Holding Arne Duncan to a Higher Standard
Posted: 01/23/2014 12:26 pm
America, the elites are very disappointed in you. We're not keeping up with South Korea and Singapore, they tell us, because you are coddling your mediocre children who are being taught by bottom-of-the-barrel teachers. But have no fear, help is on the way! Pearson, the testing company that has gotten rich by making American students fill in little bubbles all day long, is advising the White House on how to whip us all into college-ready shape.
I must be too busy helping my sons with their homework, picking them up from after-school tutoring and helping them fill out magnet school applications to notice how little I expect from them. No greater eminence than New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman thinks that parents "just don't take education seriously enough." Education Secretary Arne Duncan said "white, suburban moms" need to "change expectations about how hard kids should work."
It's not just lazy-bones parents and their middling progeny that are holding America back. Recently, Duncan noted sourly that "a significant proportion of new teachers come from the bottom third of their college class." After No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top have turned the teaching profession into an underappreciated, underpaid collection of glorified