[Peace-discuss] The new admin. & labor

[C. G. Estabrook]

	December 16, 2008
	Obama Slam-Duncans Education
	by Greg Palast

Hey, you Liberal Democrats. You may have won the election, but you're getting 
CREAMED in the transition.

Today, President-elect Barack Obama stuck it to you. He's chosen Arne Duncan as 
Secretary of Education.

Who? Duncan is most decidedly not an educator. He's a lawyer. But Duncan has 
this extraordinary qualification: He's Obama's pick-up basketball buddy from 
Hyde Park.

I can't make this up.

Not that Duncan hasn't mucked about in the educational system. Chicago Boss 
Richie Daley put this guy in charge of the horror show called Chicago Public 
Schools where Duncan turned a bad system into a REALLY bad system.

And Obama knows it. Indeed, although he plays roundball with Duncan (who was 
captain of the Harvard basketball team), State Senator Obama was one of the only 
local Chicago officials who refused to send his kids to Duncan's public schools. 
(The Obamas sent Sasha and Malia to the Laboratory School, where Duncan's 
methods are derided as dangerously ludicrous.)

So, if The One won't trust his kids to Duncan, why is he handing Duncan ours?

The answer: Duncan is supported by a coterie of teacher-union hating 
Republicans. The vocal cheerleader for the Duncan appointment was David Brooks, 
the New York Times columnist; the REPUBLICAN columnist.

Hey, didn't those guys LOSE?

The problem with Duncan is not party affiliation. The problem is education 
philosophy. And Duncan is a Bush baby through and through, a card-carrying 
supporter of the program best called, "No Child's Behind Left."

At the heart of the program is testing. And more testing. Testing instead of 
teaching. When tests go badly, the solution is to push the low-test-score kids 
to drop out of school. If triage isn't enough, then attack their teachers.

Here's how Duncan operates this Bush program in Chicago at Collins High in the 
Lawndale ghetto. Teachers there work with kids from homeless shelters from an 
economically devastated neighborhood. Believe it or not, the kids don't get high 
test scores. So Chicago fired the teachers, every one of them. Then they brought 
in new teachers and fired THEM too when, surprise!, test scores still didn't rise.

The reward for a teacher volunteering for a tough neighborhood is to get 
harassed, blamed and fired. Now THAT'S a brilliant program, Mr. Duncan. But 
Duncan's own failures have not gotten HIM fired. As long as his 20-foot jumpshot 
holds, he's Mr. Secretary.

In no other cabinet department is the lack of expertise, lack of accomplishment, 
lack of a degree in the field found acceptable but in Education.

But what horrifies me more than Duncan's lack of credentials is Obama's 
kowtowing to the right-wing clique crusading against the teachers' union and 
progressive education. The ill philosophy behind the Bush-brand education 
theories Duncan promotes, "Teach-to-the-Test," forces teachers to limit 
classroom time to pounding in rote low-end skills, easily measured on 
standardized tests. The transparent purpose is to create a future class of 
worker-drones. Add in some computer training and - voila! - millions of 
lower-income kids are trained on the cheap to function, not think.

Analytical thinking skills, creative skills, questioning skills are left 
exclusively to privileged little Bushes at Phillips Andover Academy or 
privileged little Obamas at the Laboratory School.

For the rest of America's children, instead of hope, we'll have hoops.

© 2008 Greg Palast <GregPalast.com>

Greg Palast is the father of school-aged twins and the author of, "No Child's 
Behind Left," included in his New York Times bestseller, Armed Madhouse. Palast 
is a Nation Institute Puffin Foundation Fellow for investigative reporting.