Arne Duncan isn’t just mean. He’s wrong.
People of all colors and parental statuses are right to be offended by Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s recent comments about “white suburban moms”. But beyond the sexist and racial (note that I didn’t say racist) implications of what he said, there’s another important point to be made that isn’t getting nearly enough airtime: Duncan’s words weren’t just offensive, they were wrong.
To recap: last Friday during a meeting of state superintendents, Duncan claimed that some of the resistance to the Common Core Standards was coming from “white suburban moms” discovering that “their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were, and their school isn’t as good as they thought they were.” His proposal to quell that resistance was tomansplain remind those moms that their children are now “competing globally and need higher standards.”
Yet the very international comparisons he says illustrate the need for Common
To recap: last Friday during a meeting of state superintendents, Duncan claimed that some of the resistance to the Common Core Standards was coming from “white suburban moms” discovering that “their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were, and their school isn’t as good as they thought they were.” His proposal to quell that resistance was to
Yet the very international comparisons he says illustrate the need for Common