience. -- John Dewey

Remember back a couple of years ago when Common Core critics were being raked over the coals by Arne Duncan, Peter Cunningham and others for calling CCSS a curriculum?

Here's Duncan in 2013:

The Common Core has become a rallying cry for fringe groups that claim it is a scheme for the federal government to usurp state and local control of what students learn. An op-ed in the New York Times called the Common Core “a radical curriculum.” It is neither radical nor a curriculum. … When the critics can’t persuade you that the Common Core is a curriculum, they make even more outlandish claims.

"It's not a curriculum," they scolded. "It's merely standards." Such a dichotomy! Supposedly, Common Core wouldn't tell schools what, when, or how to teach. Rather, it would only create performance goals and, of course, the battery of tests to go with them.

Well, Duncan was right about Common Core not being "radical." But Common Core sure as hell is curricular. If not, why, for example is there something called Common Core algebra as opposed to just algebra? Or Common Core U.S. History?

A year later, it was Duncan's former deputy, Peter Cunningham, now writing for Eli Broad-funded Education Post, rendering Arne even more profound.

Standards are set at the state level and define learning goals. Curriculum is the actual content that is taught and is usually chosen and developed at the local level, often by the teachers themselves.

Let's leave aside, for a moment at least, the question of whether or not teachers have the power to decide curriculum, and get to Cunningham's main point -- the supposed wall between standards and curriculum.

Bureaucratic non-educators like Duncan and Cunningham don't know a curriculum from a corral. They look at it as simply a technical process.

But curriculum encompasses the entire process and content of teaching/learning. It defines the educational foundations, the experience of the child and teacher, goals and contents, their sequencing in relation to the amount of time available for the learning experiences, the learning environment inside and outside of the classroom, the methods to be used, the resources for learning and teaching (e.g., textbooks and new technologies), evaluation and more.

Fast forward to today... EdWeek reports that Algebra 1 is a much tougher course under the Common Core and that students are now being introduced to algebraic concepts earlier in middle school. As a result, Algebra has become more of a gate-keeper and sorting mechanism than it already was. In New York, this puts even more students in peril of not graduating or going to college, widening the already vast chasm between students from affluent households, and poor, black, Latino and white students.

The percentage of N.Y. students who passed the test this year dropped precipitously: Just 63% of test-takers passed the common-core-aligned exam. That was down from 72% who passed the previous year's "Integrated Algebra" test.

That's thousands of kids who won't be able to graduate high school on time.

Why should Algebra be the gate-keeper as opposed to science, social-studies, or the arts? Who decides what's most worthwhile for all students to learn? Answer: Under Common Core, now re-ratified under the new Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) signed by President Obama this month, it's still not educators who decide -- despite Cunningham's claim.

More from EdWeek...

Common-core implementation has been fraught in New York. Many teachers denounced the speed with which they were expected to shift to the new standards, saying they lacked sufficient training and resources. 

True, some authority has been shifted from the D.O.E. to the states -- an admission that the feds had overplayed their role under Duncan's regime -- but what is tested, either by the states or the feds, is still what's being taught.

ESSA supporters, including the AFT and NEA leadership, say the new law gives states the right to reject the standards, which they say should help end any controversy over top-down control.

But is giving more power to Mississippi or Alabama pols over curricular decisions a good thing? Not in my mind. And besides, despite claims by Republicans like ESSA co-author Sen. Lamar Alexander, that the new law gets rid of Common Core, it's just not true.

No, under the ESSA, the U.S. Department of Education retains regulatory powers, including the final say on how and when states determine schools are low-performing. The law also maintains annual testing requirements for grades 3-8 and in high school. And it will still be the giant textbook and testing companies who have the real power in driving curriculum.

