Charlie Rose

kugler  09/07/2009 02:55 AM Report

Duncan Update

The Duncan logic is to experiment on the nation's children without proven results by opening and closing schools without any regard to the effects mobility, attrition and instructional consistency have on a child.

There is no plan to increase funding, no plan on equity in education, no plan to target at-risk populations except to close schools, no plan to increase academic performance except to close schools, no plan to protect school children from the swine flu, no plan to increase post-secondary performance, just sound bits without any concrete implementation timelines.

Quick Recap(September 9, 2009 Interview Face the Nation): Listening to the President of the United States in a televised speech in school is voluntary, there will be no teacher cuts or class size increases, will not close schools due to international pandemic (life or death) but will close schools if they do not perform to dummied down standards and last but not least no more lies.

I know first hand what reform in Chicago means: less choice, increase in violence, termination of veteran staff, and privatizing public resources for profit

John Kugler

Chicago Public School Teacher

kuglerjohn@comcast.net

esantoro  06/23/2009 10:29 PM Report

yrogerg123:

We Americans like to argue that we have the best health care in the world, yet by most international accounts that incorporate stricter standards of measurement, we don't even make it among the top 25. Much of the reason for this is that health care is more of a for-profit business than an institution interested in promoting health. Good health is not profitable. As such, the health care system is very poorly run. I would hate to see the for-profit motives of corporate health care infiltrate education more than it already has.

You seem to suggest that the business model of higher education is the best in the world and has served America, and the world, for the better. What is your proof? Who says it's the best and why? I've studied at both public and Ivy League schools and universities and have taught in universities and high schools in both the U.S. and Europe. From that experience, I wouldn't be too quick to argue that we have the best system of higher education. We do have a costly system of higher education that "rewards" individuals who are willing to conform along hegemonic lines. Nowhere do you see this conformity more than in our ostensibly prestigious universities. This is not to say that these universities are not good. I would just hesitate to consider them the best in the world, as even they leave much to be desired. There was a good article some years ago in _The Atlantic Monthly_ ("The Organizational Kid") about how many "good" students "work" the American educational system with a very narrow view of what it means to be educated. There are other good articles on grade inflation in higher education, but especially at our supposedly best institutions.

Most accounts of U.S. higher education seem to take into consideration research dollars. Most students are not taught by the professors doing this research, and I would argue that most of the benefits of that research go to corporations. I suppose this is has to be accepted at private universities, but it is scandalous at public universities that take tax dollars. In this regard alone, I don't see the business model of higher education successful for society in the long run.

As higher education becomes more of a business and less of an institution dedicated towards the advancement of the arts and sciences for the betterment of society, students are seen increasingly as customers who must be satisfied as long as they are willing to pay increasing tuition costs that outpace inflation by 200 percent. We have a situation in higher education in this country that is analogous to the subprime lending fiasco and the artificially inflated housing bubble, both the negative consequences of unchecked business models.

For the way American society has developed over the last four decades, American public education works perfectly, as it allows for the easier justification of who gets what and why. If conservatives in government at the same time can succeed at diverting tax dollars from that educational system to corporate interests (reducing the educational tax bill will not reduce taxation), all the better.

Certainly, education in this country can be improved, as can government. But before these institutions are replaced entirely, they must first be allowed to function properly. Frank Thomas' _The Wrecking Crew_ cites many examples over the past thirty years of neoconservatives deliberately sabotaging government to sell the American public on the idea that government sponsored policies and institutions don't work. While the stratagem seems to be on the intellectual level of a three-year old, it's clever enough to fool a good number of Americans, especially those who have graduated from our "good" schools, as these individuals seem to be the least inquisitive about how things actually work underneath the hood. To do so would be to bite the hand that feeds them. As with all good circus poodles, they have learned when and how to jump through hula hoops.

Certainly I'd like to see education improve, but I don't see Duncan or the business model providing that improvement. They have an agenda I do not trust. Furthermore, I think Duncan and his ilk understand their agenda only on an extremely superficial level. They are the greatest poodles of all.

Let's take a page out of history. The Spanish Encomienda system also provided an educational system for the indigenous people of South and Central America, but that education was narrowly circumscribed by the ruling elite to maintain the hegemonic order.

I see public education as always having the potential to act as a countervailing force to an unscrupulous hegemonic order. No, it's not perfect, but many of the reasons for why it is currently faltering are by design and not accident.

If we remove ourselves from the neoconservative propaganda, I think public education is doing better than we think. If we cite the drop-out rate as indicative of its failings, I would like to see how the for-profit and charter schools do with the very same population, a population they can more easily exclude.

Before we dismantle the whole system of public education in favor of the for-profit business model, I would like to see universities oversee public education and professors from university academic departments oversee academic departments in public schools. There is money for this, as well as for smaller class sizes. The problem is that the hegemonic order does not want an overly educated citizenry, for the past thirty years they've been making astronomical financial gains outsourcing cheap labor around the globe. Propaganda about a failing public educational system only plays more readily into the rationale for such for-profit decisions.

We need to start thinking outside the box to understand how things actually have been working in this country since the Immigration Act of 1965. The rest is all just smoke and mirrors and red herrings.

yrogerg123  05/02/2009 03:22 AM Report

esantoro, I read that article on Truthout.com you posted, and was left unconvinced. I'll be clear: when you cut out the opinion and stick to the facts, it's quite clear that Duncan favors charter schools, is unconvinced by public education, and is quick to overhaul a failed public school. Beyond that, the claim that a corporate model is somehow bad for education leaves me unmoved. That's the model universities in this country use, and we have the best universities in the world.

Back to public education. I graduated 5 years ago from what can easily be considered one of the top public schools in the country. Dropout rate was probably under 5%, with well over two thirds of graduates going to college. Stats are awesome, standardized test scores phenomenal.

And you know what, that place was deeply, deeply flawed. The worst teachers I had were the highest paid, across the board. They had been there the longest and had long since stopped caring, but there was no way to get rid of them or to monitor their progress. They all had tenure, and not once did an administrator so much as drop in on a class. In fact, I can only recall a handful of times that an administrator sat in on any of my classes. Each time the teacher was very good, very young, and extremely nervous that this would be the only time an administrator would see them teach, and would inevitably make a huge decision about the teacher's future based on only that one class. The school paid extremely well, and jobs for young teachers were extremely competitive. Once they got tenure, they were set for life, and there was nothing anybody could do about it. Short of assaulting a student, you simply could not get fired.

