Dear Mr. President:
I wish you a happy birthday. But I must also wish that you would truly listen to and heed the voices of real teachers, scholars, children, and parents when it comes turning away from the disaster your policies have been for democratic, free, public education.
As long as Arne Duncan is US Sec. of Education, you will be promoting an undemocratic approach, heretofore unprecedented in our history, to imposing federal will on state and local educational practices. Were the policies your administration is effectively enforcing states to adopt good ones (which they are not), I would still hesitate to support the MEANS through which you are promoting them. But as they are not, I am doubly worried about the precedent you are setting for the next George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, or worse: since YOU forced states to accept Race to the Top