Flores: How Do the United Nations Frame the Case for Public Education

The Perimeter Primate is pleased to post this piece by Sergio Flores. Sergio has been a teacher since 1978 and currently works at a public school in Whittier City.

How Do the United Nations Frame the Case for Public Education

Under the current circumstances and conditions, the public education systems in the United States, and in particular in California, are on the verge of being privatized. In order to find out why this is not a desirable outcome for our democratic society, and how to articulate a defense against privatization, public education stakeholders must read the United Nations research and the recommendations.

The United Nations has an untarnished reputation on publishing valid and intellectually honest research, and an equally uncompromising status on making policies designed to solve social problems. The UN has at its core universal and humanitarian intentions, and progressive and inclusive solutions. In the area of education, the United Nations have done extensive research and compelling arguments for the social need and pragmatic usefulness of public education systems.

The bottom line is that education is first and foremost a human right, and as such an unavoidable duty for both governments and citizens. For that reason, the UN takes a premier interest in education, and provides help to countries with the goal of providing universal access to the best education possible. Thus, the United Nations insists that every country considers education quality and learning achievement the center of a national education planning.

It is necessary to study the present situation from a different perspective than the one framed by the reformers. Indeed, I propose an analysis and evaluation of the reforms, their outcomes, and predictable future in the United States, and particularly here in California based on the principles that the UN recommends. At the onset, public teachers and teacher union members must agree that the Education Reform in the United States can be described as a prescription or list of procedures emanated from the free-market ideology. At best the reforms have been political assertions without the proper mechanisms that would make the proposals successful. Thus, regardless of our personal or ideological beliefs, in order to improve public education it is important to study the issue dispassionately and evaluate what the reformers have attempted and achieved, and then contrast it with realistic goals in the context.

If public school stakeholders all share the ideal goal of preparing the most educated citizenship in California and the US, they and their associations have to play a more effective role in defending public education against privatization. Public school stakeholders should take the United Nations’ advice and build and support their own arguments. It is reasonable to believe that public school stakeholders can rebuild trust and commitment from policy makers at federal and local levels to create authentic reforms with realistic goals.

The United Nations eight thematic lessons for having a successful public education system are:

Equity in Education

The benefits of education must reach everyone; not only some. Policy makers must ensure that disadvantaged groups and undeserved regions be given the same quality services other groups receive. For that to happen policy makers may 1) introduce financial incentives for the children of disadvantaged backgrounds, 2) provide support to keep children in school, and 3) provide well-trained teachers. In order to establish equity in education it is critical to study spending patterns, and ensure that schools, teachers and resources are skewed towards those with the greatest need rather than those with the greatest wealth.

There must be a political decision to adopt equity goals in education and monitor the progress. National and local agendas must include concrete targets for reducing disparities. Specific targets would be set for particularly marginalized groups or regions with high concentration of deprivation.

Sustained political commitment is necessary

Political leaders need to put education at the center of national development strategies and use their influence to make equity a shared goal through society. In order to accomplish this ambitious goal, leaders need to reach beyond the government agencies and involve the civil society. It is important to understand the importance of having coherent efforts to support education.

Strengthen anti-poverty commitments

Progress in education cannot be built on the foundation s of mass poverty and deep social inequality. Public spending in health services and social services is a must in this respect. In other words, for the investment in education to be fruitful, governments should invest in social areas.

Every school must become an effective learning environment

These environments require well-nourished and motivates students, well-trained teachers using adequate facilities and instructional materials, a relevant curriculum, and a welcoming gender-sensitive, healthy, safe environment that encourages learning. The school offer should have a minimum of 850 hours per year in instructional time.

Strengthen capacities to measure, monitor and assess education quality, and inform parent and policy-makers.

The methods and the information collected in monitoring and assessment exercises should be transparent and accessible to diverse stakeholders. The monitoring of education quality should include three dimensions: input or enabling conditions for learning, trained teachers and adequate budgets; pedagogy and the learning process; and learning outcomes.

