Grannan: In The Village, no one can hear you scream
Guest post by Caroline Grannan
People like me – regular parents with regular kids in regular schools, along with many other non-headline names -- are having trouble fathoming how the Obama administration could so eagerly embrace the Bush administration’s education policies and push them forward. Obama’s policies even add more emphasis on high-stakes testing, on blaming teachers, and on exalting privatization.The forces that created and promote those policies pointedly fail to consult with or listen to educators, parents, or anyone else who spends time in actual classrooms with real live kids.
Obama’s wrongheaded tack was already dismaying. But it was even more astonishing when Arne Duncan, Obama’s education secretary, told the New York Times that he had encountered no opposition to the administration’s education policy. “Zero,” Duncan added, for emphasis.
“Hey Arne! Over here!” responded blogger Mike Klonsky.
Here on Planet Earth, dissenting voices have been raising an outcry in every way we can think of. We have a new spokesperson in Diane Ravitch, former Bush administration education official and onetime supporter of the Bush/Obama policies who took a hard look, saw those policies not just failing but doing harm, and now speaks