.@arneduncan says foes of Common Core = white suburban moms who find their "child isn’t as brilliant as they thought" & "that's pretty scary

— Stephanie Simon (@StephanieSimon_) November 15, 2013

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis, will speak at today's pre-strike rally in Grant Park amid stalled contract talks with the school district. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune)

CEO Forrest Claypool to the City Club of Chicago 

"We are at a breaking point." -- Tribune

MTA Pres. Barbara Madeloni 

“It [Common Core testing] is destructive to our students and our teachers and the very possibility of joyful and meaningful public education...We’ve really flipped the narrative in a year.” -- NY Times

Thomas Gattuso, principal of Sullivan House

We are looking for justice. If Laquan had shot the policeman 16 times, he wouldn’t have been at a desk job 13 months later.” -- Sun-Times

Rev. Jesse Jackson

" My greatest fear is not the protest, but if there is no protest.” -- NY Times

Donald Trump

"Maybe the guy should have been roughed up a little." -- Raw Story

Letter to Mark Zuckerberg from former classmate, teacher Emily Talmage

Let me assure you that “personalized learning,” as it is being pushed by the Gates Foundation, the American Legislative Exchange Council, the Digital Learning Now Council, as well as countless educational technology companies, start-ups, and venture capitalists who have invested millions into personalized learning experiments (they call them “innovations”), is a far, far cry from the type of education we got at Exeter. -- Washington Post

Duncan goes to war with Chicago over PARCC testing delay

Arne Duncan gives his more-testing announcement at Seaton Elementary School in Washington, D.C.

Sometimes the news is so bizarre that I can't believe what I'm reading. Case in point -- the latest on Chicago testing madness. First Arne Duncan gives his more-and-earlier testing speech to the nation. The speech is an attempt to pacify the testing industry and its backers and somehow push a new version of No Child Left Behind through a Republican controlled congress.

Then, just as Duncan is trying to work something out with Republican Lamar Alexander, the new head of the Senate Education Committee, Chicago school chief, Barbara Byrd-Bennett announces a one-year moratorium on administering the PARCC test because of a "lack of computers" (hold your laughter, please). BBB says the test will only be given this year to about 10% of CPS' 600 schools. The decision to postpone the test is made of course, not by BBB, but by Rahm Emanuel's hand-picked board and comes in the face of growing parent and teacher protest against Common Core over-testing and a burgeoning opt-out movement. It also comes weeks before the mayoral election.

POLITICO's Stephanie Simon sez:

Chicago’s stance could well inspire copycat insurrections in other districts, analysts said — and that could undermine not just the Common Core, but more than a decade of public policy that relies on standardized tests to hold schools and teachers accountable for helping kids learn.

BBB might have pulled it off if she hadn't joined a growing chorus of IL district superintendents openly attacking PARCC testing. She calls the test “unproven” and complains that adding such a long exam to a year already crammed with standardized tests would be overwhelming to students, teachers and principals. The PARCC test takes nine to 11 hours, depending on a student’s grade level.
Here comes the topper. Just as Pres. Obama is recording his endorsement ads supporting Rahm's re-election campaign, Duncan goes off on Rahm/Byrd Bennett and threatens to cut off potentially $1.2 billion in state aid unless CPS backs off and gives the test. The threat comes in a previously unpublicized letter to Illinois Schools Superintendent Christopher Koch from Duncan's deputy, Deborah Delisle.

Meeks freaks

Meeks freaks over possible billion-dollar loss of federal funds.  "We are greatly concerned about it," the Rev. James Meeks, Gov. Rauner's new chairman of the state school board, tells Greg Hinz at Crain's.

Hinz writes:

Her [BBB's] defiance was striking in a district that has long been viewed as a national leader in test-based accountability. It was also rich in symbolism because Chicago public schools were once run by Education Secretary Arne Duncan, a huge cheerleader for both the Common Core and the new exams, developed with $370 million in federal funds.

Politically, the problem is that, given national wrangling over school standards, Duncan cannot be seen as being easy on Chicago, said one source close to the center of the flap. That doesn't mean Illinois would lose all of the money, but a sizable hit is likely.

So, the question is: Is all this just a show? Or is Obama's Dept. of Education really going to war with Rahm Emanuel over testing on the eve of Chicago's mayoral election?

MORE PUSH-BACK ON PARCC COMMON CORE TESTING

Supt. Trish Kocanda

This time it comes from the leader of one of the nation's wealthiest and most progressive districts. Supt. Trish Kocanda of Winnetka Public Schools has written a "warning letter" to parents,  community members, and staff about the PARCC Common Core exam scheduled for March and May.

