March 28, 2024

What Do Arne Duncan & Paul Bremer Have in Common?

For decades, Substance, has reported on public education in Chicago. They have made enemies in the teacher’s union, school board and central administration. It’s editor was terminated by the Chicago Public Schools during the Duncan/Vallas regime for whistle-blowing on standardized testing. The legal case waged in the courts for 6+ years until the Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal.

The following is a portion of the editorial written by the Substance team about President-Elect Obama’s Secretary of Education nominee and basketball buddy, Arne Duncan:

For the past six years, we’ve watched while Chicago Schools CEO Arne Duncan lied repeatedly to the public about how and why he was closing dozens of public schools. Duncan was not trying to improve public schools in Chicago for all children, but was in command of a ruthless privatization plan that is designed to undermine traditional notions of public education for urban children and replace them with a crackpot version of “market choice” that exists only for the wealthy and the powerful.

The key to Duncan’s ability to get away with the Big Lie, however, is not Duncan’s own eloquence, but the face that he has the backing of Chicago’s ruling class. From the CEOs of the city’s largest corporations (organized into the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club) to the editorial boards of the two power daily newspapers, Duncan’s lies are amplified every day, and except for the pages of this newspaper and a few other places, unchallenged in the public arena where democratic debate is supposed to take place.

After we reviewed the school closings in Chicago since 2001, when Mayor Daley appointed Duncan the second “Chief Executive Officer” in CPS history, the shocking details began to become clear. Not only were poor black children being forced out of their homes (public housing reform, it was called), but they were also being deprived over and over of access to public schools.

Take some time to read Substance online and consider subscribing to the most independent journalism in public education.

Labels: Arne Duncan, Barack Obama, George Schmidt, nclb, Substance, Susan Ohanian