The logic of Arne

“Diane Ravitch is in denial and she is insulting all of the hardworking teachers, principals and students all across the country who are proving her wrong every day."

 Arne Duncan

This is a fascinating logic statement, and my brain's smoking trying to parse it.

I'm a hard-working teacher, working for a hard-working supervisor, under a hard-working principal. And yes, our test scores have incrementally risen over the past few years, and yes, we're recognized as a nationally distinguished Title 1 school.

Incremental gains in "standardized" tests, tests that have us slapping our foreheads as we push mediocre writing habits on our borderline kids so that we make the grade, hardly counts as education.

Getting through another year of AYP successfully is like passing a ridiculously large and hard stool. You do it because you have to, there's a modicum of relief when it's done, and you pray you haven't done too much damage when passing it.

I'm hanging on to the edge of civility here, but if Arne keeps up his nonsense, I'm going to ask him to perform another bodily function not often mentioned in polite company.

There's not enough castor oil on the East Coast to put up with Arne's nonsense.

I really have things I'd rather do than go to D.C. in late July. But I care about my kids. 

Duncan does it again

Arne Duncan may well be tone deaf, but his handlers must know how he sounds. That they have made no effort to sweeten his swill suggests that the monied people already know how this will go down.

Our local paper's editorial board interviewed him, though "interviewed" may be too strong a word. Mr. Duncan's heart may be in the right place (though I'm not convinced), he may be charming, and Lord knows he's got power--but the Star-Ledger's board needs to remember that they are journalists, not flacks.

I worked in Newark for years--in shelters, in clinics, in hospitals, and in the schools. I now work in the town next door, but would welcome an opportunity to again help change the lives of devastated children. Mr. Duncan's approach, however, makes substantial change unlikely.

Here are pieces of the interview:

"I ran Chicago schools and had about half the money Newark has, literally."
 Where's the follow-up question pointing out that the Chicago miracle was a mirage?

"What’s been lacking is the courage to demand and expect excellence."
This is an insult, "literally," to every person who has dedicated their lives to helping others in dire conditions:
the teachers, the Sisters of Charity, the Children's Health Fund, the CAC of NJ ,the Newark Community Health Centers, Newark Emergency Services for Families, the Community Food Bank, CASA, La Casa de Don Pedro, Link Community School, the principals, Covenant House, Renaissance House, Greater Newark Conservancy, Ironbound Community Corporation, Gateway Northwest, AD House, and so many others, some recognized, most not.

To call us cowards, to insinuate that we ever expected less than excellence, defines you.

If you want to help make things happen, you're sincere, and in it for the long haul, and if you can be bothered to learn a bit of the history of Newark and its citizens, you will be welcomed. None of those are obvious.


"The data on charters is very clear."
Yes, it is. Is there anyone on the Star-Ledger staff looking at the data?

"Linking student performance and teacher evaluation is hugely important."
"Hugely" is an odd word there--push him on it. Does poverty matter? Lead burden? Untreated asthma? No decent teacher feels threatened by folks judging our classes--we do feel threatened by the use of improper data by disingenuous (or just plain slow) administrators and politicians. Duncan lives in a world of straw men--I expect journalists to challenge his myths. "How about a little fire, Scarecrow?"

"But this isn’t about outsiders controlling anything."
 This is either very dumb or just plain disingenuous. Really, Arne?

Bob Braun, contrary to his editorial board, has been doing a bang-up job following the money in the Newark school reform effort.

The quotes in bold are Duncan's.

Arne Duncan, meet the Declaration of Independence

“The best thing we can do is educate our way to a better economy."

Arne

I try to keep catechism out of my classroom, and not just the Christian sort. If you think you can learn science from a textbook, or from an interactive computer program, or from packaged lab activities, you are teaching catechism.

I also try to keep religion out of my classroom, but pushing the limits of what we know can lead to "dangerous" thoughts among my tadpoles.

"You're competing for jobs with kids from India and China. Schools should be open six, seven days a week; eleven, twelve months a year."

Arne again, talking to students in Denver

Perhaps Arne did not pay attention during biology classes. Or maybe he did. It is quite possible to ace an introductory level biology course without understanding much.

The Earth teems with life; life teems with energy. Our existence depends on the flow of energy through organisms--that's why we eat.

The Earth receives a finite amount of energy each finite moment, gifts from the sun. We are gulping up millions upon millions of years' worth of sunlight stored in fossil fuels, again finite.

We, as part of this teeming community dependent on the sun's light, have limits.

I am confident that we are on the right course as the Administration implements a comprehensive cradle-to-career education agenda to prepare our citizenry to compete in the global economy.

Yep, Arne

The religion of the global economy, however, does not recognize limits. "Economic growth" drives the world economy.

We cannot continue economic growth indefinitely--we are ultimately tied to the land. If I can teach one thing to a child, it would be that we came from the dust, and we shall return to the dust. Our cultural mistake, our cultural tragedy, is belittling the dust, and the energy that allows the dust to swirl and change forms.

Science only works when we seek to get beyond the world inside our heads. Grasping the world outside, however, depends on creating representational worlds inside our heads. Sadly, we confuse the latter with the natural (or the universe or reality or the mystery, or whatever word you choose to use--science cannot tell you what that great mystery is).

Thinking we can grow or exploit our way out of an economic crisis reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of basic biology.

Community colleges like Miami Dade are going to be an extremely important part of restoring the economy over the next few years and ensuring that our students can compete not just with their neighbors down the block, but also with their peers in China and India.

Arne

I have a hypothesis:

Should we ever raise a generation of knowledgeable children, grounded in natural world, capable of thinking for themselves, not surrounded by the constant commercial hum defining success (money, bright teeth, money, large home, money, fast car, money, firm thighs, money, multiple degrees, money, executive privileges, money...) the gross domestic product would come crashing down.

That would be bad news for most of us in the States. We would lose a few digits in our electronic portfolios. Our tidy retirement funds set aside to provide us with the finest nursing home care might evaporate. We might not be able to travel far from our backyards.

On the plus side, such a generation could grow food, dress themselves, repair engines, darn socks, bake bread, build homes, unplug a toilet.

These investments [American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009] are the surest way to provide long-term stability in to our economy. With these funds, we will educate our way to a stronger economy.

Arne again

The point of public education should be to promote a functional citizenry. And the point of government? Today's as good a day as any to ask. We got a pretty good answer to that question back in 1776.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

For all the talk of the economy, for all the talk of education, we've managed to screw up the intent of both. Arne is tying these two disastrous misadventures together, convinced he is serving a noble cause, and I cannot really blame the man--he is the epitome of what the best in education can produce today. He is not the only disaster produced the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools. His tragedy, his blindness, is ours. Few of us know what we want anymore.

So long as the sun shines, though, I remain an incorrigible optimist

Today is one of the few days Americans congregate outside. Children will chase lightning bugs as the adults will slap at mosquitoes. Just about everyone gets a chance to see the sun set.

It's a good world waiting for us outside our heads--and for a few wonderful hours, our culture will unplug itself and celebrate a country that still exists in our heads and in Norman Rockwell paintings, but that once existed for real.

It can happen again. It's why I teach.

A huge thanks to Tom Hoffman for pointing me to Alan Kay's take on teaching science.