Kocanda's letter is published in today's Washington Post:

As we learn more about the assessment, we grow wary. We are concerned about the amount of instructional time it will displace, the impact this will have on students, and the usefulness of the results.

The Post's Valerie Strauss writes:

Winnetka, just north of Chicago, is one of the most affluent communities in the country. The Winnetka Public Schools district Web site says that the system has “led the nation in progressive education and served as model for educators who value the development of the whole child.” There are about 2,000 students in the system’s schools, all of whom leave the eighth grade and attend nationally recognized New Trier Township High School.

Kocanda's letter comes on the heels of Ed Sec. Arne Duncan's call for even more and earlier high stakes standardized testing.

Back in November, the superintendent of neighboring Evanston Township launched a blistering attack on PARCC testing.

“Students taking both PARCC mathematics and reading language arts tests will spend more time taking PARCC tests than aspiring lawyers will spend sitting for the Bar Exam with no payoff,” said Pete Bavis, District 202 assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction.

Last week Chicago Public Schools delayed most PARCC testing for a year, with Supt. Byrd-Bennett claiming that that not enough computers were in place to administer the tests to more than 10% of CPS students. She made no critique of Common Core testing but was obviously worried about possible results and fallout from the tests.

But you can bet Winnetka's blast at Duncan's testing madness won't be the last.

Look what they've done to the GED. Aligned with Common Core and handed over to Pearson

Back in the '80s I got my start in adult education, teaching GED classes in a little classroom in the back of the public library on North and Pulaski. My students were mostly dropouts from Clemente, looking to finish high school so they could go to a community college or apply for a decent job. Most were good students, capable, thoughtful and curious. Many had dropped out because of the gang situation at Clemente or for personal reasons -- they needed to work to support their families.

The curriculum was geared to the test and involved mainly basic math and literacy. But I did my best to get to know my students and learn as much as possible about their previous schooling and out-of-school learning experiences. We managed to turn the classes into much more than an exercise in test preparation and most of my students passed the test and got excited again about learning.

Now I'm hearing that the GED exam has been overhauled, aligned with the Common Core and handed over to Pearson, the giant British testing and textbook corporation in order to supposedly prepare students for 21st-Century jobs. The new test is now much harder. The test prep classes are given on-line. No more personalization. It's also become much more expensive in order to build in a big profit margin for Pearson, making it less accessible to the kinds of students I was teaching back in the day. The changes have caused thousands to drop out and give up.

NPR reports there's been sizable decrease in  the number of people who took and passed the test, according to local and state educators and the organization that runs it. In addition, at least 16 states have begun offering or plan to offer new, alternative tests.

What effect did all of these changes have on test takers?

"Our number of graduates for this last calendar year has dropped about 85 percent," says Myles Newman, who helps coordinate GED preparation for one school district in Lexington County, S.C. States including Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Colorado are reporting large drops as well.

"Teachers are telling us that the new test is virtually impossible for students to pass," says David Spring, who with his wife, Elizabeth Hanson, runs the website Restore GED Fairness in Washington state. Both are educators who have spent years helping people prepare for the GED.

Here's some hard numbers:

--- In 2012, a total of 401,388 people passed the GED test.

--- In 2014, only 58,524.

What a disaster!

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

President Robert Kelly of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 308 announces the organization's endorsement of Jesus "Chuy" Garcia for mayor of Chicago. | Richard A. Chapman/Sun-Times

ATU Local 308 Pres. Robert Kelly 

“I’m a citizen of the city of Chicago. I’m tired of reading the papers and hearing about murders and school closings and transit issues,” said Robert Kelly, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 308, which represents CTA train operators. “It just makes me sick to my stomach. I’m tired of it, and so is everybody else. 