Scale up education financing with a commitment to equity

Although high levels of education financing do not guarantee universal access or strong learning achievement, sustained underfinancing is unequivocally bad for efficiency, equity and education quality. Underfinancing is not consistent with a commitment to public education. It is noted that current spending patterns are often pro-rich rather than pro-poor.

It is important for central government to retaining a strong redistributive role, facilitating the transfer of resources from richer to poorer. Policies and laws should consider indicators such as poverty level and health status. Often it is the case that the wealthiest regions receiving the highest levels of per capita public spending in education. The guiding principle should be that those in greatest need receive the most per capita support.

Recognize the limits to competition and choice

Under the right conditions, competition and choice can support education. However, policy makers need to recognize that education provision cannot be reduced to oversimplified market principles. For one, competition is constrained by faulty information, time, distance, and institutional capacity. Also, the benefits of choice are limited by poverty and social disadvantages. Public-private partnership strategies such as vouchers programs, state funding for private schools, and the development of independent schools have each limited record of success.

Although choice and competition are presented as a solution to the failings of public provision, in most cases are not the best option when it comes to efficiency and equity. If the public system is failing, it would be better to first consider fixing the system, and then consider options for competition between providers.

Strengthen the recruitment, deployment and motivation of teachers

A good-quality public education for all requires an adequate supply of motivated, qualified, and properly trained teachers. In the process of finding ways to provide sufficiently qualified supply, it is important to recognize the trade-off between quality and quantity of teachers and the importance of finding ways to get teachers to undeserved areas and disadvantaged communities.

Comment: Sergio cites information from the 2009 EFA Global Monitoring Report (large pdf @ 477 pages). EFA is Education for All, an initiative of UNESCO.

More Clues About Good Teaching

This opinion piece from the Cornell Daily Sun is very much worth sharing.

Teaching: Missionary Stint or Profession?

October 9, 2009 - 4:02am
By Denise Gelberg

In the past two months thousands of newly minted college graduates from our finest colleges and universities became teachers of our neediest children in urban and rural schools across the country. These novices entered the classroom via alternate, fast-track routes such as Teach for America, committing to teach for two years.

TFA and its brethren are highly selective programs, screening applicants for disposition, intelligence, a premier education and a vision of social justice. The premise that underlies the movement to put the best and the brightest of our new college graduates into our most challenging classrooms is this: Smart, energetic, innovative novices will, during their two year tenure, be able to succeed where others have failed.

Bringing our brightest young people into the classroom is a compelling vision. Why then, do I worry about the ultimate effect of programs such as TFA?

35 years ago I was such a novice. A top graduate of an Ivy League college I was certain that the only thing I needed in order to become a good teacher was the opportunity to shadow an experienced teacher for a few weeks. I reasoned that if I could earn As in nearly every one of my courses at a highly selective, high pressure college, I could certainly figure out how to run an elementary classroom without breaking a sweat.

As is so often true, experience would provide the needed correction for my faulty thinking. Despite my best efforts during my first year of teaching I made many serious, fundamental errors and did not serve my students well. My second year, though better, was still a learning experience for the teacher. Those two years of teaching can be summed up as follows: I worked hard, did the best I could and was performing adequately for a novice by the end of the second year.

Two years comprises the entire teaching career of a typical Teach for America candidate. The vast majority of the TFA teachers complete their two year commitment and move on to things bigger and better; careers that pay more, earn higher status and allow bathroom breaks as needed. In a sense, the TFA experience is reminiscent of the two year mission young Mormons engage in when they reach young adulthood. Like young Mormon missionaries, the TFA candidates are called to serve through teaching and undergo a short training period before being sent far from home. The mission is a rite of passage. Once completed, the young Mormons begin their adult lives and careers.

In my case I chose to make teaching my life’s work rather than to leave after two years. In time I grew into a successful, and, reputedly, a master teacher. My journey from bright young novice to seasoned professional emboldens me to offer counsel to education reformers who aim to revolutionize teaching by bringing wave after wave of bright, well educated young people into the nation’s classrooms for limited stints.

