The Briefing Room
General Category => Health/Education => Topic started by: rangerrebew on November 18, 2013, 10:56:55 am
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Another way of putting Duncan's statement would be "Only racists would dare challenge any program by Obama and besides, no one should ever challenge the wisdom of an Obama administration program."
Arne Duncan blames irrational angst of ‘white suburban moms’ for Common Core pushback
Posted By Eric Owens On 12:28 AM 11/18/2013 In | No Comments
U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan insisted that “white suburban moms” are to blame for the unrelenting opposition to Common Core standards.
Duncan’s remarks came in a speech he gave at a meeting of the Council of Chief State Schools Officers Organization in Richmond, Va. on Friday, reports The Washington Post.
“It’s fascinating to me that some of the pushback is coming from, sort of, white suburban moms who — all of a sudden — their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were and their school isn’t quite as good as they thought they were, and that’s pretty scary,” Duncan proclaimed. “You’ve bet your house and where you live and everything on, ‘My child’s going to be prepared.’ That can be a punch in the gut.”
This fall, for the first time, 45 states and the District of Columbia began implementing the Common Core State Standards Initiative, which attempts to standardize various K-12 curricula around the country.
Criticism of the Common Core has risen sharply. Opposition has brought together conservatives who are opposed to centralized, one-size-fits-all public education and leftists who deplore ever-more standardized testing.
Many teachers and school administrators hate it because, they say, implementation has been rushed and teachers have had no input concerning the material to be taught. (RELATED: Common Core forces new kindergarteners to bubble in test answers)
Some parents are not allowing their children to take Core-aligned standardized tests.
Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, has argued that the Common Core rollout has been worse than the rollout of the Affordable Care Act.
“You think the Obamacare implementation is bad? The implementation of the Common Core is far worse,” she charged, according to the Post.
Some states with Republican governors have already begun rethinking the standards in light of protest from a range of groups.
The Common Core standards demand that students know certain things by certain grade levels, but do little to describe how teachers should impart those skills.
The standards have been endorsed by numerous groups including the National Governors Association.
For months, Duncan’s mantra has been that a batch of new standardized tests associated with the Common Core will prove to be far superior to the standardized tests that came before them. Two multistate groups have been designing these tests using $350 million in federal funding.
A spokesman for the Department of Education told the Post that Duncan was trying to say that parents who think they are sending their kids to good schools are actually wrong.
“When confronted with the truth through lower test scores and other indicators, the unhelpful response, in Arne’s view, is to say, ‘Let’s lower standards and go back to lying to ourselves and our children, so that our community can feel better,’” explained communications secretary Massie Ritsch.
“The more productive response for a community or a state is to ask, ‘What can we do to get better, so our students can graduate from high school, succeed in college and be competitive for good jobs?’” Ritsch instructed.
Friday’s speech wasn’t the first time Duncan has lambasted Common Core critics. At a September appearance at the National Press Club in Washington, for example, he said opposition amounts to “political silliness.”
“The Common Core has become a rallying cry for fringe groups that claim it is a scheme for the federal government to usurp state and local control of what students learn. An op-ed in the New York Times called the Common Core ‘a radical curriculum.’ It is neither radical nor a curriculum,” the education secretary said, according to the Post.
Follow Eric on Twitter and on Facebook, and send education-related story tips to erico@dailycaller.com.
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Article printed from The Daily Caller: http://dailycaller.com
URL to article: http://dailycaller.com/2013/11/18/arne-duncan-blames-irrational-angst-of-white-suburban-moms-for-common-core-pushback/
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The Common Core standards demand that students know certain things by certain grade levels, but do little to describe how teachers should impart those skills.
Be very wary of that. Fixing that bit makes it even more "one size fits all."
Our National Curriculum (It's Common Core on steroids) tried to do just that. It did not work well.
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Be very wary of that. Fixing that bit makes it even more "one size fits all."
Our National Curriculum (It's Common Core on steroids) tried to do just that. It did not work well.
