No seat at the table...

 People back peddle when they say the wrong things and try to save face. Arne Duncan and his corporate education privatization crew really thought that it would be easy to get "white suburban moms" and suburban parents of all colors to jump on their band wagon of low test scores = your kids, their schools, and their teachers are failing & you should want charter schools. This is evident as the Governor of NY created a low cut score (AKA passing score) in the spring of 2013 that was meant to sway the public that their schools and teachers stink. 70% of the kids in the entire state failed the Common Core aligned tests. I blogged about it here. But parents are so much smarter than they give us credit for.


In a staged interview, teacher Lisa Clarke gives Duncan a chance to spin the truth in a DOE series called:

Ask Arne...

"Lisa Clarke:

When individual philanthropists like Bill Gates or Eli Broad give donations do they earn a seat at the table making decisions with you?

Arne Duncan:

I have tremendous respect for them and am thrilled that they have given -- lots of other places they could choose to put their dollars. The fact that they are trying to help education is a very positive thing. But no, it doesn't give them a seat at the table. You guys are at the table. But again, having people who have been successful come back and give back and be part of the solution is really important."

 Anthony Cody, Education Week blogger writes, 
"Arne Duncan acts as if none of this has any impact. As if teachers have a larger say in education policy than Bill Gates, who is just offering a helpful hand with no strings attached. This is not just a seat at the table. The Gates Foundation has set the table, and decided on the menu. The people seated at whatever table the Department of Education produces for photo opportunities or interviews such as this are not the real decision-makers."

We know being a spin doctor is one of the common state standards for politicians. And it is those who seem to be spinning repeatedly whom we need to watch most carefully.
Mr. Duncan, although you get so many opportunities to "re-take the test," you keep failing with half-truths and misinformation. As you are not an elected official, we are forced to keep reading and hearing your spin. That said, some folks think that if you had to write a persuasive essay supporting your own perspective with facts & evidence from the text (respected & peer-reviewed research), you would score below basic and immediately be put into a remedial class. Oops, that means you lose a study hall. How will you ever learn?

Bill Gates addresses the state legislators in this video using the jargon d'jour:

"state led, clear, rigorous standards..."

Cody also reports: 

"The Gates Foundation offered assistance to states in filling out the complex Race to the Top applications, but only if the states agreed to the following:

Has your state signed the MOA regarding the Common Core Standards currently being developed by NGA/CCSSO? [Answer must be "yes"]"

Looks like Gates had a head seat at the table.

Must have been cozy up there with just two out of 3.3 million public school teachers in the United States. This is why we need our politicians to think back to their math classes...

2 out of 3.3 million isn't a representative sample and makes no statistical sense in a persuasive argument, but what ever. Parents & the general public will believe it if two teachers are filmed interviewing Mr. Duncan. And those two teachers won't stir things up at the table, teachers are used to eating fast during their half hour lunches.