First, two years does not a teacher make. The idea that teaching does not require professional expertise — just a top-notch education, a good heart and youthful enthusiasm — has somehow developed currency in the contemporary education policy debate. How else can one rationalize the idea of dropping novices into the most difficult teaching environments such as are found in our inner cities and poorest rural areas? I can say, after teaching some 28 years past my first two, that I continued to develop expertise throughout my career. There is no accelerated path to becoming a master teacher.

Second, the constant teacher turnover generated by programs such as TFA is not in the best interests of our most vulnerable children. Few middle class parents want the “new teacher” when class assignments are made for their child. Why, then, is it OK for poor kids to be assigned a novice teacher year after year after year?

Third, continual teacher turnover handicaps efforts to make schools more effective. After working in six schools and three school districts I can testify to the fact that it takes time to build a team of teachers that pull together to realize the overarching goal of improved student performance. Unremitting teacher turnover works against long term, sustained school improvement.

Finally, the job benefits that keep people in teaching — tenure, pensions, union contracts that provide medical insurance and other protections — are not anachronistic relics of a distant past as characterized by many reformers. Rather, they allow and encourage people to stay in a difficult career that provides many challenges and limited financial rewards.

Two year teaching stints may be gratifying for the bright, well-meaning young adults who sign up for them. They may learn important life lessons that will guide them for years to come. But if socially aware, good hearted, intelligent novice teachers really want to help our neediest youngsters I suggest they sign on for the long haul. Only by remaining in the classroom can they develop into the master teachers they may very well have the potential to become. And in time that may ultimately lead to a genuine revolution in the quality of our schools.

Denise Gelberg ’72, Ph.D., ’93 taught grades K-3 for 30 years in New York State. She is the author of The “Business” of Reforming American Schools (SUNY Press). Guest Room appears periodically.

Under Seige

Very few, if any, urban public school systems have been spared from the pompous neo-liberal mentality of today’s education reform cabal.

Beware: Do NOT confuse the term “neo-liberalism” with “social liberalism.” There is NO connection.

Neo-liberalism is an economic theory that outlines a set of policies which support and promote the economic system of capitalism. According to CorpWatch, the main points of neo-liberalism include:

• THE RULE OF THE MARKET. Liberating "free" enterprise or private enterprise from any bonds imposed by the government [Reduce wages by de-unionizing workers and eliminating workers' rights].
• CUTTING PUBLIC EXPENDITURE FOR SOCIAL SERVICES like education and health care [In the name of reducing government's role and supporting government subsidies and tax benefits for business].
• DEREGULATION. Reduce government regulation of everything that could diminish profits.
• PRIVATIZATION. Sell state-owned enterprises, goods and services to private investors. This includes banks, key industries, railroads, toll highways, electricity, schools, hospitals and even fresh water [Usually done in the name of greater efficiency].
• ELIMINATING THE CONCEPT OF "THE PUBLIC GOOD" or "COMMUNITY" and replacing it with "individual responsibility."

If you've been following the arguments for today's school reform movement, all these principals will sound familiar.

Americans usually associate “reform” with a movement that will make things better, for example, reforming child labor laws. However, this is a case where U.S. citizens need to be much less naive!

The ultimate outcome of today’s public education “reform” is the elimination of our children's schools as a public institution, followed by a rebuilding where all schools will be operated privately. This time, reform isn't going to mean any type of improvement which the trusting, average person is likely to have in their mind.

In the 19 months since I started this blog, I’ve connected with parents, teachers, and community members in Boston, New York City, Albany, Baltimore, Washington DC, Los Angeles, Sacramento, and Portland, Oregon. In each of those cities, people are experiencing the same neo-liberal siege of their local public school system. In some cases, the condition is at a very advanced stage.

Recently I had an exchange with the authors of Seattle Education 2010, a blog that focuses on charter schools as well as the presence of the Broad Foundation within Seattle public schools. They display the following quote from Albert Einstein at the bottom of their website:

‘The intuitive mind is a sacred gift, the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.’

