The Fundamental Dishonesty of Arne Duncan
Why won't the Department of Education stand up for D.C. school vouchers?
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan argues that we have an obligation to disregard politics to do whatever is "good for the kids."
Well then, one wonders, why did his Department of Education bury a politically inconvenient study regarding education reform? And why, now that the evidence is public, does the administration continue to ignore it and allow reform to be killed?
When Congress effectively shut down the Washington, D.C., voucher program last month, snatching $7,500 Opportunity Scholarship vouchers from disadvantaged kids, it failed to conduct substantive debate (as is rapidly becoming tradition).
Then The Wall Street Journal's editorial board reported that the Department of Education had buried a study that illustrated unquestionable and pervasive improvement among kids who won vouchers, compared with the kids who didn't. The Department of Education not only disregarded the report but also issued a gag order on any discussion about it.
Is this what Duncan meant by following the evidence?
When I had the chance to ask Duncan—at a meeting of The Denver Post's editorial board Tuesday—whether he was alerted to this study before Congress eradicated the D.C. program, he offered an unequivocal "no." He then called the Journal editorial "fundamentally dishonest" and maintained that no one had even tried to contact him—despite the newspaper's contention that it did, repeatedly.
When I called The Wall Street Journal, I discovered a different—that is, meticulously sourced and exceedingly convincing—story, including documented e-mail conversations between the author and higher-ups at his office.
The voucher study, which showed progress compounding yearly, had been around since November, and its existence is mandated by law. So at best, Duncan was willfully ignorant.
But the most "fundamentally dishonest" aspect of the affair was Duncan's feeble argument against the program.
First, he strongly intimated that because only 1 percent of children were able to "escape" (and boy, that's some admission) from D.C. public schools through this program, it was not worth saving.
So, you may ask, why not allow the 1 percent to turn into 2 percent or 10 percent instead of scrapping the program? After all, only moments later, Duncan claimed that there was no magic reform bullet and that it would take a multitude of innovations to fix education.
Then Duncan, after trashing the scholarship program and study, emphasized that he was opposed to "pulling kids out of a program" in which they were "learning." Jeez. If they're learning in this program, why kill it? And if the program was insignificant, as Duncan claimed, why keep these kids in it? Are these students worse off? Or are they just inconveniencing the rich kids?
Duncan can't be honest, of course. Not when it's about politics and payback to unions who are about as interested in reforming education as teenagers are in calculus.
Politicians say a lot of things, but to glean any insight, we need only examine the decisions they make in their own lives.
President Barack Obama sent his children to a private school in Chicago rather than entrust their education to then-CEO of the Chicago Public Schools, Arne Duncan. He's not alone.
And this is just another example of how the Democrats who killed this scholarship program, specifically designed for disadvantaged kids, are so deeply hypocritical and dishonest. Ask the two kids who attend Sidwell Friends School, home to Obama's children, on vouchers. Their escape from failing schools is about to be cut off by a complicit administration.
"A lot of folks will give you a million reasons to why things can't change," claims the secretary of education.
It's true. And one of the leading disseminators of pitiable excuses is Arne Duncan.
David Harsanyi is a columnist at The Denver Post and the author of Nanny State. Visit his Web site at www.DavidHarsanyi.com.
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All this, and no tax fraud?
Is this a first?
What? Hypocrisy from an apparatchik? Stop the presses!
-jcr
In a home schooling environment, kin selection ensures that the children receive an excellent education. Otherwise, it’s a chalkboard jungle.
Our SWAT team will shoot your dog for this headline.
Won’t somebody think of the children?
This would make a good base for advocating change for the children. I know there is a lot to slog through as Luddites barricade the status barriers, takin’ kids out kills the public conformity, that is under performing, …..it would take a multitude of innovations to fix education.[strike-the current system]
oh, to learn code, innernets, teach me how. I will be back.
Great article.
Send Lisa Snell to debate this bureaucrap.
(Hmmm? Was that an unintentional typo, a freudian slip, or the product of a public edumacation?)
Who’s the twat in the school desk?
