MORNING JOE, 11/21/13, 8:02 AM ET
Arne Duncan reflects on ‘white suburban moms’ comment
Education Secretary Arne Duncan reflected on his recent comment about “white suburban moms” opposing educational reforms on Thursday’s Morning Joe.
“My wording was clumsy and I apologize for it,” he said. “My message was very, very simple: When you raise standards, that’s a challenging thing. I was challenging state school chief officers to do a better job of articulating why raising standards is the right thing for all children,” he said.
Last Friday, at a gathering of state superintendents of education in Richmond, Va., Duncan singled out one group of parents who he said were rebelling against the Common Care State Standards – an educational initiative to make sure students around the U.S. are taught the same benchmarks.
“It’s fascinating to me that some of the pushback is coming from, sort of, white suburban moms who - all of a sudden - their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were and their school isn’t quite as good as they thought they were, and that’s pretty scary. You’ve bet your house and where you live and everything on, ‘My child’s going to be prepared.’ That can be a punch in the gut,” Duncan said last week.
Critics immediately pounced on those comments.
Duncan apologized in a post Monday on the U.S. Department of Education’s website.