Kelly’s remarks came as the local he presides over endorsed Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, one of Emanuel’s most prominent challengers in the upcoming February election. -- Early & Often

George Will

Bush’s support of Common Core is much less nuanced and persuasive, and there seems to be condescension in his impatience with the burden he bears of taking seriously the most important reason for rejecting Common Core. It is not about the content of the standards, which would be objectionable even if written by Aristotle and refined by Shakespeare. Rather, the point is that, unless stopped now, the federal government will not stop short of finding in Common Core a pretext for becoming a national school board.

Bush says “standards are different than curriculum” and: “I would be concerned if we had a national curriculum influenced by the federal government. My God, I’d break out in a rash.”  -- Washington Post

"Public school bashers"

David Sirota

Taken together with the new Department of Education numbers, we see that for all the elite media’s slobbering profiles of public school bashers like Mayors Rahm Emanuel and Michael Bloomberg, for all of the media’s hagiographic worship of scandal-plagued activist-profiteers like Michelle Rhee, and for all the “reform” movement’s claims that the traditional public school system and teachers unions are to blame for America’s education problems, poverty and economic inequality are the root of the problem.  -- Salon

 Palm Beach Cty. Board member Debra Robinson

"We're not going to approve these charters that just fill out the paperwork properly and don't have anything special to offer our children. This is an act of civil disobedience, because some of this stuff we're told to do is crazy." -- Sun-Sentinel

Author Anne Farrow

Slavery in America was not a footnote, not "the sad chapter" of our history but the cornerstone of our making. -- Philly.Com, Shrouded History of Slavery

Common Core tests designed for failure

Regardless of what goes on in the classroom, the new Common Core tests have cut-off scores designed to anticipate the failure of more than half of those tested. It's all too predictable.

Because the tests are high-stakes, the arbitrary cut-off scores set by the two main state consortia could have devastating effects on graduation rates, college admissions, teacher evaluations, and even the survival of neighborhood schools.

Edweek's Catherine Gewertz reports:

In a move likely to cause political and academic stress in many states, a consortium that is designing assessments for the Common Core State Standards released data Monday projecting that more than half of students will fall short of the marks that connote grade-level skills on its tests of English/language arts and mathematics.

One participant said that when the standard-setting panelists saw the data projecting how many students would fall short of proficiency marks with their recommended cut scores, “there were some pretty large concerns. And it was very evident that this was going to be a problem from a political perspective.”

I hope so.

Will Rauner pull the plug?

This from today's Trib --

When the freshly elected Rauner assumes the Illinois governorship in January, he will gain control of the education bureaucracy of a state that, like most others in the nation, has set Common Core as a benchmark to gauge student achievement.

If Rauner tries to pull the plug, as he appeared to suggest, he could anger education reformers who think the program is a solid way to improve education. If he doesn't, he risks the wrath of a conservative political base that expected him to do otherwise.

And that's the least of his problems

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Byrd-Bennett takes umbrage

Barbara Byrd-Bennett

She also took umbrage with the use of the term "layoffs," instead preferring to call those who were released "impacted teachers." “I really want to correct the language because I think it’s misleading when we say ‘layoffs’ and it’s not semantics actually," the Sun-Times quoted Byrd-Bennett as saying. -- Chicagoist

Karen Lewis

Chicago Teachers Union president Karen Lewis called the layoffs "yet another brutal attack on public education in Chicago." Do we want “Star Wars” museums or public, neighborhood schools? Do we want presidential libraries or librarians for every child?” -- CTU Blog

Rev. Jesse Jackson

“Did you know that in the 11 Southern states that had slaves . . . those who were Jefferson Davis Democrats are now Reagan Republicans?”  -- Early & Often

Rush Limbaugh

“Black Uncle Tom voters.” --  Laura Washington's S-T column

Baton Rouge parent, Rebekah Nelams

“They say this is rigorous because it teaches them higher thinking, but it just looks tedious.” -- NYT, Math Under Common Core Has Even Parents Stumbling

Randi tours Chicago with Karen Lewis. Leaves blasting the mayor.

"It feels that the Chicago mayor wants to kick the public [school] system in the teeth at every opportunity."

