Though I am not a teacher I have read a lot about education reformers and leaders lately.  There has been a lot of talk lately about reformers such as Michelle Rhee and Joel Klein of DC and New York City school systems respectively.  I read an article yesterday about Arne Duncan.  He seems to hold a middle way between the Rhees and Kleins on one end and the teachers unions on the other. 

I am very excited about his appointment.  Duncan is not just interested in bulldogging everyone into doing what he wants.  He embodies the true spirit of reform: both enough to try anything and smart enough to admit when something isn't working. 
<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/29/AR2008122902672.html">Here is an article on Duncan and Chicago schools printed in the Washington Post last tuesday </a>

One problem with Duncan, like the two Secretaries before him, is that he is not an educator. Do we want someone who has never set foot in a classroom (as a teacher) to lead our education system in the USA? Would we hire an accountant to be Surgeon General? Would we hire a firefighter to be Attorney General? No, Surgeon Generals are doctors, Attorney Generals are lawyers. The same goes for the rest of the cabinet positions. The people in places of influence in the country...the people who advise the president, should be knowledgeable in their field. The same goes for education. Hire an educator.

FWIW, i could not be more dissapointed by Duncan.

He does not believe in democracy, favors corporate reform model, and oversaw the biggest expansion of military schools in the country.

http://www.truthout.org/121708R

@ Joe, thanks as usual for so much substance. I'm with you on the potential of testing to measure the learning in schools, and to bang the Darling-Hammond drum one more time, find this lecture: http://www.forumforeducation.org/foruminaction/index.php?page=31&item=461 pregnant with wisdom on what such tests _already_ look like - in other countries.

And I'm hopeful that Obama's selection of her to lead his transition means he got taught on those ideas.

Otherwise, man do we have a lot to talk about. I've been using blogging, wikis, podcasts, and the whole interwebs gang in my own classrooms for the last three years - almost never use textbooks - and know the difference in learning they afford.

@Derek, Stu, and Philip: I seem to be sort of fence-sitting between all of your positions. Duncan was under Daley in Chicago, but now will be under Obama. He also signed the "Broader, Bolder" initiative (while yes, cynics can add, also signed on for NCLB), which may or may not be an indication that he's more open to quality, "progressive" reform than he was allowed to show as "CEO" of Chicago. (And Philip, I read the Truthout article too - and many more, which you can find at http://www.diigo.com/user/cburell/duncan?tab=250 - so I hear you. I just hope, again, that Obama's role with Duncan is the same he claimed for Hillary at State: "They'll advise, but I'll decide.")

Finally, don't you think that Obama's selection of Darling-Hammond as transition leader signals _something_ interesting about his views on education?

Okay, my wife is signaling something herself right now: that I should be spending time with her in Bangkok, here on our first full day, than with you folks on the interwebs :)

Clay, your links in Diingo are excellent, and I too looked at the Truthout article, which is trenchent and well researched. I also looked at the authors' other Truthout piece, however, at http://www.truthout.org/123108A. Unlike the EduTopia piece on Duncan, including an excellent and refreshing interview, in their New Year's piece on what might only be called educational ideology, the Giroux's mangle progressivism almost beyond recognition, and "frame" (ala Lakoff) their later argument against Duncan.

Let me be very frank. I really dislike writers who generate 90 word sentences. I dislike them, at least in part, because I can do that too, and it's what I like least about my own writing - and thinking. The Giroux's do it several times.

I also dislike resorting to "neoliberal," neo progressive, neo neanderthal rhetoric. There are enough labels already in the grocery story that we need not spread them like peanut butter in our shortcuts to smear.

With that out of the way, the Girouxs (I dropped out of French too soon to handle those plurals!) make some very good, very strong points against Duncan. They give us some "early indicators" to look for in the startup of a new administration, and it's good that Philip found the indictment - but indictment it really is, and diatribe is not the way to challenge a new administration.

Let us look at their case. "Zero tolerance" is ugly and inept management. It smacks of Gaza in city schools. It indicates an administration too frustrated to act rationally with kids who act out as ineptly as their adult neighbors. Yet I have seen the Chicago system and met with Chicago teachers and I'm uncomfortably conscious of how they work. It is profoundly disfunctional. Watching the Blago stuff is chillingly reminiscent of how bad things can get, and frequently do get in the "second city" (now third).

That said, it's too easy to hold too tight to any single indicator - like "zero tolerance" - to generalize about any administrator from that city.  I've been in systems where they have to use lousey data - like test scores or attendance - to make painful decisions. That doesn't justify the data; it merely qualifies the decisions.  What Chicago did - through the Consortium on Chicago School Research (http://ccsr.uchicago.edu/content/index.php) - was finally use data to make decisions, and then to pursue better data for better decisions. Until then, honestly, all school stuff was fluff. And for most systems, including New York for that matter, it's still fluff and ideology rather than looking at what really happens.

Before sliding into further rant and kant, it probably does make sense to explore the ramifications of teachers' unions. They are hardly monolithic. Many are remarkably reformist. Many engage parents and colleges and kids very positively in both management and curriculum, professionalism and promotion decisions. But some...don't. And the problems are profoundly uncomfortable.

One union I know, for example, demands a contract renegotiation before any teacher can enter a grade in a database, as well as a formal training in database design and management. That's crap. Another is ruthless in controlling overtime or extra activities, so much so its members hide their homework. That's also crap.

If Arne Duncan fought any of that, there will be problems, and sometimes some of those problems are sometimes worth having.  


THAT is part of the middle way implied by Obama in the first place. Adhering to alliances framed in one universe, when fighting in others, is loyal to neither friends nor enemies. Too strict a formalism hurts all teachers, children, and parents, whether it's Montessorian or fascist.

I'm a Chicago Public School teacher, and my children attend Chicago Public Schools.

There will be much testimony of what it is really going on here at the:
Community Meeting on
Turnarounds, Charters and Privatization SATURDAY
JANUARY 10, 2009
10AM TO 1PM
Malcolm X College

Also, you can get a first-hand perspective from this:
http://vimeo.com/1833826?pg=embed&sec=1833826

Also see this site I've helped create to emphasize a child-based progressive education rather than filling in bubbles.
http://bubbleover.net