Your Black World: Obama Chooses Unqualified Hoop-Buddy As Sec. Of Education

Obama Slam-Duncans Education

By: Greg Palast

Reprinted From 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.

Your Black Education: Obama May Be the Best Candidate for Education

The ethnic communities of America should scale back their expectations on education. Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama edges his Republican counterpart Senator John McCain in national education policy, but for different reasons neither may do much to improve American education in the next four years.

The biggest issues are the accessibility of quality schools and teachers, the achievement gap and the drop out rate. In an Oct. 1 statement for the New America Media, Education-Trust West said that the modern workplace requires all to be highly educated especially in math and science. They said a major obstacle to providing this education is the nation’s failure to provide low income students and students of color with their fair share of effective teachers.

Debra Watkins, director of the California Alliance of African American Educators, cannot endorse candidates or offer judgments about their positions, but says that one of the most crucial issues is the gap in test scores between white and Asian students and black and brown students.

Patricia Gandara of UCLA’s School of Education says Obama is more likely to be better for education, “…he ‘gets’ that drop out is a horrendous problem, that access to higher education for all kids is critical to a healthy nation and economy, and I think he understands that the greatest challenge of our time is to bring a high quality education to our most marginalized kids – English Learners, low-income, and minorities. I have not heard that focus from McCain.”

Obama’s most notable initiative is his 0-5 Plan to expand Head Start, an important step in the right direction of preparing all students for success. Students who enter their first year of school behind continue to perform below their peers. Much of the $19 billion Obama would spend in new education spending would go for early education. McCain offers no similar programs.

McCain does better on the issues of teacher quality. He wants to allocate five percent of Title II funding to states to recruit teachers from the top-performing 25 percent of their college class. He would provide bonuses to teachers who volunteer to teach in underperforming schools so long as those teachers’ students show improvement.

Obama, however, surpasses McCain in proposing a more comprehensive plan for recruiting, training and retaining teachers. He offers more detailed plans for attracting college graduates and mid-career recruits to the teaching profession and establishing teacher training programs to supply well-prepared teachers to underperforming schools. Like McCain, he favors increased pay to teachers, those who volunteer to work in inner cities and remote rural areas. Obama would make special effort to recruit math and science graduates to teaching.

Obama also goes beyond McCain in proposing other steps to reduce drop outs. He wants to double funding for after school programs. He supports intervention in middle schools to provide potential drop-outs with mentoring and intensive math and reading instruction.
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