ARNE DUNCAN INVITED TO THE AERA: SHOCKING?
This is not a blog about being shocked, shocked to find out that the AERA has invited the state’s chief purveyor of the corporate takeover of public education to speak at its annual conference. There is nothing shocking about Arne Duncan speaking at the AERA, anymore than it is shocking that corporate think tanks get to pass themselves off as researchers in AERA journals or that the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education is promoting the edTPA , a money grab for Pearson, Inc.
Narratives of the market; discourses of accountability, outcomes and standards; demands for quantitative data; funding tied to student test data; suggestions to cooperate and ‘get a place at the table;’ and good old fashioned threats and job losses are the strings of the life/death we weave in the academy these days. Whether presented as great gains for a transformative higher education, or reasonable compromises under the shock doctrine of austerity budgets, we, like our k12 comrades, are experiencing increasing incursions of corporate interests into our day to day work. Arne Duncan, invited guest of the AERA, has been leading the charge.
Education faculty across the country, as individuals and as groups, have made statements and stood strong in
Narratives of the market; discourses of accountability, outcomes and standards; demands for quantitative data; funding tied to student test data; suggestions to cooperate and ‘get a place at the table;’ and good old fashioned threats and job losses are the strings of the life/death we weave in the academy these days. Whether presented as great gains for a transformative higher education, or reasonable compromises under the shock doctrine of austerity budgets, we, like our k12 comrades, are experiencing increasing incursions of corporate interests into our day to day work. Arne Duncan, invited guest of the AERA, has been leading the charge.
Education faculty across the country, as individuals and as groups, have made statements and stood strong in