The rational mind beams brightly from the minds controlling public education reform today. Think about places like Harvard Business School and about all those now-interested-in-education MBAs. Think about Milton Friedman who designed the blueprint for the total corporate privatization of Earth. He was originally a mathematician and statistician who became an economist. And think about the billionaires who are suddenly devoted to "improving" public education. Eli Broad was a precocious Certified Public Accountant (the youngest ever in Michigan at the time) who became a corporate CEO. Bill Gates was a precocious computer scientist before he became a corporate CEO and the wealthiest, and thus the most powerful, person who has ever lived on this planet. There would be little balance in the minds of today’s education reform leaders; they are weighted down by their strategic business-minded rationality.

The danger of today’s education “reform” movement is that the arguments which defend it are so damn logical. That logic – potentiated by the billions spent on developing and pushing it – may be what is giving it so much strength. But might doesn't necessarily make right.

Unfortunately, their logic wins, especially when so many people don’t view propaganda with a critical eye, don't know that they need to be skeptical about grand claims, have absolute trust in “philanthropists,” and want the ugly problems which chronically exist in inner-cities to simply disappear.

They think to themselves, why not fixate on data? What's wrong with testing children a little bit more, and a little bit more? Why aren't teachers to blame when their students have trouble absorbing information in the classroom? Why not replace teachers with smart, analytically-minded, Ivy League-trained, 22-year-olds, even if they've only had six weeks of summer training? Why wouldn’t the KIPP model work for every single child, it makes them so obedient? What's wrong with calling students, their teachers and their schools "failures" when test scores don't measure up? What could possibly go wrong if our nation's public schools were replaced with those that are privately-run?

I really liked the Einstein quote, so I looked it up and found more great quotes about rationality and creativity.

On Rationality...

Being rational does not necessarily kill creativity, but it can very easily do so. This is because we are not rational, even though we think we are. Psychologists call it ‘bounded rationality' because although we have a deep need to appear rational, the world is simply too complex for us to fully understand.

Quotes:

‘Analysis kills spontaneity. The grain once ground into flour germinates no more.’ — Henri-Frédéric Amiel

‘No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical.’ — Niels Bohr

‘Sir, we must beware of needless innovation, especially when guided by logic.’ — Winston Churchill

‘Logic, like whiskey, loses its beneficial effect when taken in too large quantities.’ — Lord Dunsany

‘Many of the things you can count, don’t count. Many of the things you can’t count, really count.’ — Albert Einstein

‘Rules and models destroy genius and art.’ — William Hazlitt

‘Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.’ — Martin Rees

‘Most of our so-called reasoning consists in finding arguments for going on believing as we already do.’ — James Harvey Robinson

‘Pure logic is the ruin of the spirit.’ — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

‘The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.’ — George Bernard Shaw

'People who lean on logic and philosophy and rational exposition end by starving the best part of the mind.’ — William Butler Yeats

Teacher Man

Since his death last week, the ed blogs have been posting a lot about Frank McCourt and his musings on teaching. This is the piece I love the most. My thanks goes to Norm.

Stop Hijacking the Education with Hijinks

by Frank McCourt, January 14th, 2008

At what point in American history did politicians hijack public education? They think nothing of barging into classrooms across the country, shunting teachers aside and reading to children who wonder who they are in the first place, wonder who is this person boring us to death with his prose drone?

We all remember former Vice President Dan Quayle’s foray into spelling when, campaigning for a second term, he told a class of elementary school kids that potato was spelled potatoe. We remember how President George W. Bush read a story about a goat to children in Florida while the World Trade Center burned. Imagine a politician daring to enter the professional space of doctors, lawyers, engineers, dentists, interior decorators. Imagine.

The kids are primed well in advance, told this person coming here tomorrow is very, very important, that they better behave themselves and show respect to this very important person who will be reading to them, this person taking time out from a hectic schedule to show his/her interest in education.

But teachers are fair game. Here come the press people, the camera operators, the advance men or women and, hold it right there outside the classroom for the big smile and the apt comment on the state of the schools, the solon himself, today’s captivating reader, the one who will show the teacher how it’s done.