AFT's Randi Weingarten and NEA's Dennis Van Roekel have been trying to ride two horses at the same time, courting approval from Obama/Duncan while bucking their own rank-and-file in their support for Common Core. Feeling increasing pressure from below, they recently shifted their stand and now say they still support CCSS but "not how they're being implemented."

So CTU Pres. Karen Lewis took Randi on a tour of some Chicago schools to show her exactly how they're being implemented. Spending time with Karen seems to have had some affect. Randi responded by opening up on Rahm Emanuel (better late than never) saying "it feels that the Chicago mayor wants to kick the public [school] system in the teeth at every opportunity."

 Weingarten, who is president of the American Federation of a Teachers, has supported Common Core. But on a Monday she defended the CTU's recent resolution calling on state officials and the AFT to reverse their approval, saying she had been expecting the move for months. "People keep asking for help, asking for resources, and none of that is forthcoming in Chicago," Weingarten said at the national Education Writers Association seminar in Nashville on Monday evening. -- Early & Often

After the CTU passed it's anti-CCSS resolution, Duncan used two of his former assistant ed secretaries, Carmel Martin and Peter Cunningham as attack dogs to go after the union. In her May 17th Sun-Times commentary, Martin, who served as Duncan's former assistant secretary for planning, evaluation, and policy development, stooped about as low as one can go by insinuating the union was in bed with Glen Beck and the Koch Bros. Cunningham immediately joined in. He responded to a critical tweet by me this way:

@mikeklonsky @CarmelatCAP Simply pointing out that CTU is aligned with Beck and Koch against #CCSS and contrary to views of many teachers.

Former Duncan assistant Carmel Martin, says CTU in bed with Beck and the Koch Bros. 

I'll leave it to readers to decide who really speaks for Chicago teachers, Cunningham or Lewis and the CTU's elected delegates who, after much internal debate, passed the resolution on Common Core unanimously. Perhaps Cunningham would like to run against Lewis in the next union election. Place your bets.

The slime-ing of the union reminded me of when former Bush Sec. of Ed Rod Paige, called the teacher unions "terrorists" and when former N.Y. Mayor Bloomberg likened them to the NRA.

BRIDGING DIFFERENCES... I've been having a running dialogue over at EdWeek with my pal Deb Meier, see her piece, "Don't Write Off Everyone in the Tea Party" (good advice) over the issue of tactical alliances with the far right-wing opponents of Common Core. We both (especially me) oppose any such formal alliances. But while the teacher unions and community-based organization are in no danger of being mistaken for T-baggers, the question has come up among some in the anti-testing, anti-CCSS movement.

Just to be clear, I'm not just talking about engaging right-wingers in dinner party or bar stool conversations (see John Thompson's comment at Bridging Differences).

I have been pushing for us to draw a clear line between why and how we oppose Common Core and the testing madness that goes along with it. If for not any other reason than to get clear ourselves. Confusing our opposition with that of anti-government, anti-Obama, anti-public school right-wingers can only serve to discredit our arguments. The CTU resolution on Common Core offers a great critique from the teachers perspective.

CASE IN POINT...Check out anti-CCSS fanatics, like an Alabama Tea Party leader saying a vote for Common Core will damn lawmakers to hell, the American Family Association warning that children won’t “survive” Common Core, Eagle Forum saying it will promote homosexuality, Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-OK) calling it “socialism,” and WorldNetDaily saying it will turn America into Nazi Germany. Glenn Beck believes the educational standards are “evil” and designed to “train us to be a serf state” under the rule of China and Islam.

Then there's Tea Party Florida State Rep. Charles Van Zant who claims that Common Core will turn our children gay. Forgive me, but I just don't see any common ground or much room for engagement there.