When America was at its strongest, most creative, most powerful the federalies had little to do with education except what it was supposed to do which was only encourage it. As soon as the evil dragon got it's talens on education, the fall from grace was initiated. :doa:
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When America was at its strongest, most creative, most powerful the federalies had little to do with education except what it was supposed to do which was only encourage it. As soon as the evil dragon got it's talens on education, the fall from grace was initiated. :doa:
:amen: brother! :amen:
What now passes for education in the public realm is nothing more than indoctrination!
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Just another example of the "we know what's best for you" mentality or our rulers. Who cares what parents think?
"Your children are belong to us..."
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Just another example of the "we know what's best for you" mentality or our rulers. Who cares what parents think?
"Your children are belong to us..."
And a gratuitous swipe at white people for good measure.
If you ever wonder about a statement being racist, substitute black for white, and see if it would pass the test that way.
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And a gratuitous swipe at white people for good measure.
If you ever wonder about a statement being racist, substitute black for white, and see if it would pass the test that way.
Well said and absolutely true!
But double standards are coin of the realm these days!
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http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=9F5C9690-85F5-4951-897F-8C7215D66382 (http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=9F5C9690-85F5-4951-897F-8C7215D66382)
'White moms' remark fuels Common Core clash
By: Stephanie Simon
November 18, 2013 08:07 AM EST
Education Secretary Arne Duncan realized fairly quickly that he had stumbled.
He had just told a gathering of state superintendents of education that “white suburban moms” were rebelling against the Common Core academic standards — new guidelines for math and language arts instruction — because their kids had done poorly on the tough new tests.
“All of a sudden, their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were and their school isn’t quite as good as they thought … and that’s pretty scary,” Duncan said at the event Friday.
Two hours later, with those comments sparking outrage on social media, Duncan told POLITICO that he “didn’t say it perfectly.” But he stood by his thesis: To oppose the Common Core is to oppose progress.
“Do we want more for our kids, or do we want less?” Duncan said. “Do we want higher standards or not?”
That’s the debate that Duncan dearly wants to have.
It’s not, however, the debate he’s getting.
To the immense frustration of Common Core supporters, an eclectic array of critics have raised sustained and impassioned objections about the new standards. From New York to Florida to Michigan to Louisiana, their voices are so loud and their critiques so varied that they have muddied the narrative around Common Core. It’s no longer a focused national debate about high standards; it’s hundreds of local debates, about everything from student privacy rights to cursive handwriting to computerized testing to the value of Shakespeare.
Over the summer, Duncan complained that opponents were “fringe groups” who make “outlandish claims” about “really wacky stuff” such as “mind control, robots, and biometric brain mapping.” There is undoubtedly some of that.
But there are also substantive critiques from all corners. Catholic scholars say the standards aren’t rigorous enough. Early childhood experts say they demand too much. Liberals complain the Common Core opens the door to excessive testing. Conservatives complain it opens the door to federal influence in local schools. Teachers don’t like the new textbooks. Parents don’t like the new homework.
And some critics sense a conspiracy, suggesting that the difficult Common Core tests are designed to make public schools look so bad that parents everywhere — including white, suburban moms — will rush to embrace charter schools, cyber schools, vouchers and other models that turn public education over to private entrepreneurs.
All but four states have adopted the Common Core State Standards, which aim to guide instruction in math and language arts from kindergarten through 12th grade. The standards have been endorsed by a broad coalition of politicians and business and education leaders. Supporters include the national teachers unions and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, President Barack Obama and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
Yet even as the new standards are rolled out in classrooms from coast to coast, anger continues to bubble. Opponents have organized rallies, circulated petitions, bombarded lawmakers with calls and pulled their children out of standardized tests. One group of Common Core critics has even declared Monday “National Don’t Send Your Child To School Day” as a form of protest.
Against this backdrop, activists on both sides say Duncan’s off-the-cuff remark was clumsy, insensitive — and certain to stir the already-roiling pot of dissent.
“He’s made it sound as if to question Common Core is to be unreasonable,” said Andy Smarick, a partner at Bellwether Education, a consulting firm that has worked to promote the new standards. Smarick called the speech “divisive” and predicted it wouldn’t help the cause.