Politician enters room, acknowledges existence of teacher, limp handshake, faint smile, head nod.

Some teachers are flattered, of course. They’ll be right up there on TV tonight, and tomorrow the kids will rush in all excited after seeing themselves and their teacher on the news.

Oh, wow!

There’s Joey. There’s Sandra. Yeah, and there’s a glimpse of teacher being recognized by politician. (Teacher has the sickly smile of one aware she is being used. But don’t be like that, Teacher Lady. After all, you were singled out, checked out, background looked into, political affiliation determined before this politician was invited to invade your domain. You are going to be on TV, recognized, however briefly, before politician sits warily on three-legged stool to bore your kids to death with a story he never heard of before today.)

So, there’s the teacher, there’s the politician, there are the children. And we know where the power is. We know that whatever happens in the classroom, however effective the teacher, however accomplished or failing the kids are, it is the politician who controls the purse strings of education. We know when you sit on the pot of gold you can dictate what should be taught, how it should be taught, and who should teach it.

We are talking, of course, about the United States of America. It may be different in other countries where there is respect for teachers, where, in the matter of teaching and learning, they are heeded.

What do we hear in public education about the pursuit of wisdom? Nothing. In the land of the free and the home of the brave, we have decided the way to improve the schools is through testing, testing, testing. Unless they test well we don’t like our children. We brag to neighbors and other parents that our Jonathan scored way up there on that No Child Left Behind test and if all the children scored way up there we’d get more money from Washington. And what right-minded citizen wouldn’t want that? Politicians from different states and localities are over the moon when “their” kids score high on this test and that test.

Then there are the teachers. Oh, well. Those silly people in public schools went into the profession thinking they’d teach, you know, excite the kids. Forget the test, the quiz, the exam.

Politicians bark: Hold it right there, Teacher Lady. We don’t care what you do in the classroom as long as it can be measured and tested. We want results. Understand? Results. I mean, you’re not Socrates blathering away under a tree. If we’re doling out funds, we wanna know what you people are up to in the classroom.

So … back to the drawing board, teacher. Think results. Teach to the test because if you don’t, your representatives downtown, upstate and in D.C. will sit on the pot of gold ’til you come to your senses. Principals and bureaucrats in general will question your professionalism and you know what that means, teacher. To have your professionalism questioned by people who long ago fled the classroom is a serious matter. You might lose your good job, teacher. What would happen to the children?

Oh, the children. Don’t worry about them. Teachers will soon be replaced with robots capable of administering tests. Everything will be multiple choice and robots certainly know how to handle that. Curiosity will be discouraged and there will be no departure from the test-driven curriculum.

And you, teacher? What will you do with yourself?

Try politics. That way you can re-enter the classroom and, get this: you’ll be respected. You can read to the kids a story about a woman who wanted to be a teacher but was replaced by a robot because politicians wanted results and the politicians got their way because they know more about education than the teacher in the classroom, don’t they?

Frank McCourt (1930 - 2009) won the Pulitzer Prize for "Angela’s Ashes." "Teacher Man: A Memoir" is an account of his experiences as a New York City teacher.

PS: Bill Gates, Eli Broad, Arne Duncan, Joel Klein, Michelle Rhee, and all the others put together, don't come close to approaching McCourt's brilliance of mind and understanding of humanity.

Valuable Skills for the Rising Generation

We constantly hear the regurgitated propaganda about "The Educational Crisis,” and how public school teachers are the primary cause of the US in decline, and why the corporate model of operating school systems is superior to all others. Today I offer you one very worthy alternative approach (yes, there are other choices we could make).

The current ed-reform movement is like foot-binding: restrictive and deforming. Those who want it imposed on children – and on those who care for them everyday – are titillated by the resultant hobbling, pain and stench. The final effect of this method for rearing children will be to shrivel the spirit of their humanity, and to stunt their collective growth.

“Patriotic” is the word that clearly emerged in my mind when I first read the following, and I am not a regularly flag-waving type. I realized that teaching these values to our nation's children just might be able to slow our descent and bring better health to our nation.

