National Public Radio’s terrific talk show, Talk of the Nation, interviewed US Education Secretary Arne Duncan this morning and sent out a tweet asking for questions worth posing to the Secretary. I immediately tweeted back a barrage of questions and the host asked a paraphrased version of one the most innocuous questions I submitted.

If goal is raising opportunities & achievement for all kids, isn’t RACE for the top an unfortunate metaphor? (1 winner, many losers)

Engaging in critical debates about Federal education policy in 140 characters is a challenge, but not impossible.

The following are the other questions I “tweeted” to Secretary Arne Duncan (in reverse chronological order) via NPR’s TOTN:

How would Sect. Duncan to respond to the report card given him - A for efficacy and D for policy?

Isn’t firing all of the teachers and charterizing public schools a right-wing utopian fantasy?

Where does Sect. Duncan think the magical teachers & perfect schools will come from after he fires teachers and closes pub schools?

Did you ask Duncan what he thinks of Diane Ravitch’s research disproving the basic assumptions of Obama education policies?

Given the Gates Foundation’s expensive school reform failures, why do they have so much influence within the Dept. of Education?

If you’re a parent in Harlem, should be concerned that nearly all of the local public schools have been turned into boutique charters?

Why should public school facilities be surrendered to private charter school operators?

Which is true: a) The Chicago Public Schools are a mess & failing children b) We should trust Sect. Duncan to do the same for America?

Should Americans be alarmed that most major city districts and the Dept. of Ed are now run by unqualified non-educators?

If goal is raising opportunities & achievement for all kids, isn’t RACE for the top an unfortunate metaphor? (1 winner, many losers)

Why has a “Labor” administration worked so hard to bust the teacher unions across the nation?

On December 17, 2008 - one month before Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States, I expressed my fear about his appointees and agenda for public education in a Huffington Post article entitled, “Obama Practices Social Promotion.”

Read the article linked above or pasted below and judge for yourself whether or not I was clairvoyant.

Obama Practices Social Promotion

A curious cartel of billionaire bullies, power hungry politicians and tough-talking school superintendents wage an eternal battle against social promotion — for the good of our children of course. Social promotion, a divisive political term with no basis in reality, like partial-birth abortion, is one of the most popular talking points among the the most vocal critics of public education. The “end of social promotion” has caused tens of thousands of kids as young as 3rd grade to be left-back, despite overwhelming evidence that this practice harms children and increases the drop-out rate.

However, social promotion is a godsend to urban school superintendents in this age of privatization.

On October 19, 2006 I wrote an article, When I Run the Navy, for a now defunct LA Times blog.

Call me Admiral Stager! (October 16, 2006)

I took swimming lessons for seven years, visited the USS Ling submarine in Hackensack, NJ and my father was once in the National Guard. I’ve even been known to giggle at reruns of McHale’s Navy and Gilligan’s Island. However, the best reasons to name me Admiral are:

1) I want the job and
2) I have no qualifications whatsoever!

Ridiculous! Why would someone with zero qualifications be put in charge of a naval fleet?

A similar question might be asked of Vice Admiral David L. Brewer III, just named Superintendent of the 710,000+ student Los Angeles Unified School District.

The always entertaining Los Angeles School Board appointed the retired General with absolutely no advanced degree, educational expertise or teaching experience to lead the second largest school district in the country.

Admiral Brewer may be an impressive leader and heckuva guy. The L.A. School Board may be sticking it to the Mayor for his recent power grab of the school district. Yet, none of this matters much or will improve the quality of education in this troubled lumbering district.

In the topsy-turvy world of public education a lack of qualifications earns you the fast track to big city school leadership and a hefty paycheck.

One of the primary goals of education is the development of expertise, not just political acumen. What sort of example are we setting for students? How much do we respect education when educators are deemed unacceptable as district leaders?

Learning is more complex than supply chain management. It seems as if any unemployed member of the military, failed businessman or police officer is thought better qualified to run schools than educators.

I’m sick of it. How about you?

Perhaps we need federal legislation requiring a fully qualified superintendent in every school district!

Last week, the Los Angeles Unified School District gave Admiral Brewer at least $517,000 to make him disappear. Half a million bucks in an age of budget cut backs and economic crises. It’s not clear if that includes his $45,000 expense account or $36,000 housing allowance.

Who could have possibly predicted that a person with absolutely no education experience, wisdom, vision or accomplishments would fail as the leader of a major US school system? Call me Nostradamus!