Perhaps more importantly, the school only catered to the rich, white population, with almost every dropout being a minority, as well as nearly every kid who didn't go to college a minority. This makes sense: the school board is all rich and white, the teachers are all rich and white, the administration is all rich and white. My AP classes were all...you get the idea. If it was a democracy, it was a democracy of the like-minded. Doctors, bankers and lawyers trying to make doctors, bankers and lawyers out of their children. Do you actually think there were any latinos or italians on the school board or in the PTA, even though half of the school was one of those ethnicities? It was the rich representing the rich. I guess when people say American democracy, that's what they mean.

I would argue that the kids who did achieve at my school would have done as well if not better if their parents had taught them at home or hired tutors, since they were propelled more by pure intelligence and a value for education and hard work that was fostered from the day they were born. If you have that, it doesn't matter who tries to teach you, you succeed.

The education issue truly is an issue of instilling values. If you value education, you learn and you succeed, bottom line. Starting early and stepping in where parents fail makes sense, bottom line.

When somebody comes along and says that public education is a broken model and needs to be reformed from the ground up, I can't help but agree from the bottom of my heart. I've seen the best of the best of public education, and it is flawed at its core. It scares me to think about what a school that is under-funded actually looks like. Maybe a charter school, maybe taking a business model to education and being blunt and honest, maybe a little heartless, when a school fails is a good thing. Considering how well public schools in inner cities are serving this society, it's time for a change. You may not like the change, but I think it's hard to claim that we're better off doing nothing.

Even if a corporate model to education offers the same thing: the rich being well served, and the poor being unserved, at least those who do get served by education will be offered more capable, higher paid teachers using the best teaching practices, and not the same old story with a glaring lack of accountability.

There was a comment of the Truthout link about how some of Chicago's schools were affiliated with the military. I ask, would you rather have another drug dealer/criminal or another soldier in this country. I know my answer, what's yours?

bmwbob  03/17/2009 12:47 AM Report

My heart soared listening to Arnie's interviewed. My son recently graduated with a digital arts music degree (large college bill) and fell in love teaching young children how to create digital music. James and two friends are in the process of starting a non profit after school digital music program for inner city children. The problem is making enough money at what he loves. Seeing my son's face light up after having a child respond is all the reward I need, But hearing Arnie talk about funding programs like my son's just seems like the right thing to do. It's the perfect storm!

biddy  03/16/2009 10:13 AM Report

Mr. Duncan's record in Chicago is summed up in this article. The principal in this article received 3.75 million dollars and a gifted program. Maybe U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald needs to investigate...

More On Education Secy Duncan - Not Looking Good for IDEA

More from the same blog in a comment:

You're right and you're wrong, but at least you're adding a footnote

to the indictment against Arne Duncan (and the list of reasons why he

should be laughed off the list of people under consideration for

Secretary of Education). Duncan has been a major supporter of

increased racial segregation and massive violations of the IDEA.

Read on...

Kugler's posting of the most recent Corey H decision (not reported,

by the way, in any of the Chicago media, including Catalyst) should

add another reminder as to why Arne Duncan should not be on Barack

Obama's list of people for U.S. Secretary of Education. Duncan now

has the most consistent (and expensive) record of violating the

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) of any school

chief in the United States of America at any time in history. As we

depicted in the cartoon (showing Arne and Mayor Daley pushing people

in wheelchairs off a cliff in order to solve a non-existent

budget "deficit") three years ago (after Duncan cut special education

staff at CPS behind claims of a phony budget "deficit"), Duncan has

been abusing cripples, not just warehousing or ignoring them. And

every time the case goes to court, the cynical policies and practices

of the Duncan administration go on display.

Any one of those charges about CPS practices regarding special

education could wind up as both a grievance and a message to the

Corey H monitor. But somebody has to be willing to detail them and

not hide from the issue. In real time and in real courts, "Annie

Sullivan" has to have a real name and address before she can take the

witness stand. So anonymous and blogging aren't going to solve one

problems, either for disabled children or the teachers who are being

forced to lie, cheat and steal from those disabled children by CPS.

You've got to take a stand, just as the historical "Annie Sullivan"

and her client did.

We'll publish anything that comes out from a real person, as we've

once again proved with our December story about the predations of

principal Katherine Kennedy Kartheiser of Chicago's Coonley (some of

which involves significant violations of the IDEA as well as age

discrimination and the usual bureaucratic stupidities).

Corey H is only as strong as the people who bring evidence from

within CPS to show that the violations of the IDEA continue.

CPS spent more than a half million dollars on lawyers (the outside

firm of Dykema Gosset plus their own lawyers) trying to get out from

under Corey H over the past 18 months and, as Kugler's posting of the

court decision shows, failed until at least September 2010.

However, the fact that nobody has brought these things out clearly at

Board meetings (not only IDEA violations, which parents often bring

to the Board, but also the obscene costs of sustaining litigation to

allow CPS unlimited ability to violate the IDEA and the rights of

disabled children) shows that many many teachers are going to have to

rethink where and when they can continue to hang their consciences at

the school house door while these things are taking place within

their schools.

The vicious (and ageist) attacks on special education teachers are

not just happening at Coonley, as you know.

So when do people come out of the closet and document reality?

The Duncan administration has been spending millions of dollars to

continue violating the IDEA.

One of the reasons Arne Duncan shouldn't even be considered for U.S.

Secretary of Education is his completely ugly (and expensive) record

in violation of the rights of the "least of our brethren" -- and the

IDEA -- since he took over CPS in July 2001. There is probably not a

record in the USA comparable to Duncan's seven-year policy level

violations of the IDEA.

But Arne Duncan gets away with violating the rights of crippled

children in part because teachers don't bring the facts out in

public, through the grievance procedure (grievances on "policies and

practices" -- article 3; and federal law violations article 2) and

also through public forums (from publication in Substance to speaking

out at CPS meetings).

esantoro  03/15/2009 08:27 PM Report

But we can always turn to used-car salesmen and the ties they wear.

I knew you'd come around, Tartufe.

tartufe  03/15/2009 08:10 PM Report

The horse is dead. Tartufe, the coronar, doth certify. Long live the horse - and Sec Duncan.

fjgajewski  03/15/2009 03:23 PM Report

Certainly Secretary Duncan would know the difference between the nominative and objective had he studied Latin. More Latin in the schools, I say!

esantoro  03/14/2009 12:53 AM Report

Tartufe:

I was trying to see if I could pull out my arm-chair Freud to discern a lack of substance from just that one episode. I don't know. The more I read about Arne, the more the analysis seems to pan out. He's playing in Washington with some pretty weak credentials, and that's got to be weighing on his mind.