These are Diane Ravitch’s thoughts for “skills that we should cultivate assiduously among the rising generation, on the belief that doing so will lead to happier lives and a better world."

The Partnership for 19th Century Skills

I for one have heard quite enough about the 21st century skills that are sweeping the nation. Now, for the first time, children will be taught to think critically (never heard a word about that in the 20th century, did you?), to work in groups (I remember getting a grade on that very skill when I was in third grade a century ago), to solve problems (a brand new idea in education), and so on. Let me suggest that it is time to be done with this unnecessary conflict about 21st century skills. Let us agree that we need all those forenamed skills, plus lots others, in addition to a deep understanding of history, literature, the arts, geography, civics, the sciences, and foreign languages.

But allow me also to propose a new entity that will advance a different set of skills and understandings that are just as important as what are now called 21st century skills. I propose a Partnership for 19th Century Skills. This partnership will advocate for such skills, values, and understandings as:

• The love of learning
• The pursuit of knowledge
• The ability to think for oneself (individualism)
• The ability to work alone (initiative)
• The ability to stand alone against the crowd (courage)
• The ability to work persistently at a difficult task until it is finished (industriousness) (self-discipline)
• The ability to think through the consequences of one’s actions on others (respect for others)
• The ability to consider the consequences of one’s actions on one’s well-being (self-respect)
• The recognition of higher ends than self-interest (honor)
• The ability to comport oneself appropriately in all situations (dignity)
• The recognition that civilized society requires certain kinds of behavior by individuals and groups (good manners) (civility)
• The ability to believe in principles larger than one’s own self-interest (idealism)
• The willingness to ask questions when puzzled (curiosity)
• The readiness to dream about other worlds, other ways of doing things (imagination)
• The ability to believe that one can improve one’s life and the lives of others (optimism)
• The ability to speak well and write grammatically, using standard English (communication)

What if we altered our focus and began to emphasize these things in our schools?

Thanks to SF Education Examiner Caroline Grannan for tipping me off about Ravitch’s post.

Brilliance Emitted from the Roots of Grass

Arne Duncan, the members of the board of directors for Democrats for Education Reform, Eli Broad, Bill Gates, the Walton billionaires, and the others pushing for punitive measures and hours and hours of excruciating testing – supposedly their main solution for "inspiring" our nation's children to learn – are desperately in need of an epiphany before they drive us off a cliff with their faulty ideas for how kids should be treated in school.

If only they would take the time to read – and contemplate the message contained within – this chain of insights produced by a set of Oakland parents and teachers. Henry's summary should be read at least twice.

An exchange from the Oakland Public School Parents listserv:

Topic: Art is Education

Drawn animation from Ms. Rosario's 4th grade class at Peralta Elementary:

Take a look at the thank you scroll at the end. A heck of a lot of blood, sweat and tears go into funding the art education program at Peralta. This kind of classroom work should be funded as a matter of routine in California public schools. My kid will certainly remember this science lesson more than if he just read about Yosemite Valley's geological formation in a textbook.

Yo, yo, yo Yosemite.

Best,

J.

You got that right! I'll never forget the time I had my 2nd grade students make nutcrackers for the holidays (this after having seen a performance of the Nutcracker itself). The project was a rather elaborate one; felt, sequins, piping and googly eyes etc. My students were so focused, so happy and so into whole thing. I had several variations of the story in book form and the kids just devoured them. And they always wanted me to play the music thereafter (this admittedly got a bit old). But two things that I'll truly never forget is the time one of my students spontaneously held up his halfway done nutcracker and gleefully shouted, "Mr. Lopez, now I will never ever forget you!", and the time when many years after the project, a former student of mine told me that her mother continued to take out the now ratty nutcracker and put it on their mantel during the holiday season. Art is education, indeed!

M.

Oh, man, this cheered me right up! My almost-7th grader helped edit the math and science films in her 5th grade at Peralta. We all got copies on CD at the end of the year (not sure if it got to YouTube). I agree with M., this is what my kid remembers most from that whole year. Hands-on learning makes all the difference.

N.

