Education Secretary Duncan Steps Down!: Raise a toast with me this evening, and let’s drink to downfall of the whole testocracy

stuartbramhall:

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Teachers all over the US are celebrating the resignation of Charter School/Common Core czar Arne Duncan. A strong proponent of the corporatization of public education, Duncan is best known for using high stakes testing to “punish” under performing schools by closing them and replacing them with private charter schools.

Originally posted on I AM AN EDUCATOR:

Arne Duncan has been one of the most destructive forces to public education in the history of our country.

Duncan was appointed by President Obama as the Secretary of Education, but his real role has been “testocracy tsar”–as his signature policies of Race to the Top and Common Core have been singularly focused on promoting high-stakes, standardized test-and-punish policies in service of the privatization and charterization of the public schools.  One of the most cruel aspects of Duncan’s legacy was his pronouncement that Hurricane Katrina was “the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans”–coupled with his celebration of the fact that because of Katrina, 100 percent of the New Orleans schools were converted to charter schools. Duncan’s initiatives have been designed to reduce the intellectual and emotional process of teaching and learning to a single score that can be used to close schools, fire teachers, stop…

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