Many parent activists agreed. They called Duncan’s remark patronizing and said it fit into a pattern of state and national education officials dismissing parents and ignoring their concerns. Some also said Duncan was off base to assume that mothers — or fathers — of any race would judge either their children or their local schools poorly because of low scores on standardized tests.
“My children were brilliant before Common Core and they will be brilliant after it’s gone,” said Debbie Ryan, a mother of three public school students in Ridge, N.Y.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers — and a backer of the Common Core — called on Duncan to retract his statement. “Arne-if u are reading- you shld walk this back,” she tweeted, “very insensitive-and not right-moms care abt their kids!!”
And Darcie Cimarusti, a blogger who opposes much of the Duncan education agenda, said she believed the remark would prove a turning point: “It’s when the suburban moms get pissed that things start to actually change,” said Cimarusti, a mother of two who lives in Highland Park, N.J. “He now runs the real risk of losing control of the messaging and he knows it.”
But Massie Ritsch, assistant secretary for communications in the Education Department, said he believed the uproar over the white moms comment was mostly confined to a familiar group of critics who have been sniping at Duncan and his education agenda for years.
He said supporters of the new standards should focus on the substantial number of parents who routinely tell pollsters they don’t know enough about the Common Core to have a firm opinion.
“The far right and the far left have made up their minds, but there’s angst in the middle — which includes many open-minded suburban parents — that needs to be addressed,” Ritsch said.
Chris Minnich, executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers, said he rarely hears from parents who are thrilled with their public schools. It’s far more common, he said, to hear from parents who “think their kids are doing well all along,” only to get a nasty shock when the kids “go off to college and have to take remedial classes and take five or six years to graduate.”
Those are the parents, he said, that Common Core supporters aim to win over with the argument that the new standards will prepare students far better. “It is challenging,” he said, “but what gives me hope is that there are a lot of folks out there who believe in higher standards for kids.”
In his remarks Friday, Duncan suggested selling the Common Core by reminding parents that their children are not just competing against their neighbors, but against “India, China, Singapore and South Korea” for jobs in the global economy.
In fact, kids at well-to-do suburban schools do exceedingly well against global competition on international reading and math exams. The U.S. average is dragged down to middling, or worse, in the global rankings by its high concentration of high-poverty schools.
And some parents who live in those communities say they don’t understand how higher standards will automatically lift their children to higher achievement.
“It’s not so much that I oppose higher standards for our children. We definitely need improvement,” said Karran Harper Royal, whose 17-year-old son attends a charter school in New Orleans. “The issues I have with Common Core have more to do with the lack of real supports to help our most challenged children reach those standards.”
Smarick, the education consultant, said he would advise Duncan and other Common Core supporters to deal with the dissent by sticking to upbeat talking points.
“Stay positive and relentlessly talk about how the new standards are rigorous and will help prepare our kids for college and career,” he said. “No more talk about Tea Partiers, conspiracy theories, the D.C. bubble, the blogosphere or scared white suburban moms. Defend Common Core on its merits. That’s the winning strategy.”
But critics are not about to let the moment pass. They have launched an online petition that calls on the president to fire Duncan, citing the “white moms” remark as evidence that he “consistently and flagrantly disregards the concerns of the parents.” By Monday morning, it had nearly 1,700 signatures.
They have also created a Facebook page topped with a feisty manifesto: “Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has insulted the Moms of America and our children! … He picked the WRONG group to mess with!” Within a day, more than 1,200 members had joined.
The name of the group: Moms Against Duncan. Or, as the manifesto read: “We are MAD.”
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“Do we want more for our kids, or do we want less?” Duncan said. “Do we want higher standards or not?”
Maybe we don't. Maybe we should stop chasing that rainbow of higher standards and start focusing on BETTER standards. As the old cliché goes, "work smarter, not harder."
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Just another example of the "we know what's best for you" mentality or our rulers. Who cares what parents think?
"Your children are belong to us..."
Exactly!! And someone remind me, why is it that we have the extra-Constitutional feral Department of Eduction to being with???