I've been upset with people who have been too quick to criticize Obama only two months into the first term, so I'll cut Arne some slack for now. But I'm keeping his case file open.

Bush was like shooting fish in a barrel.

tartufe  03/14/2009 12:38 AM Report

Mea culpa to the reading bloggers here for being sandwiched between these two heavyweights of esantro and REMant. I certainly don’t belong.

REMant overloads me as well. So many facts delivered with a shaming assumption that terms like Whigs etc (recognizable only by vague memory) are meaningful in their context. Would like to proffer a humble request. After a blog full of facts please provide a final paragraph entitled CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS. Then explicitly distill it all into concrete recommendations and maybe accompanied fortifying reasons.

I’m both too obtuse to handle facts unexplained and too unimaginative to see needed actions to resolve the problems the facts define. Hope my smoke-blowing works. My plea is genuine.

tartufe  03/13/2009 11:51 PM Report

Whew and wow. e you wore me out. I'm over my head. Flamed out early. Either you've had more analysis than the ordinary bear, or I've been woefully deprived by comparison. I know I'm the last one here to evaluate the 'legs' of your interpretive discourse.

The recurring query for me is the why this extruded analysis of not much. Seems wasted. Where were you when Bush was in his full stride. Would've loved your dissection on him.

But Duncan? You're beatin your chops and analytical efforts for naught. I'm bettin he'll show an improvement if merely because he's starting from such a low base.

You seem to decry what you perceive as wanting to make a good impression. Is that offensive somehow? If you're trying to imply by your overweaned analysis that you can discern a lack of substance, it doesn't work for me.

He just may be what us unsophisticated think, a well intentioned, enthusiastic young guy with good intentions and energy that just may succeed with improvements.

Cut him some slack. (And yourself.) Analyze something important - or at least a little more amusing.

REMant  03/13/2009 11:47 PM Report

I kept this to revise it, but will not after hearing the president's remarks today, which I found heartening.

Mr Duncan has been a school system reformer in Chicago and grew up near the Univ of Chicago where his father taught psychology, Like Columbia, the university community is surrounded by low income neighborhoods and his mother is active in community development. He went to the famous laboratory schools, and majored in sociology at Harvard, where he also played basketball. He owed his Chicago position in part to the patronage of John Rogers, a prominent Afro-American stockbroker there, Obama supporter and basketball player, himself, after an abortive career as a professional basketball player. He has never taught professionally, nor, it appears, has much acquaintance with the history of education.

Just talking about not perpetuating the status quo is not adequate. If you can't explain why something is being done wrong, or even what, how do you expect to improve it? This is typical Whig or Progressive reformer newspeak, not much different from what we heard from Mr Geithner the day before. Charlie tried to pin him down, but got mostly platitudes - promises to improve the pay and quality of teachers, give out meals and eyeglasses to students - not bad in themselves, and it may be that in this way the admin hopes to avoid stirring up opposition, but on the other hand, they may not really have a clear idea of what they are doing. So that at the moment he seems like just another cabinet official with his hand out. In any case, the major problem is that the national govt has very little influence over anything in education and that is why the position has usually been seen as a sop to teachers tho the stated purpose is to deal with policy issues. The recent doubling of the Dept's budget may make a difference in that. But No Child Left Behind and other such Federal statutes are probably unconstitutional or very close to it. Laws of this type which attempt to bribe compliance would have been seen by most of the Founders as a case of corruption, but they were not Progressives.

From this it does seem tho that he is opposed to Progressive ed, which will endear him to Republicans, and he sees charter schools only as laboratory schools or pilot projects. Most Democrats may accede to this, tho not for educational reasons, but rather because they are afraid of anything hinting at privatization. I am not sure that matters a great deal because in all the studies I'm aware of, after income and other selective inequality is accounted for, there has been found no difference in achievement scores between private and public schools. The main problem with inner-city schools is that they are inner-city schools, and everyone who can afford to has moved out and taken the tax base with them. Spending more money on urban schools may help to reverse that; establishing more private schools likely will not. In this the plight of the inner city echoes that of the nation as a whole. There are, however, dangers in overly increasing educational as any other kind of spending.

In the 1930's the idea of using schools for social reconstruction was widely touted. This reflected the aims of the public school movement itself, which began with mostly Democratic pressure to teach more practical subjects in the 1820's, tho it succeeded only when immigration began in earnest and Whigs like Horace Mann embraced it. But the Progressives adopted the very undemocratic measure of dividing pupils into tracks and for some replacing math with learning how to balance one's checkbook, etc., their idea of progress being not one of individual effort, but of the acceptance of this world as emanating from the will of God, found earlier in Whig ideas of history and evolution and also in Legal Realism, all of which jibed conveniently with feudal ideas of patronage. The notion was embodied in the life-adjustment curriculum, aptly named because it preached the idea of adaptation and getting along with others, what Riesman termed later "other-directed," but which had long been present in business. They were not at all opposed to helping the poor, just in seeing them independent, and they followed the Whigs in the tendentious use of media and statistical research to obtaining funding for their efforts.

In the 1950's this trend encountered vehement opposition that only gained momentum after Sputnik was launched, while at the same time the favorable financial conditions created by the Depression and WWII along with the Eisenhower admin's conservative fiscal and monetary policies provided the real gains made in that decade, allowing considerable investment to be made in infrastructure, schools to meet the baby boom, etc. But the fiscal stimulus employed by the Kennedy admin to counter the recession beginning in 1959, and measures to protect against feared Soviet expansion, along with recovery in Europe and Japan began unraveling the American economy, a process brought to completion by the Vietnam debacle and Reagan's anti-communist crusade. For a while, living on the fruits of cheap overseas labor and the capital accumulated in the previous century, ppl could speak of a Pax Americana, and living the American Dream, but it was like the Augustan age, and we have been following much the same path blazed by Britain a 100 yrs before, which also saw a wide disparity in wealth and education and the abandonment of investment at home, under the guise of promoting free trade. Since the 60's educational achievement has trended steadily downwards, particularly in math, sciences and engineering, while in the 1980's college students began moving into business majors, particularly finance, and production moved overseas.

