Arne Duncan Grounds Ed Deform Ship of Fools

At the Answer Sheet, Valerie confirms Arne Duncan
outrageously condescending statement on the resistance to the Common Core:

"It’s fascinating to me that some of the pushback is coming from, sort of, white suburban moms who — all of a sudden — their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were and their school isn’t quite as good as they thought they were, and that’s pretty scary." http://shar.es/8lshW

Change the Stakes dad comments at The Answer Sheet:

"Well, I'm an urban dad, and I'm opposed to the Common Core because it is pseudo-intellectual; far from representing a genuine increase in "rigor," the standards are full of fake difficulties like using age-inappropriate vocabulary and calling that complexity of thought. The best education scholars have concluded the standards are erratic and shoddy; what little these standards have contributed of value was already available elsewhere (unless you believe David Coleman invented the idea of critical thinking).
The haughty condescension of Mr. Duncan's remark is the surest sign he is an emperor with no clothes. Rather than confront the myriad substantive objections to the Common Core coming from thousands of ordinary parents, teachers, scholars and psychologists, he resorts to a cheap insult. Well, he has proved me wrong about one thing: I had thought education "reformers" were happy shamelessly scapegoating teachers, but would never attack parents."

Jeff

 Perdido Street School addresses the Duncan story:

Arne Duncan Insults White Suburban Moms, Says Kids Aren't "As Brilliant As They Thought"

Here's the problem Duncan and his merry men and women in corporate reform are facing with this task of convincing suburban moms their kids' schools suck and their kids aren't as smart as mommy and daddy think they are - most people in the suburbs and elsewhere aren't buying it.

That's what NYSED Commissioner King and Regents Chancellor Tisch are discovering as they go on their Common Core listening tour from Syracuse to East Setauket and meet crowds that are overwhelmingly anti-Common Core and not convinced in the least that the plummeting Common Core test scores in NY State are emblematic of anything other than that the test scores were rigged to plummet.

Duncan can spew his ed deform playbook propaganda to state superintendents and his fellow ed deformers all he wants.

I'm sure he gets plenty of assurances from these folks that he's right and parents in the suburbs will come around soon enough to his way of thinking.

But the evidence is in already as the anti-Common Core movement grows and grows by the month - parents aren't buying the ed deform snake oil Uncle Arne and his fellow corporate ed deformers are selling and I just don't think insulting "white suburban moms" to get on board with the Core is going to save the sinking ed deform ship.