The commandant of the Rick Hess Straight Up blog was?deflated by what?he heard from Education Secretary Arne Duncan and the head of the American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, on ABC's Sunday-morning, political talk show, This Week. With ?banal utterings? did Duncan and Weingarten respond to the questions of moderator Christiane Amanpour, Hess writes. But those utterances were not just banal; they were also disingenuous and wrong. Here, for example, is Duncan:
Let me be clear: We have to educate our way to a better economy . . . We have to get that dropout rate to zero as quick as we can. We have to dramatically increase graduation rates. And we have to make sure every single student that graduates from high school is college- and career-ready. So the status quo is not going to work for the country.
Misleading and incorrect. It is far from ?clear? that the nation's economy depends on public education, and?an honest ?dropout rate? will never be ?zero.? One can, of course, ?dramatically increase graduation rates??if one makes it dramatically easy for?pupils to graduate. And no, not ?every single student that graduates from high school? will be ?college- and career-ready.?
Hess is right to write that ?smart policy and practice start with calling things by their proper names and accepting honest disagreements? and that Duncan and Weingarten's performance was an ?embarrassment.? One acknowledges that the Sunday-morning political programming has become a weekly dreck-fest, but nonetheless: what does it say about the K-12 scene that pabulum-spouts like Weingarten and Duncan are its leaders?
?Liam Julian