It is truly bizarre that the public education system, which at least in-part is dedicated to preparing people for careers and life, would devalue expertise.

Arne Duncan Fails Upward

Today’s nomination of Chicago Public Schools CEO Arne Duncan to be the Barack Obama’s Secretary Education is a spectacular example of social promotion. Duncan, who as been the CEO or Chief of Staff of the Chicago Public Schools for the past ten years has done such a swell job of “reform” that his best friend and basketball buddy, Barack Obama, would not send his own children to the public schools. President-elect Obama is like Eli Broad, Bill Gates and the members of the Business Roundtable who kill public schools with their kindness while turning them into the sort of joyless test-prep sweatshops unworthy of children they love.

Arne Duncan is a darling of the charter school movement, Eli Broad, the right-wing Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, anti-union “Democrats” and I kid you not — Hooked-on-Phonics. President-elect Obama eagerly awaits recommendations on nuclear proliferation from Billy Mays, Ron Popeil and the ShamWow guy.

Duncan spends millions on standardized testing, turns public schools into military academies and endorses Teach for America, an organization built upon the perverse proposition that the most qualified teachers are those without qualifications. Teach for America’s political wing, Leadership for Education Equity, fought hard to ensure that a competent teacher educator would not be nominated. They sure got their wish with Arne Duncan.

Arne Duncan is a strong supporter of merit pay, which like social promotion is based on ideology and wishful thinking, not fact. He is also a proponent of paying children for good grades.

Riddle me this. If Arne Duncan is such a “reformer with results” who did such a swell job leading the Chicago Public Schools, why did President-elect Obama send his daughters to private school?

Duncan is a fan of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and never met a standardized test he didn’t love. His education policies and practices are indistinguishable from those of the Bush Administration. In fact, the current unqualified Secretary of Education Spellings virtually endorsed Duncan while she posed for for a photo-op with him four days ago. Today she praised Duncan’s nomination while spinning her own tall tale and invoking romantic visions of student accountabily.

“Arne Duncan is a visionary leader and fellow reformer [emphasis mine] who cares deeply about students.” (Margaret Spellings — 12/16/08)

Apparently, “change you can believe in” stops at the school metal detector.

The mainstream media covers education issues as if they were writing for Pravda. Today’s news accounts of the Duncan nomination were stenography with no questions asked or facts checked. It’s not difficult to find examples of Duncan’s creative interpretation of data or how he is a political appointee of the Daley machine in Chicago.

Obama was never asked to define school reform or explain why he relied on questionable standardized test score gains to justify nominating Duncan, the Harriet Miers of his administration.

Across the political spectrum, the mainstream media sleepwalks through any education news. NPR reported, “He’s focused on improving struggling schools, closing those that fail and getting better teachers,” without providing any supporting evidence while Fox News praised Duncan as a “Bona Fide Reformer.” The media repeats how Duncan closed and then reopened schools like he turned water into wine.

The “Chicago Miracle” may prove no better than the fraudulent “Houston Miracle” on which NCLB and the six billion dollar Reading First boondoggle were based. Arne Duncan is no better qualified to be Secretary of Education than Coach Rod Paige.

Bloggers and a handful of independent journalists were more conscientious. Veteran education journalist Alexander Russo writes:

I hope that the national press will look a little bit deeper into the Chicago miracle, and take a moment to ponder why the folks they’re quoting are saying such nice things about him. No one’s looked at Chicago’s lame NAEP scores or anemic charter program. Most of the folks who are gushing about him don’t really know him (or Chicago) that well, or hope to work for him in the near future, or are approving of him because they think that they can beat him in DC.

Veteran Chicago educator and journalist, George Schmidt responded to the oft-repeated claim that American Federation of Teachers Randi Weingarten “has a good relationship with Duncan.”

After you’ve read up about Chicago from the grass roots, then circulate nonsense about whether the “teachers” and the “union” support Arne Duncan.Randi Weingarten is a lawyer who has less real teaching experience than the average veteran substitute teacher. Arne Duncan is an educational administrator who has as much teaching experience as Randi Weingarten.

It figures they would be scratching each others’ backs.

Journalists have an obligation to ask Obama where he stands on private school vouchers since he raised the issue today.

