Reblogged from GADFLYONTHEWALLBLOG
Meet the New Boss.
Same as the Old Boss.
Arne Duncan is out. John King is in.
It’s the kind of tone deaf decision we’ve come to expect from President Barack Obama on education matters.
We’ve put up with 7 years of Duncan’s buffoonery as U.S. Secretary of Education: A man with no practical knowledge of the field. A corporate functionary. A drone. A mouthpiece for all the worst ideas of the 1% to sabotage public schools and replace them with charters.
And who does Obama replace him with!? Former New York State Chancellor King!? A man who was almost run out of his state on a rail!? A man with – admittedly – more experience than Duncan but all of the worst kind.
King resigned his NY position in the throes of terrible publicity for his and NY Board of Regents’ foolish approval of an obviously fraudulent charter school run by anobviously fraudulent con man. He ignored and dismissed parents at education forums, refused to fix an education system that he, himself, destroyed and was met with the largest opt out movement in the country. Oh. And that education experience I spoke of – he spent three years teaching in a “no excuses” charter school with a high suspension rate.
And now King’s the top policymaker in the nation for public schools.
It’s hard to imagine a worse choice. The Koch Brothers? Donald Trump? An inanimate carbon rod!?
Lest we forget, this is a decision made by Democrats – the supposed saviors of education.