Secretary of Education Duncan: Obama doesn't want to continue NCLB

[Emit]

Briefly summarized from video below:

What they (Bush/NCLB) did right was put a spotlight on achievement gaps

But they were too prescriptive on how to generate improvement

We have 50 states doing their own thing, We need National Standards (growing consensus that this is the right thing to do, AFT, NEA, parents, union leaders, business leaders, etc.)

NCLB was very loose about the bar, had 50 different bars, but was very tight about how to get there.

Duncan wants to reverse this: Set the bar tight, be looser on how states get there. Be creative how to get there.

Duncan also criticized NCLB for labeling school that were improving as failures. NCLB was a blunt instrument

Charlie Rose says, "Obama wants to continue NCLB..."

Duncan responds, "I think you are going a bit far there ...

There are pieces Obama supports, pieces he doesn't. We need to make some changes ... it was desperately underfunded. We need more funds to drive student achievement...

I don't think we should call it NCLB ... rebrand it ... not just about rebranding ... keeping what did work, changing what didn't work ... keeping sense of accountability and measuring achievement gap ... really enabling states and districts to have great flexibility to drive the kind of innovation we need to get better

Here at about 40:00

A conversation with Arne Duncan, United States Secretary of Education
http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10140

[Runcible Spoon]

1. "rebrand" is corporate speak.

Let's leave it out of education "reform" discussions please. Sigh.

[KitchenWitch]

4. THANK you!

I do not want corporations taking over our educational system.

[davidinalameda]

2. get rid of it

I don't think that I've ever seen anything worse for education than NCLB has been

[Smarmie Doofus]

3. All the way at the end he says he's always had two loves:

basketball and education. Rose kept approaching,but never had the crust to ask: Why didn't it ever occur to you to be a teacher?

I'm still wondering.

[sense]

5. He'll do far more

good where he's at. Any other position and he wouldn't be able to affect real change or help most of us.

[Smarmie Doofus]

11. You're not even a little curious?

He's 44 years old. Grew up wondering all those wonderful things he was talking about while he watched his mom with her inner-city tutoring company. Friends that got tutoring from his mom became Hollywood stars and doctors, friends who didn't went to jail or died, etc. etc. etc. Duncan, by his account, was deeply impacted by all of this.

Yet it *never* occurred to him to even *try* teaching in a classroom.


>>> good where he's at. Any other position and he wouldn't be able to affect real change or help most of us.>>>>>

He couldn't have been *planning* to simply become Secretary of Education all of these years. Everyone can see that his accesssion to this position is a fluke... to put it mildly.

So Duncan remains a puzzle. If not an anomaly.


On the positive side: he speaks well... or at least quickly. Unlike a certain famous NYC "education advocate" ( and Obama supporter) who was rumored to be in the Sec of Ed sweepstakes.

[msongs]

6. btw special ed is a seriously underfunded federal mandate --->

feds only pay 40-50% of expense so local districts have to take funds away from other programs to make up for the shortfall of a program DEMANDED by the federal government.

If the feds fully funded special ed, districts would have 100's of millions $ to put back in the regular classrooms.

Msongs

[sense]

7. How about funding gifted ed. That's

special ed for the people at the other end and it's just as necessary. Putting on my flame proof suit and leaving the planet now!

[pnwmom]

9. As a parent of students in that category, I disagree that special

funding for gifted students is needed.

If we had an individualized (non cookie-cutter) education meeting the needs of all students, then we wouldn't need any extra funding for gifted students. Their individual needs would be met as well, whether they were globally gifted or gifted in specific subjects.

Special ed is different however, because it can require more teaching assistants and involve other additional costs.

[sense]

10. Well, of course.

The problem is that we don't have an individualized system and the gifted are left out. That's why we home school.

[pnwmom]

14. We used to, and it was official district policy, and it was great.

Unfortunately, another philosophy prevailed, and the district has swung in the opposite direction. (And we moved our youngest into private.)

Now, it's every elementary student on the same page on the same day across the district -- except for "globally gifted" students, who have their own classes with their own teachers. But their teachers aren't paid more than other teachers. So why would they need extra funding?

[pnwmom]

8. Excellent. It sounds like he "gets" it. n/t

[JCMach1]

12. The solution for testing is: MORE TESTING

Only centralized and tighter... TESTING has become the only solution politicians have for education... The only thing more simplistic is the BUILD PRISONS solution for crime. Somehow, I think there might be a correlation.

Obama needs to stop listening to his basketball buddy on education...

[Emit]

13. I don't think Duncan said the solution is 'centralized and tighter testing'

He's talking about loosening the methods teachers and school districts use to get to a tighter national standard. He's talking about districts finding innovative, creative ways to get there - capturing best practices and finding what works and what doesn't. Challenging the status quo. Using testing and metrics to measure student achievement, not just absolute test scores but how much they're (students, schools) gaining each year, their growth and gain. That's done through testing and assessments. Assessing strengths, weaknesses, etc.

He said we need to set of high bar, (i.e.,international benchmarks), but not be prescriptive of how states get there.