The boom and bust of the 20's has been blamed on classical Liberalism, when it was due mostly to mercantilism, in which Progressivism played a major role, and more perceptive observers view Liberalism as having been a casualty of WWI. Tho FDR was elected on an essentially Liberal platform, as illustrated in his inaugural address, which promised the restoration of "ancient truths," Progressivism continued to advance in the Depression, much as it is doing now. (In passing let me note the TR should be seen not as a Progressive, but rather a Liberal reformer, as were muckrakers like Ida Tarbell.) These alignments have become so confused in the public mind in the past century that what was Liberal is now termed conservative, and what was conservative is now considered Liberal, and the original republican Liberalism of Locke and Adam Smith, et al has been forgotten altogether. Liberalism in education - ideas of rationality and natural law - under persistent attack from educational reformers throughout the 19th c, was pretty much a dead issue by 1920 as well, and Locke, himself, distorted or obscured by generations of academics, teachers, and preachers. But the imperative now is to see Progressivism in economics and in education in the same light. We are not going to be able to reform education anymore than rekindle meaningful economic growth until we stop it from sapping our vitality. We cannot afford easy education anymore than easy credit, nor price inflation more than grade inflation. We must learn as much as save, think as much as produce. This should not be taken as an argument for laissez-faire, because we must learn to be truly free, just as we must save to invest, but only against a sort of bondage, which if not stopped can only end in impotence, anarchy and autocracy.

The problem with increasing higher ed tuition support seems to be that despite a couple of decades of institutional research into retention issues, no one seems to be any closer to making that happen, and the colleges have shamelessly doled out Federal funds like real estate agents' subprime mortgages, while spending huge sums not on faculty but on efforts to attract alumni support and extra-curricular student activities.

esantoro  03/13/2009 11:29 PM Report

I started researching Duncan a bit more. According to mainstream sources, he seems to be a people pleaser, not giving one side or the other too much to agree or disagree with. I think there actually might be something to my shirt-and-tie theory.

But then I found an article co-written by Henry Giroux, whose writings on education cut to the core of the ideological status quo. Though the article's rhetoric may tend to blow too far left, there are enough salient points to make it worth the read:

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

sameasiteverwuz  03/13/2009 11:29 PM Report

Charlie: I enjoyed the "chat" with the Ed. Secretary, I feel strongly that you let him off the hook on the question of tenure and performance of teachers.

You didn't ask the question until late in the interview and Arne dodged it skillfully.

Here in NY, the teachers union has a death grip on boards of ed. and government as a whole. It is near-impossible for a school district to remove a bad teacher. They are merely shuffled from school to school.

Student performance will never increase dramatically ever until and unless there is accountability on every level - teachers included. Anything is else is just pie in the sky blather.

The teachers union has infiltrated the majority of local school boards. NYSUT is the #1 lobbying enity - for dollars spent - in the state. Their #1 goal is protecting their members, not educating our kids.

esantoro  03/13/2009 08:44 PM Report

Tartufe:

I would agree that my contributions are weighted in a certain direction, but I think everyone always speaks from an agenda from the moment they put down the first word. If they are speaking from a hegemonic agenda, they are more than likely unaware of such complicity, and the need arises for interpretation. I could be very wrong in my interpretations, but I want to get them out there to see what kind of legs they have.

E.M. Forster once wrote that a novelist in writing a novel tries to nail down a board, but if the novel is any good it will kick out the nails, get up and walk away on its own accord. Arnie Duncan, or anybody professing a view on anything, is trying to sell a particular view of the way things are or how things ought to be done. His words suggest one thing, but certain intangibles about him suggest something else. I think that particular linguistic slip in that particular context is like the proverbial iceberg, where seven-eighths of the mass lies hidden. In this case we are not talking about mass but meaning and intention, much of which Duncan himself may not realize. In this interview I saw two Arnie Duncans, the “Arnie Duncan” who wants us to follow his narrative, no matter how ill-thought-out it may be at this time (or not thought out at all), and the “uncanny” “arnie duncan” who’s not quite sure where to place the next foot. This second “arnie” I find an intriguing performance. George W. Bush was another two-for-one circus ticket for which you just had to break out the popcorn and cotton candy.

I think it is possible to read into and interpret these signs a la much of Freud’s work, much of which I think is still valid, and Erving Goffman’s _The Performance of the Self_ . That said, I could be mistaken in viewing Duncan as appropriate material, but his performance stood out in an “uncanny” way, and was begging to be put on the couch. When one looks at Duncan’s biography, such interpretation continues to shed understanding and insight. I’ll have to read up more on what “arnie” has been doing since his Australian basketball days to see just how well it all holds up.

Watching a George W. Bush or an Arnie Duncan (though I don’t mean to conflate the two) is not like watching a George Soros , a Warren Buffett, an Ian McShane, a Felix Rohatyn, a Paul Krugman, a Frank Langella, etc. These individuals through experience and intellectual effort know what they are talking about. They are interested in dialogue, discourse, and meaning. Because they speak from a sincere place and are not acting a particular role, other than who they are as knowledgeable people in their respective arenas, they are enlightening and a pleasure to listen to.

Duncan talks about getting creative with education reform, but his performance just seems to lack a real understanding of the kind of creativity needed. The more I watch his various performances, the more I see the maintenance of the business-as-usual status quo. That one slip-up just made me pay more attention to what Duncan thinks he’s actually saying, and I realized very quickly that he isn’t saying anything. The slip-up was just a sign-post that shouted, “Hey, pay attention. This guy doesn’t quite have his performance nailed down.” Now, Timothy Geithner, Henry Paulson, Ben Bernanke, Larry Summers, et al, these cats have got their scripts nailed down. They’ve got it all, intelligence, creativity, nerve, audacity, assertiveness, arrogance, pride; they are the best and the worst of American Democracy. But they’re still not interested in discourse, dialogue, and meaning. Duncan is their waterboy. Perhaps that’s the real problem. I want a Secretary of Education who will play hard ball, a Secretary of Education who really understands that a powerful educational system does not breed sheep. I just don’t see it in “arnie.”

Oh, I forgot about the shirt and tie. I love blue shirts myself. That one grammatical slip, because of the nature of its hyper-correction, started making me focus on other things, such as his dress. What I saw is an individual who puts too much emphasis on playing the part rather than developing and nurturing REAL ideas. And because he’s interested in merely playing the part, according to my interpretation, he puts too much emphasis on the shirt and tie, as if all he has to do is show up and play the part. Besides the fact that most television producers tell guests that blue shirts show up better on camera than white shirts do, what might have been the possible motivation for his choice of shirt and tie? I would say that he wanted to come off as bold and confident, but play down that boldness and confidence and come off as less the politician with an earthy brown jacket. Fine. However, since I saw in his performance nothing but performance, it is the performance I am judging. To me, there was a disconnect between what he wanted to say with his clothing (boldness, confidence) , what he actually said (nothing) , and how he actually said it (unconfidently).