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And a gratuitous swipe at white people for good measure.
If you ever wonder about a statement being racist, substitute black for white, and see if it would pass the test that way.
Yes. It certainly is...
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Maybe we don't. Maybe we should stop chasing that rainbow of higher standards and start focusing on BETTER standards. As the old cliché goes, "work smarter, not harder."
How about we teach reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, civics, REAL science, and HONEST history instead of the garbage they are now pushing!
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How about we teach reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, civics, and HONEST history instead of the garbage they are now pushing!
Because they have absolutely no interest in that at all??
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Exactly!! And someone remind me, why is it that we have the extra-Constitutional feral Department of Eduction to being with???
Because JIMMUIH CAAATA had to find a way to pay back those teachers unions for supporting him!
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Because they have absolutely no interest in that at all??
And hence the problem we face!
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How about we teach reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, civics, REAL science, and HONEST history instead of the garbage they are now pushing!
The structural problems we face as a nation are known... as are the solutions. It's not difficult.
The unrecognized problem is that some powerful, wealthy group has a definite reason for destroying American and is working persistently toward that end. Waking up to that fact is the first step.
You must know who your enemy is before you can resist him...
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The structural problems we face as a nation are known... as are the solutions. It's not difficult.
The unrecognized problem is that some powerful, wealthy group has a definite reason for destroying American and is working persistently toward that end. Waking up to that fact is the first step.
You must know who your enemy is before you can resist him...
The enemy is the Fabian Society http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabian_Society and all others like them!
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The enemy is the Fabian Society http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabian_Society and all others like them!
They would be one facet that we can see.
It's the ones in the shadows that are the biggest problem...
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Because JIMMUIH CAAATA had to find a way to pay back those teachers unions for supporting him!
It's a shame that it hasn't been jettisoned since. I recall that Reagan wanted to just that, but someone, I think that it was Howard Baker, put the kabosh on that in the Senate. Could have avoided a whole host of problems since.
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And hence the problem we face!
Yup! Public education in this country has been designed for control and social engineering from the onset. The problems trace back far before Dewey and the unions. It just wasn't as apparent when there actually was some real "educating" going on.
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They would be one facet that we can see.
It's the ones in the shadows that are the biggest problem...
Yes, the Fabians have been a source of much of it, as was Gramsci's "long march through the institutions." But you are 100% correct, it is the group(s) that never see the light of day that are indeed the biggest problem.
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One of the biggest issues i have is they teach kids WHAT to think instead of HOW to think.
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One of the biggest issues i have is they teach kids WHAT to think instead of HOW to think.
Much safer that way.
Just watch people pile-on to anyone who thinks differently that the accepted paradigm requires...
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One of the biggest issues i have is they teach kids WHAT to think instead of HOW to think.
This is one of my pet peeves about education today. In my many years of education, I heard the subject discussed on numerous occasions. However, the state and national tests are not interested in assessing how kids think, only in what they think. Of course, that is the leftist way of indoctrinating kids since kids who can think won't accept the leftist ways. Only if they are indoctrinated will they accept being put in chains. :headbang:
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One of the biggest issues i have is they teach kids WHAT to think instead of HOW to think.
That my lady is the definition of indoctrination!
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That my lady is the definition of indoctrination!
I know.
BTW Beck had a very interesting program on this very subject Friday night, The expert he had on for the full hour - with a studio audience of parents - suggested parents need to take up the slack that it is as important at home to discuss things with your children in a manner where they are encouraged to "think" rather than regurgitate... and if you think about it how many parents think it's great plop the kiddie down in front of a Disney movie or cartoons or Dora the Explorer or Sesame Street rather than sit at the dining room table and actually talk "with" (as opposed to TO their children)... I know I have seen it with my friends grandchildren when they come out here. These are educated people yet it is so easy to just turn the TV on for entertainment... When they are here I sit and read to the little girl and we discuss the books and she just soaks it up - yet her parents never sit and read with her....
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The expert he had on for the full hour - with a studio audience of parents - suggested parents need to take up the slack that it is as important at home to discuss things with your children in a manner where they are encouraged to "think" rather than regurgitate...