For years, we have talked our education problems to death in Washington, but failed to act, stuck in the same tired debates that have stymied our progress and left schools and parents to fend for themselves: Democrat versus Republican; vouchers versus the status quo… (Barack Obama — 12/16/08)

The President-elect also needs to clarify his stance on unions since 1) the teacher unions supported him; 2) he is a democrat; and 3) the auto “bailout” may destroy the American labor movement (and middle class) once and for all.

Reformers vs. Teachers

If Arne Duncan turns out to be the most effective Secretary of Education in history, I will be delighted to praise him.

However, Obama and his transition team have done great violence to millions of committed educators by framing the selection of Duncan as a choice between “reformers” and those who care about teachers and children. Progressive author Alfie Kohn explores this dishonest choice in a thoughtful article in The Nation, Beware of School “Reformers.” Kohn writes:

Sadly, all but one of the people reportedly being considered for Secretary of Education are reformers only in this Orwellian sense of the word. The exception is Linda Darling-Hammond, a former teacher, expert on teacher quality, and professor of education at Stanford.

President-elect Obama has remained silent as one his advisors, Dr. Darling-Hammond, a highly respected and accomplished educator was ridiculed and insulted in the media. To paraphrase former Reagan offiicial Ray Donovan, “Which office does Dr. Darling-Hammond go to get her reputation back?

If you view the world through left/right glasses, I suggest you consider the words of education historian Dr. Diane Ravitch who served in George H.W. Bush’s Department of Education and is a Fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution and Board of Trustees of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation.

Many years ago, Linda Darling-Hammond and I were colleagues at Teachers College. We sometimes crossed swords over issues, but I always found her to be smart, thoughtful, and deeply devoted to the well-being of teachers and children. I don’t think that makes her a leader of the “status quo” crowd. I have always thought that she is above all interested in improving schools, helping teachers, and doing right by kids. What’s wrong with that?As for the new breed of superintendents who are supposedly going to “save” American education, I have a very different take on them from the editorialists. They say they are Democrats, but their policies are truly the Republican agenda. The Republican education experts and conservative think tanks have always wanted more accountability, more choice, merit pay, and a tough anti-union stance. Thus, it is one of the amusing ironies of our time that the people who now espouse this agenda call themselves “reformers” and are acclaimed as such by the national media. They are reformers indeed, but the reforms they are advocating and implementing come right out of the Republican playbook. (Diane Ravitch — 12/16/08)

Gary Stager’s web site

School Wars - Politicians, billionaires, and mavericks all want to fix public schools. They won’t. Parents will. (from GOOD Magazine)

Related books on progressive education

As Arne Duncan and other unthinking vertebrates get aroused by the notion of common core standards, the rest of us should look at how stoobid the existing ones are.

Teachers in California are not only required to write the standards they are teaching on the board so that their disinterested first graders will magically achieve enlightenment, but they are forced to teach bunch ‘o crap standards like this gem from the 2nd Grade History – Social Science for California Public Schools Content Standards:

2.5 Students understand the importance of individual action and character and
explain how heroes from long ago and the recent past have made a difference in
others’ lives (e.g., from biographies of Abraham Lincoln, Louis Pasteur, Sitting
Bull, George Washington Carver, Marie Curie, Albert Einstein, Golda Meir,
Jackie Robinson, Sally Ride).

Please answer the following comprehension questions:

1. WTF?
2. Which does not belong?
3. Are you kidding?
4. Second grade?

On September 3, 2008 I published this article, First We Kill the Teacher Unions, in the Huffington Post. The article reported on some evidence that the first “labor” President of the 21st Century and his “liberal” friend were going to use teachers as public policy piñatas.

So, was I right? Did I understate the assault on public education and its practitioners by the Obama administration?

Feel free to copy links to articles related to this issue in your comments.

Will public schools continue to exist in the United States?

You have to wonder when you consider the press release below. This morning, billionaire mischief maker, Eli Broad will take time from destroying the economy and reneging on charitable promises, to commit greater violence against public school children in America by awarding his annual bribe prize for the school district that places the greatest misplaced emphasis on deeply flawed standardized testing.

At a time of deep budget cuts in public education, a million dollars is real money. Districts like, Long Beach, CA are addicted to the Broad Prize payola bribe food pellet scholarship money and compete year-after-year at the alter of testing über alles. The Long Beach schools are now so great that Eli Broad and all of his rich friends now send their own children and grandchildren to the Long Beach public schools - I’m only kidding! LMAOROTFL!