The whole performance taken together just struck me as strange. Most of Charlie’s guests have their roles nailed down better. Now I find myself paying more and more attention to such figures in somewhat high places and am noticing that most of them aren’t working at it as hard as Duncan is—because they are focused, for the most part, on real ideas, and thus are interested in developing those ideas, not posturing.

Fjgajewski’s post below has more genuine creativity in it than anything Duncan has said. Have professors at local universities mentor/oversee academic instruction, not principals, 80 percent of whom could not wait to get out of the classroom. That’s a creative idea. If Duncan had such ideas, he would actually have something tangible and interesting to say, and he would save himself time figuring out what to wear.

YOGIE_BEAR  03/13/2009 04:46 PM Report

Charlie it semse you were taken with Mr Duncan,you sat there and listened to his campain speach. I don't think this man has any ideal how big this job is. He will need to educate the parents about our forefathers of this country was all about. If we knew our history and study our constintion we would be safe for anoiher 199 years.

May God Bless this country again!!!!

tartufe  03/13/2009 03:34 PM Report

esantoro - your contributions seem somewhat weighted with an agenda that's somewhat befuddling. You seem to be stretching: an innocuos malaprop to hidden meanings in the choice of a blue shirt: "It relates to the decisions he made to wear the blue shirt and gold tie for the interview. He was overly concerned with coming across as authoritative and knowledgeable when he most likely does not really hold those convictions. His attire was concocted to make up for a lack of something."

If that leap is accurate, I want off the planet. Always have been afraid the real (you know - the ones that count) people knew the truth about me, now I'm sure of it. Validation t-corn pone, alas, I like blue shirts. You can keep the gold tie, however.

Poor Arne, so sad, as you know he didn't have a clue. I wonder would a white shirt salvaged him or savaged him even more?

Shaft  03/13/2009 03:12 PM Report

Mr. Rose, what a nice conversation that was. I must say that America is in good hands under the current administration. President Obama is a good judge of character in his pick for education secretary has affirmed that belief for me. If I only had access to the transcript of this conversation, and not knowing whom the secretary of education is, I would have guessed this guy to be an African-American who is doing his utmost to ensure the success of overhauling the education system. I think, Secretary Duncan is truly a genuine Democrat with concern for the country's future; a true patriot.

America needs to change the education system more than anything. Only after fixing the education system, one can truly believe that America can remain to be the greatest nation in the 21st Century. In Asia children are taught for ten hours a day, middle and higher-class people are sending their kids to all year round schools for favorable result. With the magnitude of the population in Asia (China) has the potential to lead the world, should we remain stuck in the status quo. However, we are lucky to have Obama for a president, for he is the right man for the new program America needs to follow to remain the beacon of the world in the 21st Century. Someone said once, "Education is the bedrock of society."

Alexis  03/13/2009 02:31 PM Report

Aloha Charlie,

When Arne Duncan returns to your program, will you please ask him these two questions? We believe they can spark a desire for knowledge.

When he was in school, did Arne know that according to recorded history he is descended from royalty? If not, does he think that this discovery could had had a positive impact on his own education?

Bruce Harrison

President and CEO, Millisecond Publishing Company, Inc.

Co-Founder of the Family Forest® Project

http://www.familyforest.com

A People-Centered Approach To History®

http://familyforest.wordpress.com

esantoro  03/13/2009 12:35 PM Report

"Why People Who Have Genuine Ideas and Dialogue Don't Have to Overcompensate with Blue Shirts, Gold Ties, and Hyper- Corrected Subjective Pronouns."

I think the quibble with Duncan's grammatical shortcoming's isn't necessarily nitpicking, or sometimes a cigar is more than just a cigar. It reveals something about his psychological frame of mind preparatory to and during the interview. I wouldn't have commented on the issue had Duncan said something like (for the sake of illustration), "My brothers who played sports all through their schooling years and me, we were influenced by the hard work and dedication our mother showed as a teacher." In such a drawn-out expression, it can be rather easy to get a bit lost in the idea you're weaving, and the grammatical slip can be just that, a mental lapse. At least there is a sign that sincere dialogue is being attempted.

Duncan's maneuver, however, reveals something else, so at least I think. It relates to the decisions he made to wear the blue shirt and gold tie for the interview. He was overly concerned with coming across as authoritative and knowledgeable when he most likely does not really hold those convictions. His attire was concocted to make up for a lack of something. During the interview, Duncan was not interested in discourse and dialogue; he was interested only in coming across well. In short, his gaff reveals that he actually has very little to say on the subject of education reform in the United States; he was simply interested in remembering his rehearsed lines, so the sum of his 60 minutes can simply be reduced to a third-grader's attempt just to get through the five-minute oral book report, during which in the back of his mind is the incessant voice of his mother: "Arne, it's 'My friend and I. My friend and I.'" This is the extent of Mr. Duncan's view of education.

Forget about WHAT people say; pay attention to HOW they say it. You actually get two circus tickets for the price of one. Consider it untaxable income -- the poor man's tax shelter. In addition to Freud's _The Psychopathology of Everyday Life_, a good book to read on all of this is Erving Goffman's _The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life_. I'm sure Arnie was supposed to have read this book at as a sociology undergrad, and I'm equally sure he never got past the introduction.

In the end, this comes down to an interpretation. If the interpretation adds to a deepening understanding of the circus performance that has taken place, the interpretation is then on the right track and is worth the effort to maintain. If the interpretation doesn't yield insight, it must be discarded.

tartufe  03/13/2009 09:45 AM Report

For the I before me, except for the me after I, object crowd. Is that the substance of your 'victory?' Do you really want to portray such smug superiority over such a trivial and common 'conversational' setting. Even if he were writing - as you were - and made the same gaffe, is that a crowable offense? An AHA moment? An I caught you leaving the bathroom without washing your hands moment. Well, maybe that's a do-over. Otherwise as for 'I' the message survived and 'me' could care less about straining for a contrived cheap shot and much ado about not much.

Mr Duncan = 1, Linguistic purists = o.

oldtimer  03/13/2009 08:45 AM Report

The Secretary of Education lost much credibility when he used "I" as the object. He should know better and set a better example.

nwyliejones  03/13/2009 02:33 AM Report

Dear Arne,

"Anyone who would attempt the task of felling a virgin forest with a penknife would probably feel the same paralysis of despair that the reformer feels conforted with existing school systems." Ellen Key (1909)Yes, 1909.

Good luck.