BTW, I've actually heard the same thing about eating graham crackers.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Jim Hightower

The grubby little secret of today's ivory tower is that it is being propped up by an ever-growing, exploited underclass of educators. "Adjunct professors," they're called, and the term itself is a measure of the disrespect they're shown. -- Hightower Lowdown

Ras Baraka

"Today, the ministers of Newark have joined me in calling for a moratorium on the destructive One Newark Plan to close our schools, a plan already being implemented against the will of the people of Newark.” -- Diane Ravitch Blog

LaGuardia Dance Teacher Michelle Mathesius

“We find it ironic and extremely worrisome that, in this era of increasing accountability, the most talented children are refused admittance to the very school where their talent could be recognized and developed, while applicants with higher grades and test scores, but less talent, are accepted instead. Such a practice is more than unjust: it is discrimination, pure and simple, a disservice to the children of this city.” -- N.Y. Times

Tenn. Gov. Bill Haslam

 “You have this unlikely marriage of folks on the far right who are convinced this [Common Core] is part of a federal takeover of local education, who have joined hands with folks on the left associated with teachers unions who are trying to sever any connection between test results and teacher evaluation.” -- N.Y. Times

WHITENING THE CITIES

Eddie Farmer, 75, lives with belongings thrown on the curb after a foreclosure next door to his home  in the Lawndale neighborhood of Chicago. (Chicago Tribune)

THE WHITENING OF THE CITIES...Soaring rents are driving poor and middle-class folks, especially African-Americans out of the cities. A major factor along with loss of jobs, evictions, foreclosures,school closings in targeted black communities, gun violence, and draconian cuts in city services, ie. health clinics, markets, etc... Here in Chicago, rent as a percentage of income has risen to 31%, from a historical average of 21%. In New Orleans, it has more than doubled, to 35% from 14%. In L.A. it's 47%. -- NY Times

HOW BAD CAN THEY BE? I'm still trying to wrap my brain around this interesting data set. Chicago's privately-run charter schools expel students at a vastly higher rate than the rest of the district. But even with their push-out of so-called low-performing students (mostly poor, black & Latino), these same charters continue to score below the very traditional CPS schools they are trying to replace. I mean, what's up with that, charter hustlers?

HOW ABOUT SOME COMMON CORE STANDARDS when it come to corporal punishment directed at black children in Mississippi schools?

In Holmes County, where 99 percent of the public school children are black, students say corporal punishment traditionally starts at daycare and Head Start centers, where teachers rap preschool-age students lightly with rulers and pencils, cautioning: “Just wait until you get to big school.” -- The Nation

42...It was the great W.E.B. DuBois who wrote: "...the problem of the 20th Century is the problem of color line." The great American tragedy is that well into the 21st Century, it still is.

Today is the anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking through baseball's color line in 1947. Arguably this country's greatest athlete (not just in baseball), Jackie's story is also a story of the great migration of African-Americans from the Jim Crow South. In this case, from Cairo, Ga. to Pasadena where he became a multi-sport great talent and football star at John Muir High School and then at Pasadena City College and UCLA.

He's also the reason, despite living in Chicago since 1975 and aside from growing up in a left-wing family in L.A., I remain a loyal Dodger fan.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

French Economist Thomas Piketty

Economist Thomas Piketty

There is a fundamentalist belief by capitalists that capital will save the world, and it just isn't so. Not because of what Marx said about the contradictions of capitalism, because, as I discovered, capital is an end in itself and no more." -- The Guardian, Occupy was right

Arne Duncan responds to mass teacher protest...

Tells  the crowd the state had an opportunity to “help lead the country where we need to go,” despite the “drama and noise” now on display. -- DuncanDonut

 Ed Commissioner John B. King Jr.:

 “We’re poised to lead the country. It’s within our grasp.” -- CCSSRules

Quinn, NEA Pres. Cinda Klickna, & Rauner at IEA RA

Pat Quinn at IEA Conference

"Don't compare me to the Almighty," said Quinn. "Compare me to the alternative over there." --  #NotToWorry

Times Editorial 

The myth of the superpredator helped spawn a generation of misguided laws that treated young people as adults, despite evidence that doing so actually increases recidivism. -- Echoes of the Superpredator 

Supporting Chicago's Progressive Caucus...Flexible Arne.

Two of my favorites

I got to hang out with some of my favorite folks at last night's Progressive Caucus fundraiser at Buddy Guy's. I'm glad we got there early, the room was so packed, they had to stop letting people in. A good sign for upcoming elections. Maybe a mayoral candidate will emerge from this crowd.