It’s one thing to convince mayors to suspend democracy, seize control of public education and transfer public treasure to private hands (as described in my 2008 GOOD Magazine cover story, School Wars), but Eli Broad’s unchecked power now seems unstoppable. It’s quite likely that Broad will soon turn dozens of Los Angeles Unified public schools into the obedience schools for minority children that he so loves.

Sure, Broad likes to kick-it old skool with his posse, including Bill Gates and Kanye West, but today he wins the VMA of American politics when Federal Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, presents the 2009 Broad Urban Education Prize. That’s right, Duncan will play Pinocchio to Broad’s Gepetto. Since co-opting only one branch of government is so old-fashioned, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi will be there too as Eli Broad’s Vanna White. (She has played this role in the past)

Is the United States Government now a wholly-owned subsidiary of oligarchs like Eli Broad? Should educators throw a tea party?

(Below the press release are some links for additional reading on Duncan and Broad)

media advisory

Winner of $2 Million Broad Prize for Urban Education to be Announced, Named Most Improved Urban School District Aldine, Broward County, Gwinnett County, Long Beach and Socorro Vie for Country’s Largest Education Prize For Immediate Release Monday, Sept. 14, 2009 Contact: Erica Lepping, elepping@broadfoundation.org O: 310.954.5053, C: 310.594.6880 Who: U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Members of Congress D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty Philanthropist Eli Broad 300 leading education policy-makers and practitioners What: Announce the winner of the 2009 Broad Prize for Urban Education, the largest education prize in the country. The finalists are school districts in Aldine, Texas; Broward County, Fla.; Gwinnett County, Ga.; Long Beach, Calif. and Socorro, Texas. When: Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2009 9 to 10:45 a.m. ET: Panel discussion with superintendents from The Broad Prize finalist districts, moderated by former USA Today education journalist Richard Whitmire 11 a.m. to noon ET: Announcement of winner, with remarks by Secretary Duncan Where: United States Capitol Visitor Center, Washington, D.C. Enter below East Plaza of Capitol between Constitution and Independence Avenues. Events in Congressional Auditorium. Note: Please RSVP to elepping@broadfoundation.org to reserve a seat. Capitol Visitors Center press credentials required in advance through House Radio/TV Gallery, 202.225.5214. The following opportunities to cover the announcement will also be available on Sept. 16: Noon ET: Press kit (in English and Spanish) on http://www.broadprize.org/ 12:30 p.m. ET: Conference call with Broad Prize-winning district leaders and Eli Broad. For call-in number and pass code, please email elepping@broadfoundation.org. 4 p.m. ET: Event photos available on AP wire The $2 million Broad (pronounced “brode”) Prize for Urban Education (http://www.broadprize.org/) annually honors urban American school districts that demonstrate the greatest overall performance and improvement in student achievement while reducing income and ethnic achievement gaps. The winning district will receive $1 million in college scholarships for high school seniors, with $250,000 in scholarships for each finalist district. The event is sponsored by The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation (www.broadfoundation.org). ###

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Further reading:

• School Wars

• Eli Broad describes close ties to Klein, Weingarten, Duncan

• Arne Duncan: Great Educator Or Great Ball Player? Eli Broad, Great Businessman Or?

• The Instigator: New Yorker Profile of Charter School Chief Steve Barr is Propaganda, not Reporting

• BACK TO BASICS: Arne Duncan’s School Reform Plan: Fire Everyone

• Duncan Channels Terrel Bell, Ronald Reagan

• Chicago Schools Chief Arne Duncan, Business Leaders Announce Expansion of Drive to Recruit, Train Public School Principals

• DUNCAN: In Search Of The Secretary’s Schedule

• Faculty and Speakers - The Broad Superintendents Academy

Greetings from Australia!

Karl Fisch’s latest blog, Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader?, and a horrific current event inspired me to mine the Stager Archives for another old article (originally published in 2007).

I witnessed a horrific spectacle last night. Australian Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister, Julia Gillard, was a contestant on the Aussie version of Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? Yup, that’s right - an accomplished attorney and Deputy Prime Minister was a shameless combatant in this nationally televised trivia porn.

You MUST watch this 10-second clip!

I know what you’re thinking, my fellow Americans. Does Arne Duncan have what it takes to demonstrate his intellect on pressing questions like, “Which wood is cricket bats made of?” (That was in the 5th PLANTS category)

Is Plants an actual subject area and if so, is it important to know how cricket bats are made?