"We need an education to learn the things we didn't learn in school." N. Wylie Jones

A few years ago, because of ARDS, I was in the hospital unconscious for 10 days. When I awoke, the heart doctor told me that they didn't let me die, because I had only taught one of his daughters;he later brought the one I hadn't taught to meet me. My hospital room was filled with flowers, posters, books, candy, and more. One letter from a student read, "You teach more than just SOL requirements (state high-stakes test) like so many teachers do just to get money. You teach us to live life to the fullest and how to be a good person. You keep us up to date about important things in the world. You are my teacher, my supporter, my mentor, and in short, my hero."

Many years ago a student graduating from high school and headed to the University of Virginia, wrote me, "Mr. Jones, four years ago when I walked into your 8th-grade class, I had already picked out when and how I was going to kill myself. No one knew about this; I know you thought I was a happy, normal girl. I thought you'd like to know that I didn't commit suicide because of you. You always made life seem like an adventure that I could be a part of. After a few months of your class, I wanted to live and help people. Thank you for saving my life."

One day, a boy who came back to tell me he had been accepted to medical school, told me something I didn't know. He said that each year in middle and high school he would wait the first two weeks of class to see how smart he could be in each class. If the teacher didn't like smart kids and their questions, or if the teacher wouldn't protect him from students who would make fun of his smartness, he just was quiet all year. (That's so sad.) He said he loved my class because I inspired him to be as smart as he could be; he loved that I gave extra credit for pointing out any mistakes I made, and I gave him extra challenging work to do.

In 29 years of teaching in Virginia and Edinburgh, Scotland, I have fantastic memories of unjaded 6th-graders, question -asking 8th-graders, and creative teachers in middle and high school.

How did I get a chance to teach with all the bureaucratic, teach -to- the- test, uncreative principals, and fear of lawsuits, that surround teaching today?

In the country school, I was a veteran, so they let me teach.

In the inner-city, ghetto school, for 17 years, I seldom ever sent students to the office and had great discipline. In an environment where many teachers can't control the classes, those of us who could, were left to teach.

"I won't say ours was a tough school, but we had our own coroner. We used to write essays like 'What I'm going to be if I grow up." Lenny Bruce

I was the only male teacher in a school for girls in Scotland; everything I did they figured must be the way they do it in America. I got to teach. (Insanity is not just an American educational factor; in this school in Scotland, teachers were only allowed to give one grade above or below the previous year's grade. Than't insane; it's illogical. So much of education is just habit and tradition. "The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking." John Kenneth Galbraith

In my high-test score, suburban, school, we had high test scores, so they left us alone. (Each student had his or her own laptop computer to use in school and take home each night. As long as those scores were up, you were a good teacher even if you weren't.

If you get the love and respect of the parents, you get to teach.

If you win major teaching awards in your state, they leave you alone to teach. (My two awards made the adminstration look good, so they left me alone.)

How much can you teach? How much can they learn? If they like you, and you can make it fun and intersting, there is almost no limit. My 6th graders one year had to read and learn the following: anecdotes, famous quotations, fairy tales, picture books, novels, poems, plays, short stories, nonfiction, essays, New Yorker cartoons, how-to-books, science fiction, 100 idioms, 100 symbols, 150 Greek and Latin word pieces, 50 literary terms, 100 literary allusions, 100 homonyms, 100 doublespeak words, creativity techniques, plus what the other teachers were teaching.

Every year my students learned that language (words) is the best invention we'll ever have. One year they reached under an electric blue silk cloth, into a large glass box, with the perfect music, and low lighting to pull out a poker chip with a word on it. It was their word for the year; those sixth-graders were as excited as if I had given them a new gizmo from Apple; they wrote stories, found the etymology, idioms, literary allusions, and hundreds of other things I gave them to do or they created. (I'm writing a book about this now.) "All words are pegs to hang ideas on." Henry Ward Beecher

"Language is the memory of the human race." William Henry Smith

What if they don't like you, and sense that you don't care for your subject or for them? God help you. They can spot a racist, unempathetic jerk, in a minute and a half. Some things you can't fake. If you have no idea of their experiences, music, heroes, etc. it's going to be a long day in class. For 29 years I was a 24 hour, 365 days a year, teacher. (I had to leave the chalk mines because of my heart condition; now my classroom is the world as I write satire and books.)

Alvin Toffler wrote, "The illiterate of the twenty-first century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn."

My heroes are Ray Bradbury, Buckminster Fuller, and Richard Feynman. (Ray is still writing at 89.) Feynman was logical and creative and more. All three have made me a better teacher.

If most school principals have anything to do with merti pay, it won't work. They'll give most of the pay to yes-men and yes-women who do what they are told and don't ask a lot of questions. I was a good teacher; maybe I could have been a great teacher if I had ever had any encouragement or help from adminstrators. Parents, other teachers, and the kids loved my creativity; the principals I had, thought of me as a threat or a nuisance They talk about creativity and caring for children, but if you got the kids to think and question, you were in for grief.

tenure: "The juvenile sea squirt wanders through the ocean searching for a suitable rock or hunk of coral to cling to and make its home for life. When it finds its spot and takes root, it doesn't need its brain anymore, so it eats it. It's rather like getting tenure." Michael Scriven

Change "Leave no child behind" to:

"The Best Education for each child." N.Wylie Jones

"Students -America's Future"

"K-12 - As good as our colleges and universities."

"We drowning in information and starving for knowledge." Rutherford D. Rogers

"You can get all A's and still flunk life." Walker Percy

"The empires of the future are the empires of the mind."

Winston Churchill

p.s. Mr. Duncan, if I can ever be of help, my e-mail is

nwyliejones@hotmail.com. and my new book is at web site:

www.knowords.com

tartufe  03/13/2009 12:12 AM Report

I made math and science senseless, single-handled. My professors re-emphasized this endlessly.

Agree entirely we should do away with these disciplines. Nothing but trouble. Well, except chemistry. We need our crack etc.

Reading, writing for the masses? Hell no. Let em eat cake. Enlist. Collect disability. Live the good life. Exhilarating even, say, every Sat nite. Yeeee haaaa!!

TTigerX2  03/12/2009 11:22 PM Report

I found that Mr. Duncan is taking the high road to our aspirations. There is simply no more time to waste as India and China contribute 40% -50% of a family's net worth into securing a better education for their children. They spare no expense. This is one reasons the US is no longer as competitive in technology as it was 30 years ago. This makes education an economic issue as well. I am impressed by the Obama agenda and delighted he's found someone who will not only articulate his program but has the requisite backbone to make difficult decisions long overdue.

