Duncan on Race to Top: Bold Reform More Crucial Than Buy-In

[tonysam]

Who cares what anybody thinks? Arne sounds like Bush:

After staying out of the Race to the Top round-two fray for weeks, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is finally starting to take the gloves off and wade into the middle of a big debate over just how important "buy-in" is in a state's application.

Today, in a routine conference call with the business community (he does this sort of outreach regularly), he declared: "At the end of the day we're going to the strongest proposals whether they have tremendous buy-in or not." (The department invited me to listen in on the call, which was to encourage business leaders to support states' Race to the Top efforts.)

Although broad collaboration and buy-in should remain a goal, he said, if a state's proposal is "more consensus but watered-down reform, that's not going to be a winning application."

The growing tension between states and unions over being bold, yet getting "buy-in," is illustrated in this EdWeek story from Friday.

Education Week

[harry_pothead]

1. Wealthy school districts: the only place you can get job security

That's Arne's contribution to US education.

[Catshrink]

2. Maybe the reason teachers don't buy in it that we recognize bullshit when we see it.

We know Arne isn't an educator and that his business model will not work in education. We feel steamrolled and that years of experience in what does work in eduation are being ignored in favor of an overhaul that is not based on educational research but rather the whims of billionaires.

Of course they're trying to frame this as "intrasigent unions" resisting accountability rather than what it really is.

[mzteris]

3. you think he makes decisions in a vacuum?

Did you miss the post about all the FORMER TEACHERS who advise him? Including a former AFT Union education lobbyist? Teachers and officials who have dedicated their lives to helping children and helping children of poverty, helping victims of discrimination. . . read their backgrounds. Research who the Senior Staff of the Ed board is - they aren't "corporatists" hell bent on destroying public education. These are people with a passion - and experience - for eliminating the problems that currently do exist in the education sector.

You may not agree with their methodology, but it is really disingenuous to question their motives.