Wait is that seriously the Secretary of Education?
seriously. that is one superb article.
My brother teaches within the system (i.e. NEA union member) and swears off school vouchers. Sadly, he feels threatened by vouchers despite the fact that he is one of his school’s best educators. He is certainly mildly libertarian. It is sad to see that the NEA wields so much power as to scareeven my brother into coalescing into an anti voucher stance.
Interestingly, my sister, a rare modern nine-children mom, homeschools her entire lot, much to the consternation of my brother.
The voucher debate rages even within seemingly pro-choice families. Do not underestimate the power of the NEA. Its evilness presses even the excellent educator into thinking his job is lost should vouchers come to fruition.
That’s the nuts-n-bolts of it.
That’s what you get for demonizing the last administration
Didn’t they really demonize themselves? I’m no Kerry or Gore lover, but Bush, Cheney, et al, did everything short of wearing goat horns and leggings while chanting and drinking blood.
I blame the last administration far more for Obama’s personality cult than I do Obama or any of his acolytes.
The point that is missed is that if the poor ever got a reasonably good education, they might figure out that most of what the Liberal Establishment does “for” the poor is to their disadvantage, and that the Liberal Establishment are a slimy mass of lying swine.
Obviously that would be Just Awful; they might stop voting Democrat!
The Germans hated Hitler’s predecessors too.
I’d be curious; if one were to compare all Obama threads with all Bush threads, which ones get Godwinned more quickly, on average? I know with Obama we’re working with a small sample size, but maybe enough for a trend indicator?
Education and the First Amendment
On September 25 of last year, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed
to decide the case of Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, the gravamen of
which is the First Amendent status of school vouchers
(specifically, those provided to Cleveland residents in 1995). As
would be expected, both pro- and anti-voucher forces are girding
themselves for rhetorical combat. One of the forward divisions of
the latter is
Americans United for Separation of Church and State
(http://au.org),
which devoted the November 2001 issue of its flagship
publication, Church & State, to the topic. As one who also
harbors an antipathy towards vouchers, I was surprised by what I
encountered in these pages: a demonstration of the law of
unintended consequences in the field of ideological advocacy. For
while the arguments purport only to refute the case for vouchers,
they in fact prove a far wider point.
READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE
Ok, already. We get Unangelic Dissenter’s point. Stop piling on.
Gosh, sorry for being all symbolic and shit. How about:
– threw out habeas corpus
– reversed 30 years of Freedom of Information
– got federal funding for churches for Faith Based Initiatives
– increased the non-defense budget at record rates
– ballooned federal borrowing at record rates
– increased defense spending with “emergency” bills at record rates
That’s just off the top of my head. How many amendments to the Constitution did they not shit on? In what ways did they not completely fuck the financial pooch far exceeding any bleeding heart liberal administration with the possible exception of FDR himself? How on earth can you demonize these bozos worse than what they’ve laid down in the public record?
my sister, a rare modern nine-children mom, homeschools her entire lot
“Lot”? That’s more like a litter.
Excellent. I take it he’s strapping dynamite to the Teacher’s Unions as we speak?
Not to mention the pillars of his own loathsome Department. What a worthless pit of unconstitutional shit the DoEd is.
Bravo UG.
As I also said months ago, it can always get worse (or better).
I’d also add that part of the reasons the Republicans got fucked up so badly was they had to deal with legitimately serious issues, with a political and media opposition that had no intentions of ever meeting them halfway, but was perfectly capable of getting everything stuck on them as the people in charge. Even when they weren’t in charge (post-2006).
The important point here is being drowned out by 2 people who are arguing about who made Bush look bad. Who cares. It is in the past.
This article, and the WSJ article it refers to clearly show that the DOE is in the hands of a lying manipulator at the beck and call of the teachers union. So the important question is, other than writing about it, what else can we DO about it?
I blame the last administration far more for Obama’s personality cult than I do Obama or any of his acolytes.
Guess you’re not from Chicago then, he had a cult following since he went down to Springfield, before anyone thought of him at the national level.
is good