RONN  03/12/2009 10:18 PM Report

the whole point of senseless math and science education is overrated it's a way to get the high IQ out of masses. it's a social stratifcation tool developed for military. just study the history of SAT you'll find out......

tartufe  03/12/2009 09:48 PM Report

esantoro - If anger and disillusion is the goal your book list should include, "The Peoples History of the United States," by Howard Zinn.

Loved this, "This is how you educate the true "Best and the Brightest" for an American future, a future with fewer Enrons, fewer Citibanks, fewer Madoffs."

charlizecourriers  03/12/2009 08:51 PM Report

This all about ghetto education. Individuals,actually idiots like Duncan, who secretly wish to torture children with "math" and "science" should be punished to the full extent that national and international law permits. Poetry, painting, wooodcarving, birdwatching, history and geography should be alternatives to the white boys fantasies. How to make a sailboat and how to sail it, sewing, quilting, cooking and car tune-up are all far,far more important and worthwhile than Duncan's miseducation nightmare. But of course Duncan and Chu represent the Audacious Amateur's vision. More rap-more crap. Of course it's still not illegal to torture children; just ask Huck Finn. In the end it will be Duncan's karma that will bring about his real education.

esantoro  03/12/2009 04:34 PM Report

A few good questions were asked and points made, but they grow fewer the more I reflect on the interview.

I was getting all set to lay into Duncan but no longer have the energy nor the time. Ditto everything pxlpark writes below.

Simply graduating from an Ivy League university does not make someone the "Best and the Brightest." More often, it makes her the best socialized type A personality who will never think in an original manner and will always do what she is told, whether that be complicity in financial fraud , sending people to gas chambers, or making inner-city students simply feel good about themselves.

Duncan needs to ask his mother about the correct use of objective pronouns. Him just doesn't get it, or maybe that's what he learned in Australia.

All of a sudden I do seem to have the energy and the time.

Up to this point, I had thought that Obama had a good grasp of what is needed in education reform. Now, I'm not so sure. Obama of all people should understand the kind of internal systemic dysfunction that inhibits government from good leadership. That very same type of dysfunction is also at work in our system of public education. Rampant fear in increasing levels from the top down hand-cuffs superintendents, principals, and teachers from educating kids properly. The only entities that really benefit from this dysfunction, as with the functioning of U.S. government, are private corporations that sell textbooks, programs, consulting, dubious research, etc.

The U.S. pays more for health care than any other country and gets less in return. The U.S. pays more or just about more for education than any other country and gets less. This is by design, not accident.

Rose asked Duncan to identify what or who is blocking the way to viable education reform. Duncan babbled on about the lack of creativity and some other cant. While lack of creativity is certainly at issue, Duncan does not know what that creativity is supposed to look like. He's never taught in a classroom, and I'd bet he'd be hard pressed to read and understand Melville's _Moby Dick_ or Ellison's _Invisible Man_. These books are not about the surface features he most likely thinks they might be about. In fact, if the governing establishment of the last thirty years really understood what these and other such books were about, they would have them removed from mandatory reading lists across the country. Thankfully this class is intellectually illiterate and such novels remain. However, this governing class has done the next best thing. They have made it tremendously difficult for classroom teachers to have the autonomy and flexibility to introduce and guide students to the complex critical nature of such works. Young people today are ready for real education that pulls back the veneer of propaganda and national duplicity. Their popular culture-- their music, films, television -- is rife with starting points for critical inquiry that can be educationally contextualized with rigorous study of history, literature, and language, among other important disciplines. But this kind of intellectual education does not foster happy Wal-Mart Shoppers. It makes people angry, skeptical, and aware of issues that should make people angry, skeptical, and aware. Education that fosters anything less is propaganda. This is how you educate the true "Best and the Brightest" for an American future, a future with fewer Enrons, fewer Citibanks, fewer Madoffs.

This nation does have a true class of "The Best and the Brightest." They are the ones who see crises looming, speak out, and are ignored and/or marginalized. Let them run the show, if they are willing.

Rose needn't look far for an answer to his question. Paul Krugman, a true representative of this country's "The Best and the Brightest," hits at the center of the matter in _The Conscience of a Lberal_. Though he speaks directly to health care, the inherent reasoning applies equally to education:

"The legacy of slavery, America's original sin, is the reason we're the only advanced economy that doesn't guarantee health care to our citizens. White backlash against the civil rights movement is the reason America is the only advanced country where a major political party wants to roll back the welfare state. Ronald Reagan began his 1980 campaign with a state's rights speech outside Philadelphia, Mississippi, the town where three civil rights workers were murdered; Newt Gingrich was able to take over Congress entirely because of the great Southern flip, the switch of Southern whites from overwhelming support for Democrats to overwhelming support for Republicans."

The last thing America of the last thirty years wants is a good system of public education. Let's stop beating around this "Bush" and start getting really creative. If not, then let's at least look at ourselves honestly for what we really are as a nation.

DavLev  03/12/2009 04:27 PM Report

Nothing comes free, and free men are not equal, so the RIGHT have been saying for decades. I listened to both scriptged spokespersons for President Obama, yesterday and the day before, and admit to being totally dismayed at the NWO (spend now and pay later) (New World Order). Aren't we really seeing a rebirth (or re-instituion) of socialism here? Isn't that what Obama campaigned on for nearly 2 years..first cleverly against Hillary, then McCain/Palin (my choice). 100 billion dollars going to education, represents an almost complete control of our educational system (pre-K and to 12). We see the strings attached, revealed eloquently by both interviewees.

Charlie should have asked about the educational system in Washington D.C. with all those firings of teachers AND administrators. How many teachers, who,in my opinion, are not responsible for the bottom of the barrel in their student classrooms, will be laid off? Why judge them on those that cannot make it, for one reason or another..why not judge them on the smarter students? I graduated in the top 10% of my class, and came from a lower middle income family. I never robbed or stole..I wasn't a member of a gang. I knew the value of education, instilled from hard working parents. I also worked part time..was active in sports, was a boy scout and enjoyed summer camps. Drugs were of no value to me and never have been. My friends and acquaintences thought similarly. Most students who dropped out had to work on farms to help out. Some of the girls desired children more than math skils. We didn't need the Sec.of Education to motivate us to compete with Indians or Chinese. A percentage went on to major in the sciences, math, engineering and medicine. But the majority of high school graduates went into the military, 2 year trade schools, and 2 year junior colleges ( some later graduated from 4 year schools and did post graduate work). College Mr. Secretary is NOT for everyone..most do not want to be brain surgeons..or professional basketball players. Most simply do not have the ability. Not everyone has a 140 plus IQ....Some things we cannot buy with printed greenbacks (now in the trillions). Good parenting ( budgeting and wise spending and careful investing) as well as positive incentives at home are more important. College success is no sign of success in life as who've been there know. Life takes it's twists and turns often times with negative effects. Being prepared emotionally and mature thinking is more important than learning Kant or John Stuart Mill. I am totally against 12-14 hour school days..I went from 8 to 4:00 p.m. That was more than enough, besides 2 hours homework every night. I am for voluntary religious instruction in one's own faith (after school hours).

