Arne Duncan Really F---ing Cares About Kids :: Frederick M. Hess

Arne Duncan Really F---ing Cares About Kids :: Frederick M. Hess:

Arne Duncan Really F---ing Cares About Kids

Yesterday, in POLITICO's annual education issue, reporter Michael Grunwald penned anenthusiastic portraitof Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. My favorite quote was former Duncan aide Justin Hamilton saying that "everyone says" that they care about what's right for kids. But "Arne f---ing means it!" (The implication was that others don't.) This was the article's recurrent theme— that the Secretary, his allies, and his underlings see Duncan as uniquely sincere in his commitment to the nation's students. While I don't think this is actually true, I do think they believe it to be true— and that illuminates so much of what ails Duncan's Department of Education.

The danger with becoming convinced of one's unique goodness is that it becomes only natural to dismiss those who disagree as insufficiently compassionate and concerned. In that way, self-righteousness morphs into close-mindedness, insularity, and disdain for those who might not see things the same way. Duncan's allegedly superhuman commitment to kids has become a rationale for the Department to ridicule or ignore all manner of disagreement. (One only had to read Duncan's remarkable interview last week with Alyson Klein of "Politics K-12" to see all of this on display). Indeed, some of us initially sympathetic to Duncan's aims— and perfectly willing to concede his good intentions— have been struck by his tendency to dismiss concerns and belittle those who raise them. Indeed, this kind of certainty in one's own righteousness can even lead one into a double standard, as Duncan views the actions of others through a lens very different than the one he applies to himself.

• There was his speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors when he dismissed all concerns about the Common Core as the product of a tinfoil hat lunatic "fringe" and charged them with debunking concerns.
• In 2009, after nine months in office, Duncan finally got around to giving a speech titled "Reauthorization of ESEA: Why We Can't Wait." Ironically, Duncan took five more months just to issue a broad-strokes "blueprint" proposal for reauthorization, a proposal which then went nowhere in the Democratic Congress. He then went on to blast Republicans on Capitol Hill for inaction, and insist they forced the administration to resort to waivers.
• When congressional Republicans raised concerns about the administration preschool proposals, Duncan dismissed Republican concerns as "morally indefensible" and tantamount to "education malpractice." He later expressed bewilderment at his difficulty drumming up Republican support. He explained, "I'm spending time every day, including this morning, talking to Republican members of the House and Senate to try and encourage them to be supportive....This should absolutely be a non-political, non-ideological investment."
• Duncan supports charter schooling and dismisses charter school critics but, when the congressional Republicans pushed to make federal Title I funds portable to charter schools, he blasted them as enemies of public education. Duncan says that collective bargaining needs to be reformed, but he went out of his way to kneecap Wisconsin governor Scott Walker for doing just that. Duncan told Congress more than a half-dozen years ago that NCLB was broken and that the federal government needed to loosen its grip on schools, but he has savaged Hill Republicans as mean-spirited and anti-children for proposing to fix NCLB and reduce the federal role.

I could go on, but there's no real point. For anyone who becomes convinced that they really care anduniquely get it, it's remarkably easy to dismiss any and all concerns as signs that others just don't care and Arne Duncan Really F---ing Cares About Kids :: Frederick M. Hess: