Arne Duncan’s “Back-to-School Conversation”
Last week, Arne Duncan wrote a blog post titled, “A Back-to-School Conversation with Teachers and School Leaders.” This was subsequently reprinted on the official blog of the U.S. Department of Education, “Homeroom,” and also summarized/critiqued by Alan Singer on an Huffington Post-post titled, “Arne Duncan Declares Victory in War on Schools and Teachers.”
First, Duncan thanks America’s students as they “have posted some unprecedented achievements in the last year — the highest high-school graduation rate in the nation’s history, and sharp cuts in dropout rates and increases in college enrollment, especially for groups [who] in the past have lagged significantly.” As Diane Ravitch would say, “Where is the evidence?” No evidence is cited or referred/linked.
Those who have ever worked with graduation and dropout rate data (rates in this case which are inversely related but reported here as separately celebratory), also know how difficult it is to report these in a standardized, but more importantly accurate manner. Graduation and dropout rates, like test scores, are very easy to manipulate, adjust, and game, also because few agree on how these should be calculated and what policies and rules should be followed when calculating these rates (e.g., what should serve as the denominator). But let us not spoil Duncan’s celebration, yet.
“These achievements come at a time of nearly unprecedented change in American education — which entails enormously hard work by educators [because educators were not working hard enough prior to Duncan...But now] nearly every state has adopted new standards, new assessments, new approaches to incorporating data on student learning, and new efforts to support teachers,” thanks to Duncan. These policies are, of course, what are purportedly causing the political miracles we are to now celebrate and observe.
But then comes Duncan’s concerns with his politically (and economically) driven Arne Duncan’s “Back-to-School Conversation” |: