Arne Duncan Has Learned Nothing

BY AARON BARLOW Obama’s Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, writes, “Our efforts to improve schools have worked well where people have led with courage. To say otherwise is wrong.” As one who has spent 25 of the last 40 years in the classroom, as a secondary-school teacher, an adjunct college instructor and as a full-time…

Out with the Old, In with More of the Same Old Thing

Today, it has been announced that Arne Duncan, who has “rescued public education” by promoting the expansion of corporate-operated charter schools and corporate-provided standardized testing, is leaving his post as Secretary of Education. That would be cause for a deep sigh of relief, if not a loud cheer—except that his replacement will be John B.…

So, Now What?

It certainly wasn’t Obama’s education policies that led me to support him. Between Obama and the Republicans there is little daylight. Both sides of our “great” political divide have fallen under the spell of the education “reformers,” the corporatists who want to wrest control of education (and education dollars) from the public sector, making it…