Man, it totally, totally sucks for teachers and students. There is a dismantling of education going on that is going to haunt us for years. When you break people, break communities, it takes a lot to rebuild.

to put those cronies in positions where they can't do much damage.

You're right about the damage Arne is doing here, but he still has the president's full confidence.

A whole lot of that Chicago crowd hate public schools. Rahm, for instance.

Are they applying some sort of local dynamic to the whole country?

Rahm & Arne surely know that. It only leaves the question of who's paying whom for what.

There's a helluva lot of money in the privatization racket, be it schools or prisons. If you want the best of both worlds, you just set up a pipeline from your private school to your private prison.

I recognize you're right. But I've been an activist since things have gotten really rough and I need to fight...

No one has teachers' backs -- and ultimately, most teachers can leave the profession if they must (to preserve their health and sanity). But the students my husband teaches can't leave. And we are just all supposed to throw up our hands and let the kids get chewed up and spit out by Rahm and Arne?

Precisely.

he serves at the pleasure of the president. This means what he is doing must be what the president wants.

My qualifications are almost exactly analogous to Arnie's qualifications for the Head of the Department of Education.

Obviously, I should have been hired. My mother was a legal secretary, and I used to visit her workplace sometimes. Also, I studied about laws in various classes all the way through graduate school.

For some reason, the White House never replied to my application.

He is a HUGE FAILURE if our goal to make quality education more accessible and raise all children's educational level.

I want some of the Obama cheerleaders here to explain to me why, oh why, if education is the key to everything just and good (and it is) our President is failing us miserably here.

I got the letter on the 16th from Michelle where she says: "That's why Barack is working every single day to expand opportunities to every single young person in America. And that's why we're working to rally the country around his "North Star" goal – that by 2020, America will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world."

But she doesn't mention "Teachers" in the entire text...

She says that kids suffering under poverty just need "someone to believe in them" -- come on! Teachers believe in their students every day. That's why they work 60 hours a week for low pay and no respect -- because they believe. BUT THEY GET NO SUPPORT.

He knows nothing about education and since everyone knows that to be a fact, the question is 'why was he appointed to a position to oversee something he knows nothing about' and the answer is obvious. He is continuing Bush's Business model designed to move Public Funds into private hands. NCLB had nothing to do with education. We elected Democrats to fix that disaster and all we got was an enhancement of it.

I live in one of the poorest counties with the most wealth inequality in the South. We just got a race for the top grant of 51 million and Governor Deal of Georgia is going to waste it on Kindergarten assessment. The cynicism and desperation among teachers is high -- no money going into to actual teaching support. What's to be assessed if there is no time for teaching? Truly, it is driving teachers to their wits' end.

So, what's in it for Obama?

I'm working on a PTO/Student led walk out in my kid's HS.

way to stop it is for the people to fight hard against them. Nationwide strikes, they can't fire everyone, parents refusing to send their children to schools that are not educating them. Even if it took a year it would be worth it to defeat these thieves and crooks who are stealing this country's future.

I wish we could do it. What would it take? What kind of organizing? What the model for universal strike in education or anything? We should study this.

We should get a group together here and start some actions.

Simple as that. He wasn't an issue in the campaign and now Obama isn't running for anything.

Administrations let worthless people keep their jobs and in some cases keep holdovers from other administrations. I think it has to do with knowing the right people, despite how incompetent someone is - doesn't seem to matter anymore.

How do you remove someone doing an excellent job of getting their job done when it is a job that is the express will of the boss and high on the agenda of the "stakeholder" class?

Duncan's performance is design rather than bug as far as I can tell. I despise that but what else can be case? It isn't like this wasn't the an all the way, people were calling it before the jump.

Unfortunately, I think he's here for the duration.

As a mom of a special education student I am tired of this crap.

but, this one makes too much sense.

and it just shows that at DU there isn't enough action anymore.

and that's what really matters.

Is the President so easily duped?

People who think he ever wanted to actually do something good for public education are blind.

I listened, and I knew in '08 that an Obama administration would not be friendly to students, to public education, or to public school teachers. Arne Duncan is still there because he's doing exactly what Obama wants him to do.

His job is to privatize public education and that's exactly what he's doing.