School athletics twice week (1 hour each time), music instruction in the lower grades..combinded with band and orchestra, one hour during daytime suffices. What should be stressed are the 3 Rs. I mean, advanced calculus, biology and chemistry, come on folks., this is why we have good colleges. BTW, fully 50% of those attending college don't finish in 4 years., for a myriad of reasons.

He talks about financing a college education for everyone.

I was led to believe that tens of billions are always

available for anyone in need, in the form of loans. Some borrowers never pay these loans back..get it Mr. Sec. Who will ultimately pay for these defaults?

As far as bailing out banks..I ask, why? They gambled with

sucker bets and lost. How many people refinanced their property year after year, doubting their ability to pay the loans? Why should we, who rented, pay for THEIR mistakes and bad AND irresponsible judgement? We don't get tax breaks OR other incentives, like itemizing our deductions.

Mr. Treasury Secretary..if Americans want to buy foreign cars, so be it. Perhaps a tax credit buying American might really pay dividends and keep millions of US citizen employed avoiding these problematic loans? I like the Japanese and Germans, but owe them nothing.

tartufe  03/12/2009 02:30 PM Report

Mr Duncan conned me. He came off enthused and sincere. Two attributes that may 'inspire' in themselves enough to achieve a turn in direction if nothing else.

Acknowledging it all really starts at home is useful. Obama's combined jawboning and pigmentation may prove helpful on this score. Along with Duncan's as his emissary.

sbrolibrary  03/12/2009 02:18 PM Report

It doesn't matter what his rhetoric is, when he doesn't use correct grammar. He said: "it shaped my brother and I...". How disappointing is that? Makes him look stupid, not even knowing the difference between a subject and an object. This is the national leader of all education, and he cannot communicate correctly. Grammar exists for the pointed reason of clarity, and he makes it sound as if careful communication is not important. Words are the crystalization of our thought patterns. How can he lead the effort to teach our children to think, when he's not thoughtful about his use of words? Really erodes my confidence in the future of education in the free world when he doesn't care enough to get it right. Teach HIM to diagram sentences.

winter  03/12/2009 01:48 PM Report

I didn't hear anything about methods. I heard alot of helicopter eye view rhetoric about how everyone should want to improve education but; how. Its always, "we should incentivize instruction so we can attract the best and the brightest" that has been the unions tired mantra for years. I'm not sure instructors who respond to financial reward necessarily have the sort of character it takes to inspire children to learn. I would submit classroom success has more to do with inspiring than mastery of the subject, which is what higher paying alternatives to teaching said subject would require. Of course proficiency is needed but with an emphasis on inspiration. Motivations reveal alot about what someone really cares about.

pxlpark  03/12/2009 01:39 PM Report

I will start this by saying - and I think many are feeling the same way - I sure can't wait for Charlie to get out of DC, and away from these canned pitches. They are really starting to turn my stomach. Vitriol and contempt are words that come to mind.

With regards to Mr Duncan, first I will say, I think we all know what the urban population of Chicago, and the people of color in particular, think of Mr Duncan and his reputation. The poor, and now to often, the displaced, will feel the pain of this appointment the hardest. They are doomed.

What I am also slowly realizing is that Pres. Obama and Mr. Duncan are fervently attempting to homogenize this country to a level I have never seen in all my years. Mr. Duncan is clearly looking to churn out book smart obedient cogs like India, that will fall in line, and pay their taxes.

I recently read somewhere that while India produces many many book smart people, they have a serious dilemma in finding people who are creative and innovative in the arts and sciences, simply because they are so rigorously taught by the book, and taught to stay in the lines. Now I understand that math and science are relatively absolute, but the difference between learning from teachers that teaches you the game of life, and their view of it, like Feynman, as opposed to teachers that follow the book, to the letter of the law, without exception, is massive, and quite frankly what makes America America. One teaches creativity and improvisation, while the other teaches rigidity and small mindedness.

Ironically this is quite contrary to how India has been historically, in that up until the past 100 years, they produced a wealth of diversity in the arts and sciences.

This reminds of the story of when I went to take my drivers test years ago, I had answered the questions in the way that someone who had been driving for years would (I took the test in my 20's, and I had been driving a scooter for some time already). To my surprise, I failed miserably. So I went back, grabbed the book they hand out, and learned to recite it cover to cover. Now I know that no one drives this way, and many accidents would be caused if people did. It's obtuse, and unnatural, and has little bearing in the real world. But I went back once again 2 weeks later, and this time, of course, I answered by the book, and I passed the test with 100% accuracy.

This experience, and quite frankly many unhappy years in school, taught me a very big lesson, which was that the best way to look at the world, had nothing to do with what was written in a dated text book, and recited by a apathetic teacher with little deep knowledge about what they are teaching (at least in my experience). And the book itself was probably written by someone with the same apathy, and the facts skewed to whatever political agenda (I had never even heard of the The Moors in all my time in school... and no mention of Tesla either, anywhere, at all.).

Growing up within the Baltimore School system, and specifically going to a "prototype" school for 4 years (that is a school that they stress test out new ideas and methods - of control - on generally), I saw a lot of good teachers, ie teachers that caught the imagination of the students, and inspired them to think for themselves), get quashed time after time by not playing by the rules that a single governing person set forth (ie the person who decides which teacher gets the bonus, and keeps their job). Needless to say, Baltimore has it's corruption like most inner city schools (yes, those scenes in The Wire are so true to life, I often really have deaj-vu), and I think Mr. Duncan's logic will only lend to more heightened levels of the same quite frankly, allowing for more personal politics to govern with much nastier and deadlier circumstances for those who do not fall in line.

fjgajewski  03/12/2009 12:44 PM Report

Academic departments in public-school districts might do well to submit themselves to annual review by independent objective panels of local experts. The input provided by such visiting committees would, I think, contribute significantly to the caliber of teaching.

Most municipalities have their fair share of professionals in every field, with doctorates and other credentials. Communities moreover are sufficiently civic-minded so that visiting committees to the various areas of instruction could be formed by volunteers at no cost to taxpayers.

If it works at Harvard, it's worth a try.