This is what I do w/ my kids.
I explain how the material arrives at a certain conclusion because of the underlying assumptions that are being applied. Then I explain how applying a different set of assumptions to the exact same material can arrive at a totally different conclusion. They know that they have to regurgitate the expected answer to get their grade (and that's OK), but they also understand the material at a deeper level than even their teachers do.
They also learn not to accept something just because 'everybody believes it'.
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Yes, the Fabians have been a source of much of it, as was Gramsci's "long march through the institutions." But you are 100% correct, it is the group(s) that never see the light of day that are indeed the biggest problem.
Well, you can keep you eyes on several small targets; media, education, government or grab a piece of that franchise opportunity!
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It's not the teaching of possessive nouns that bother me, but the sentences, each of them created twice. Once by the teacher, then by the students.
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BZPI4OiIcAAvMP8.jpg)
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I see in the news this morning old Arne is on the hot seat over these remarks about white women. Like any good liberal he says what he feels then "apologizes" when he gets busted so everything is just fine. :tongue2:
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It's not the teaching of possessive nouns that bother me, but the sentences, each of them created twice. Once by the teacher, then by the students.
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BZPI4OiIcAAvMP8.jpg)
Talk about subtle indoctrination! :smokin:
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I see in the news this morning old Arne is on the hot seat over these remarks about white women. Like any good liberal he says what he feels then "apologizes" when he gets busted so everything is just fine. :tongue2:
Another non-apology apology, looks like.Education Secretary Arne Duncan on Monday said he regretted his “clumsy phrasing” in singling out white suburban moms for opposing new higher academic standards. ...
“A few days ago, in a discussion with state education chiefs, I used some clumsy phrasing that I regret — particularly because it distracted from an important conversation about how to better prepare all of America’s students for success,” Duncan said in his posting.
Duncan did not apologize and his statement was unlikely to quiet the outcry from his strongest critics, many of them online where anti-Common Core activists have organized. ...
More at NY Post (http://nypost.com/2013/11/18/arne-duncan-regrets-white-suburban-moms-comment/)
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Another non-apology apology, looks like.More at NY Post (http://nypost.com/2013/11/18/arne-duncan-regrets-white-suburban-moms-comment/)
I, most humbly, stand corrected on my "apologized" usage. Hey, I'm talking just like a liberal. :woohoo:
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I'm sorry if anyone was offended by my poor choice of words, but I don't apologize for an instant for saying them ...
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I know.
BTW Beck had a very interesting program on this very subject Friday night, The expert he had on for the full hour - with a studio audience of parents - suggested parents need to take up the slack that it is as important at home to discuss things with your children in a manner where they are encouraged to "think" rather than regurgitate... and if you think about it how many parents think it's great plop the kiddie down in front of a Disney movie or cartoons or Dora the Explorer or Sesame Street rather than sit at the dining room table and actually talk "with" (as opposed to TO their children)... I know I have seen it with my friends grandchildren when they come out here. These are educated people yet it is so easy to just turn the TV on for entertainment... When they are here I sit and read to the little girl and we discuss the books and she just soaks it up - yet her parents never sit and read with her....
Sesame Street was the Trojan horse.
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Maybe we don't. Maybe we should stop chasing that rainbow of higher standards and start focusing on BETTER standards. As the old cliché goes, "work smarter, not harder."
A load of college textbooks on the back of a jackass doesn't make it educated. :nono:
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A load of college textbooks on the back of a jackass doesn't make it educated. :nono:
:amen: :amen: and :amen:
Some years ago I was invited to give the commencement address at one of our local high schools. In the course of doing that I mention to the graduates the fact that for 12 years they had been mislead to believe that they were receiving an education. I disabused them of that notion and told them that what they had REALLY gotten over that time was a certain body of knowledge - different for each and every one of them dependent on their individual ability to retain what had been presented to them - and that they would not become truly educated until they had learned to practically apply what they had learned to the business of making their individual ways in this world!
Need I tell you that I have not been invited to make any more such addresses?