You put your finger on the crux of the debate around education reform: hands-on education. The authentic education reform movement came out of the civil rights movement and culminated in the most important initiative in all of the 20th century: Head Start. Head Start has three primary components that make it work: (1) small adult-student ratios, (2) hands-on, developmentally appropriate learning, and (3) collegial relations between teachers and parents. Children who have attended Head Start have consistently performed better even on the inappropriate standardized tests than their non Head Start peers -- up through the third grade, when the gains taper off.

Head Start has been criticized for this tapering off when in fact the real problem is that the Head Start reforms need to be implemented to scale through the K-12 system. This is the reform movement that we need to rally around over the next few decades, the authentic response to No Child Left Behind.

Henry

Henry Hitz, Executive Director
Oakland Parents Together
440 Santa Clara Ave.
Oakland, CA 94610
(510) 325-8680
henry@parentstogether.org
www.parentstogether.org

This conversation is that bright light in the tunnel showing us what we need to do. It is called Truth.

Here’s hoping for a domino effect.

Duncan, Robber Barons, and Victims

Clay Burrell over at Change.org is bothered by Arne's Duncanisms. Scary Duncan has been out and about saying all sorts of things. As Burrell excerpted:

In a recent interview, Secretary Duncan discussed how he went about assembling his team, targeting people like Ms. Melendez who came from modest backgrounds, had a passion for the work, and showed an entrepreneurial spirit—and were willing to take what was likely a big pay cut to work in a federal job. No education policy or district superstars with big egos were welcome, he said.

“If they’re scared off because they won’t make more money ... or if they wanted a certain job title, ... that’s not the kind of person we want,” Mr. Duncan said. “We want people for whom this is a real passion. This is mission-driven work. Everyone is taking pay cuts.”

To which Burrell responded

Call me crazy, but you'd think people who were "education policy superstars," who spent their lives in classrooms and later in research, would qualify as "passionate" more than the "missionaries" with an "entrepreneurial spirit." People like, you know, Linda Darling-Hammond, who's devoted her life to knowing through research how to improve education, rather than taking a left turn from entrepreneurialism out of some "money + passion = change you can believe in" zeal.

... Duncan's rhetoric smacks of a sort of anti-intellectualism and pro-entrepreneurialism, and his staff picks reflect that as well. His DoE staffers are overwhelmingly connected more to Eli Broad and Bill Gates than to universities and classrooms.

To put this all into perspective, it's time to review how Duncan got his position.

Duncan earned a B.A. in Sociology from Harvard. That is pretty much the extent of his intellectual foundation. After graduating, he immediately went to Australia to play professional basketball for four years.

When he returned to Chicago, Duncan needed a job (Wanted: employment for a not-particularly-go-getting, perpetually grinning, newly married, only-bachelor-degree-earning Ivy League graduate). Fortunately John Rogers - a fanatic basketball-playing, longtime friend and private high school co-alum - had become extremely wealthy and needed someone to run a new, small, local education-related non-profit he was starting. He slipped Duncan right in to that position. One of the enormous benefits of attending elite private schools is making these sorts of useful connections; it's probably more important than the education itself.

Duncan's only accomplishment in working in urban education at this point was that he had tutored poor kids in high school. We all know how much he likes to tell this story over and over again. By the way, his mother forced ALL of her kids to tutor at her center; she also wouldn't ever let them watch TV.

After a few years of running his friend's non-profit, this mushy, likable bureaucrat got a job in Chicago Public Schools as Deputy Chief of Staff, most likely because of his great connections. A few years later, Mayor Daley appointed the malleable Duncan as CEO of Chicago Public Schools. This was just after the public-school-system-hating, Broad-connected, education reformer-destroyers had settled down in town. I'm sure they immediately recognized that Duncan would be perfect to work with, and be the sort of perfect blank they could mold.

Meanwhile, having never attended public schools, nor be willing to use them for his own kids, Obama really didn't know all that much about public education. However, for years he had been regularly playing basketball with Duncan, who he met through Michelle's brother (a close friend, and former Princeton basketball teammate, of John Rogers). This is a tight foursome, folks.