Deputy Prime Minister Gillard is another in a long-string of accomplished thoughtful professionals whose intelligence drops in half when it comes to matters of education. Ten months ago I wrote about her crush on American public education saboteur in the Australian publication, Crikey. Educators can learn nothing from Chancellor Klein’s visit Gillard is pushing a national curriculum, standardized testing, data-driven decision-making, school ranking and other equally despicable fantasies across her nation in the name of educational quality. She embraces the worst of American trends in public education with two fists.

I will be enormously sad if the Australian teacher unions capitulate on such matters of importance as have their American brethren.

Gillard is also advancing a plan called The Digital Education Revolution under which Aussie schoolchildren may or may not gain access to a personal computer. The most objectionable aspect of this plan is the fact that I am less than an hour’s drive from one of the first schools in the world where every student got a personal laptop computer nearly 20 years ago. In fact, I led professional development at that school 19 years ago! It was the stated policy of the state government in 1990 that by 1991, every child would have a personal laptop computer.

It’s depressing that every 20 years we need to have a revolution to do what we promised to do 20 years ago. Such bureaucratic amnesia proves Stager’s Second Law of School Reform:

Educators will continue to invent what already exists, each time with diminished expectations.

In any event, here is the February 27, 2007 article I wrote for The Pulse.

Is Your State Commissioner of Education Smarter Than a 5th Grader?

Tonight, the Fox Television Network will perform a great public service. TV will demonstrate to millions of households what some of us have known for years. Much of what school teaches is utterly useless nonsense.

Jonathan Kozol, Herbert Kohl, Susan Ohanian and Alfie Kohn have long proposed that politicians and business leaders imposing educational standards and high-stakes tests on children should be forced to have their (current) scores on the same tests published in the newspaper. Quick! Name an official with the courage to do so!

While the Miss Crabtree generation laughed at a pie in the face. Fox hopes that the MCAS/FCAT/STAR/TAKS generation will yuck it up to Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader; a light-hearted confection celebrating the humiliating prospect of an adult being “outsmarted” by a kid. If the show is successful, it will be expose the dirty-little secret of American education - school curricula is focused on trivia.

Trivia is the fuel that propels game shows. Some game shows are based on chance or physical prowess, yet some of the most enduring ones are based on “knowledge.” Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy “test” the knowledge of contestants, but what sorts of knowledge are being assessed? Successful contestants combine rapid twitch reaction with spelling, vocabulary and memorization of esoteric factoids. Understanding, experience, talent or effort is not required and therefore unmeasured. That stuff may not be quick, relevant or prone to multiple-choice questions.

The appeal of Game Shows is that the viewer thinks, “I’m smarter than that guy!” Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader ingeniously plays on our fear of appearing stupid and the schadenfreude we enjoy when someone else looks like a buffoon.

I can hardly wait for “State Department of Education Week” or “Business Roundtable Showdown” on Are You Smarter that a 5th Grader!

sample question from the program web site

Do we agree on what it means to be “smart?”

There is an unfortunate paradox in play here. What many of us see as the dumbing-down of American education is now being sold to the television audience as intelligence. Where American Idol (the lead-in to …5th Grader) celebrates perseverance, talent, individuality and personal expression, Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader rewards being a smart-aleck and implies that education is a zero-sum game.

The incessant quest for one hundred percent of students to be above the norm reduces schooling to a contest with lots of losers and no exciting cash and prizes. Teachers who camp out in-front of conference booths selling multiple-choice clicker systems hoping to use such technological goodies in their classroom should think about the consequences of their lust. Classrooms are not game show sets and teachers should be more than game show hosts.

However, it should be noted that Jeff Foxworth, host of …5th Grader, is an accomplished artist who has spent more than twenty years perfecting his craft and entertaining millions. Regardles of whether you enjoy his brand of humor, he has a unique style and a strong sense of self. No memo will cause him to change his style or tell a joke he doesn’t think is funny.

By the way… Have you heard the latest Jeff Foxworthy joke? You might be a redneck if you let some anonymous bureaucrat bully you into what and how you teach.*

Oh, I love that joke!

Game shows are one way we escape from thinking. Is the same true for 5th grade?

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*That’s not really a Jeff Foxworthy joke and should not be construed as a slur against rednecks. I made it up.