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:amen: :amen: and :amen:
Some years ago I was invited to give the commencement address at one of our local high schools. In the course of doing that I mention to the graduates the fact that for 12 years they had been mislead to believe that they were receiving an education. I disabused them of that notion and told them that what they had REALLY gotten over that time was a certain body of knowledge - different for each and every one of them dependent on their individual ability to retain what had been presented to them - and that they would not become truly educated until they had learned to practically apply what they had learned to the business of making their individual ways in this world!
Need I tell you that I have not been invited to make any more such addresses?
If the kids were listening, most retained what you said, and it will come back to them in bits and pieces as they gain experience in the world. You did them a favor, even if they don't recognize it as one now.
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If the kids were listening, most retained what you said, and it will come back to them in bits and pieces as they gain experience in the world. You did them a favor, even if they don't recognize it as one now.
I have seen many of them since and to a person they have thanked me for my sobering address to them. The "educators" who were present had a decidedly different reaction however!
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:amen: :amen: and :amen:
Some years ago I was invited to give the commencement address at one of our local high schools. In the course of doing that I mention to the graduates the fact that for 12 years they had been mislead to believe that they were receiving an education. I disabused them of that notion and told them that what they had REALLY gotten over that time was a certain body of knowledge - different for each and every one of them dependent on their individual ability to retain what had been presented to them - and that they would not become truly educated until they had learned to practically apply what they had learned to the business of making their individual ways in this world!
Need I tell you that I have not been invited to make any more such addresses?
This reminds me.... when we would hire new college graduates in our company one of the first things we would tell them is forget everything they told you in college, this is the real world now.
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This reminds me.... when we would hire new college graduates in our company one of the first things we would tell them is forget everything they told you in college, this is the real world now.
I was told the same thing from my boss. Even before that, one instructor told the class the same thing. She said when we get out into the real world, little of what she taught us will matter.
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REAL science, and HONEST history instead of the garbage they are now pushing!
Can you elaborate on this?
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I was told the same thing from my boss. Even before that, one instructor told the class the same thing. She said when we get out into the real world, little of what she taught us will matter.
The new engineers used to drive my husband crazy, they were terrible on documenting changes - and you HAVE to document everything. Pretty soon manufacturing would come over screaming about marked up drawings that were never finalized and they were not finalized because the engineer just did a red line change on the floor and never followed through with the official change which would trigger parts being ordered - this usually ended with parts not being ordered and production having to grind to a halt while we expedited product in the door at an inflated price. One lazy person in can back up an entire schedule.
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Can you elaborate on this?
I will be happy to but you will have to answer a question from me first.
Since you are a student of history, please tell me if you have ever heard the name St. George Tucker prior to this moment? Please be honest!
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I will be happy to but you will have to answer a question from me first.
Since you are a student of history, please tell me if you have ever heard the name St. George Tucker prior to this moment? Please be honest!
I have heard the name, and am somewhat familiar with who he was, but I am by no means an authority on his life. Why?
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I have heard the name, and am somewhat familiar with who he was, but I am by no means an authority on his life. Why?
If you have heard the name you are ahead of most history professors out there today as the revisionists have done their best to erase his name from the history of the United States.
What did he do? Not much really. In 1803 He published a work entitled Blackstone's Commentaries:
with Notes of Reference (5 volumes) http://www.lonang.com/exlibris/tucker/index.html an annotated version of Blackstone's Law which incorporated the United States Constitution. The law books at every school of law in the country for the next 50 years!
So why has his name been largely erased? Because his view of the founding, and the nature of the Republic, did not match that of those beginning to come to power in the mid 1850's. He is definitely not the only example either.
What do I mean when I say HONEST history? I mean history as it happened warts and all! Not the "history is what historians say it is" garbage being passed off on folks currently.
HONEST science is science that is provable and repeatable quite unlike the agenda driven drivel we see so much of these days.
Hope this answers your question.
One more thing before I go. Be VERY careful with honesty in university history departments. The people who populate those places don't value it much and if you want to work there you need to be REALLY careful with it!