MORE DUNCAN DONUTS... It all depends who Arne is talking to. First he tells newspaper editors, Common Core is the "single greatest thing to happen to public education in America since Brown v. Board of Education.” 

Then Stephanie Simon at Politico has him telling the House Appropriations Committee, “I’m just a big proponent of high standards. Whether they’re common or not is sort of secondary.” 

But yesterday, Rupert Murdoch's boys at the Wall Street Journal run a wire story with the headline "US education secretary sticking with Common Core". However, the story itself goes on to say that,

 "During his address to students and invited guests, Duncan avoided specifically saying "Common Core."

The same WSJ story has Duncan defending embattled New York State's education chief John King Jr. after teachers wanted King fired for forging ahead with CCSS over mass teacher protests. Duncan, who never met a union basher he didn't appreciate, called King a "remarkable leader" and then reminded everyone once again that "education is the civil rights issue of our generation."

Flexible Arne.

What? Is Duncan really bailing out on Common Core?

“I believe the Common Core State Standards may prove to be the single greatest thing to happen to public education in America since Brown v. Board of Education.” -- Arne Duncan, June 25, 2013

“I’m just a big proponent of high standards. Whether they’re common or not is sort of secondary.” -- Arne Duncan, April 8, 2014 report to House Appropriation Committee

Stephanie Simon at Politico reports that Common Core is losing it biggest supporter, Sec. of Education Arne Duncan. 

It was less than a year ago that Education Secretary Arne Duncan delivered a no-holds-barred defense of the Common Core in a speech to newspaper editors. He cited example after example of the benefits of common standards: Teachers in different states could use the same lesson plans; children of military personnel could move across country “without a hitch” in their schooling; and, first and foremost, “a child in Mississippi will face the same expectations as a child in Massachusetts.” In short: “I believe the Common Core State Standards may prove to be the single greatest thing to happen to public education in America since Brown v. Board of Education,” Duncan said.

 -- That was then. This was Tuesday: “Just to be very clear with this group,” Duncan told the House Appropriations Committee, “I’m just a big proponent of high standards. Whether they’re common or not is sort of secondary.”

 I don't believe that Duncan was ever bought into all that Mississippi/Massachusetts rhetoric. This latest distancing dance is in fact, Duncan's way of placating his friends on the right who are leery of anything that even smells like big gummint enforcement of civil rights law. While Duncan has consistently ignored critics of CCSS on his left or progressive side, his ear is finely tuned to the right where denunciations of Common Core, and especially of Duncan using federal funds to incentivize the standards, are growing louder.

CIVIL RIGHTS ACT AT 50... It was a half-century ago that Pres. Lyndon Johnson, who was in the habit of referring to African-Americans as "n....s", signed the Civil Right Act, that outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. An amazing event I remember well. I'm sure that there will be plenty said by the press and politicians this week about how much or how little progress we've made since then. If you look at the state of Louisiana, where racial segregation and discrimination has moved from law (thank you LBJ but mainly the Civil Rights Movement) to policy (thanks to Gov. Bobby Jindal), it seems like we've even regressed in many ways.

Duncan never had Holder's back in La. 

The second part of Simon's Politico post today is about Atty. Gen. Eric Holder's suit against Jindal and La.'s use of vouchers to roll back attempts at racial balance in public schools.  Simon reports that a federal judge ruled late Tuesday that Louisiana must give the Department of Justice spreadsheets identifying the thousands of students who apply for vouchers so each year, so DOJ can monitor whether the program upsets racial balances in public schools. That's a small victory (I think) and all well and good.

But while we're on the subject of Sec. Duncan, the man who more than anyone else is fond of telling us that corporate-style school reform is the "civil rights issue of our generation", it's significant that Duncan has never had Holder's back on this. Remember Duncan's radio interview on Sept. 14, 2013, when he proclaimed loud enough for Jindal to hear him, that he was opposed to "forced integration." When asked if he supported Holder's civil rights suit, Duncan pleaded ignorance.

If indeed, education is the civil rights issue of our time, it should be clear by now that Arne Duncan isn't the one to lead that struggle. He needs to go.