Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Duncan's diatribe

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Duncan's diatribe:

Duncan's diatribe

pun·dit
noun

1. an expert in a particular subject or field who is frequently called on to give opinions about it to the public. 2. a learned man : teacher

Ed Sec. Arne Duncan has lashed out at his critics, referring to them (us) as "armchair pundits". His attempt as silencing is particularly directed at those who point to poverty and the resulting inequality of opportunity as a primary source of supposed "school failure." This problem seems way beyond Harvard grad Duncan's grasp. Duncan sees the country divided between his critics, "inhabitants of this alternative universe" and the "many people in the real world, outside the beltway and blogosphere, have tuned out this debate."

While using his own Twitter account to try and vanquish his "alternative-world" critics, Duncan mis-characterizes them (us) as people "arguing in 140 characters or less about whether we need to fix poverty before we can fix education." Especially for those of us who've been involved in both the attempt to transform education as well as ending poverty and inequality for decades, this is the supreme insult.

WaPo's Valerie Strauss writes:

The speech revealed Duncan as being thin-skinned, but more striking was what else it showed: that the education secretary still doesn’t seem to understand