And that's how our nation is now stuck with a cheerful, but bumbling, average bureaucrat who Obama has assigned authority for running the whole show. I repeat: one of the benefits of attending elite private schools is making these sorts of useful connections. Did I mention that the Obama's sent their girls to the same Chicago private school that Duncan and Rogers attended?

Duncan's presence at the Department of Education is not because of an incredible intelligence, a wide range of experience, or an exceptional level of knowledge; it's because he provides the White House with a level of comfort and familiarity (and honors mutual friend Rogers for his years of Obama political $upport, and who knows who else). By the way, Rogers’ ex-wife is the White House social secretary.

Mr. Casual "call me Arne" Duncan wouldn't select cabinet members with more intellectual gravitas than he has because he is fundamentally insecure about his own. He certainly realizes his status would be challenged by the presence of someone who is actually distinguished in the field of education, and who may not agree with him on every point, and who would probably win all the debates.

The fact that Duncan signed on to both the Broader Bolder Approach and the Education Equality Project (manifestos with two VERY different points of view) demonstrates to me that the mutable Duncan wasn't sure where to stand. He makes a perfect puppet for the corporate edu-schemers.

By the way, Alexander Russo recently blogged about Arne’s weighing in on a number of issues including raising the driving age in Ohio (against), a split lunch at Patterson Elementary next year (for), and changing monthly board meeting locations for Chattanooga public schools to the Denny's on Dalton Boulevard (against). Why would he do this? Sorry, but it makes me wonder about his level of intellect.

On the recommendation of Elijah Anderson, I am now reading Blaming the Victim, a classic work by William Ryan. As someone who is paying attention to the methodology of the corporateer-led destruction of public education, all in the name of doing "good," I couldn’t help but be struck by two lines on page 20:

In order to persuade a good and moral man to do evil, then, it is not necessary first to persuade him to become evil. It is only necessary to teach him that he is doing good.

This explains the disconnect I sense between the rhetoric spewed by the corporateers and Harvard MBA-type reformers, (“Education is the civil rights issue of the 21st century!”), and the fact that they never make a peep about the extent of our nation’s poverty and how it affects impoverished families, or our growing class divisions. Fervently believing that what they are saying and doing is good, they bristle and aggressively confront anyone who challenges their position. They declare that those who disagree with them is 1. a racist and 2. a traitor to the cause of wanting to help poor, disadvantaged children. Only their perspective is "good."

Ryan’s book was originally published in 1971. A revised edition was released in 1976 with a new introduction. By then Ryan says he had enlarged his vision of who the “victims” in American society really were.

In fact, everyone who depends for the sustenance of himself and his family on salary and wages, and who does not have a separate source of income through some substantial ownership of wealth, is a potential victim in America. He is vulnerable to the disaster of catastrophic illness in a private-enterprise medical-care system; he is vulnerable to the deliberate manipulation of inflation and unemployment; he is vulnerable to the burden of grossly unfair taxes; he is vulnerable to the endemic pollution of air and food and to the unattended hazards of the factory and the highway that will likely kill him before his time; he is vulnerable to the greed of the great oil companies and food corporations.

The victims in American society are not simply the 10 percent of us who are Black, the 15 percent or so who are officially below the “poverty line." The majority of us who are non-Black and, officially at least, non-poor, are also victims. At least two-thirds, perhaps three-fourths of us are relatively poor compared to the standards of the top 10 or 5 percent, and relatively vulnerable. Others own America, we’re just workers, whether we realize it or not. Some of us may think we’re flying pretty high and are much better off than those below us, but in the end, we’re just ‘house niggers,” allowed better food than the “field niggers” and wearing fancier clothes. But none of us owns even a corner of the cotton field. Massa owns it all and Massa – the two or three per cent who essentially own America—is the real problem.

It's probably good to be clear about who is really running things; it is Bill Gates, Eli Broad, Michael Bloomberg, the Wal-Mart family, and other millionaires and billionaires along that line. If you are under the impression that we live in a democracy, this will bother you, or perhaps not.