• Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • Contact

Nancy Bailey's Education Website

Revive, Rally and Recover Public Schools

  • Activism
    • Anti-Charter Schools
    • Anti-Common Core State Standards
    • Anti-Corporatization of Schools
    • Anti-High-Stakes Testing
    • State Action Groups
    • School Buildings
  • School Curriculum
    • General Education
    • Educators
    • Parents
    • Reading
    • Writing
    • Math
    • Science
    • Social Studies
    • The Arts
    • Technology
    • Behavior
    • Diversity
    • English Language Learners
    • Special Education
      • Autism
      • Emotional and Behavioral Disabilities
      • Learning Disabilities
      • Developmental Disabilities
      • Gifted
      • Other
    • Early Childhood Education
    • Elementary School
    • Middle School
    • High School
    • Student Careers
  • Other Countries
    • England
    • Finland
    • Australia
    • New Zealand
    • Canada

Arne Duncan—This is What’s “Pretty Scary” to Parents, Teachers and Students

April 2, 2014 By Nancy Bailey 1 Comment

Post Views: 146

Posted on November 18, 2013 and updated for April 2, 2014 by Nancy Bailey

Last November I wrote about why parents worried about Arne Duncan, who stands in support of Common Core State Standards. It was after he said, in reference to the standards,  “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.”

On March 28, the PBS NEWSHOUR did an interesting report on Mr. Duncan’s diminishing support by both the left and the right which can be seen here.

I thought I’d revise and reprint my list of what keeps many parents up at night when it comes to their child’s education and schools. Feel free to add to the list….

This is what I think scares parents:

  1. Common Core State Standards.
  2. Having your family’s life disrupted due to your child’s difficulties in school.
  3. Knowing high-stakes tests are totally inappropriate and out to get your child, their teacher and the school.
  4. Worrying that your child will be singled out and punished if you opt them out of the test.
  5. Having an Autistic child who you know could make progress, but there’s no behavioral program in your public school to serve them.
  6. Recognizing there is no realistic Individual Education Plan for your child and your child’s needs are ignored.
  7. Watching your stressed-out child cry in fear and agony over repetitive testing.
  8. Fearing your school will be closed and converted into a chain, for-profit charter that will push-out your student with disabilities, language difficulties, or because you are too poor.
  9. Not knowing how to pay for outside services, you can’t afford, that the public school used to provide.
  10. Knowing your child faces a draconian, one-size-fits-all, curriculum that doesn’t adjust for their strengths and/or disabilities.
  11. Recognizing your child has abilities and interests that go unaddressed because teachers are being forced to focus more on the test than the children they teach.
  12. Noticing your child’s teacher isn’t really credentialed.
  13. Having your child’s talent in the arts ignored because there are no more real art or music programs.
  14. Noticing your gifted student is made to do boring worksheets, or must work on their own with no guidance–or that they are being made to teach other students.
  15. Being troubled that your twice-exceptional student’s disability is the total focus instead of their abilities and talents.
  16. Worrying what will eventually become of your child, after they grow up, because they haven’t received the truly necessary skills and/or education.
  17. Seeing that your child isn’t really being prepared for college as we know it.
  18. Fearing your child, who exhibits severe behavioral problems, might go over the edge and do something terrible.
  19. Recognizing no one listens to you, or cares about your child, and maybe your child is learning to cheat to get attention and good test scores.
  20. Agonizing whether your child will eventually be driven to drop out of school.
  21. Being frightened that your nervous child will be made really ill over school work.
  22. Experiencing anger that your kindergartener has no play or recess.
  23. Feeling uneasy because your young child is being pushed to read too soon.
  24. Frustrated because you do not know where, or who, to turn to for help.
  25. Experiencing confusion over what your child is learning and embarrassed not to be able to help them with the mountain of homework they bring home.
  26. Realizing time is fleeting and that you, and your child, are missing out on life’s joys.
  27. Knowing your child is losing out on what really matters when it comes to learning.
  28. Recognizing that your child’s teacher is teaching out of fear of losing their job.
  29. Understanding that your child’s test score could reflect badly on the teacher and cause them to lose their job.
  30. Noticing that your child is being pushed to learn everything online.

And parents, teachers and students always know that learning in public school could be better and wishing their voices could be heard. This is what keeps them all up at night, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan .

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Arne Duncan, Common Core, Individual Educational Plans, school fears, testing

Comments

  1. J Chiappa says

    April 3, 2014 at 5:56 pm

    Common Core Standards are destroying the self-esteem and drive of today’s children. I have a kindergarten student that is intelligent and well spoken yet his teacher has told him otherwise via her “curriculum” of ten-frames and cube-trains. She has actually un-taught him subtraction!! The homework for Core-Standards in math is just repetitive garbage and is NOT teaching kids how to figure things out. It is teaching them how to take a standardized test. Since when is kindergarten about filling in bubbles??

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

front cover

An education glossary with an attitude.

Buy Now

front cover

Do we really want an America where we no longer own our public schools?

Buy Now

front cover

This book says “no” to the reforms that fail, and challenges Americans to address the real student needs that will fix public schools and make America strong.

Buy Now

Follow me!

Enter your email address to subscribe to my blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Connect With Me!

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Nancy E. Bailey Follow

Author, Ph.D. Ed. Leadership and longtime teacher, Blogging for Kids, Teachers, Parents & Democratic Public Schools.

NancyEBailey1
Retweet on Twitter Nancy E. Bailey Retweeted
plthomasedd Paul Thomas @plthomasedd ·
1h

The Science of Scarcity and Sleep that Education Reformers (Want to) Ignore https://radicalscholarship.com/2023/03/20/the-science-of-scarcity-and-sleep-that-education-reformers-want-to-ignore/ via @plthomasEdD

Reply on Twitter 1638146543768174597 Retweet on Twitter 1638146543768174597 3 Like on Twitter 1638146543768174597 3 Twitter 1638146543768174597
Retweet on Twitter Nancy E. Bailey Retweeted
doctorsam7 Dr. Sam Bommarito @doctorsam7 ·
21h

Things to ponder about the current discussions around SOR. From ChatGPT @ChatwithGPT
https://nancyebailey.com/2023/03/19/what-does-chatgpt-say-about-the-science-of-reading-it-may-surprise-you/?fbclid=IwAR0Fhkczq46nJq8n5ob1q2xF5Q9aFc9ya04TEgYCaVTyEElEQg_UbWfoROY

Reply on Twitter 1637853806833590275 Retweet on Twitter 1637853806833590275 8 Like on Twitter 1637853806833590275 26 Twitter 1637853806833590275
Retweet on Twitter Nancy E. Bailey Retweeted
nancyebailey1 Nancy E. Bailey @nancyebailey1 ·
19 Mar

I asked ChatGPT "Is the 'science of reading' settled science that determines how reading should be taught?" Here's the response. https://nancyebailey.com/2023/03/19/what-does-chatgpt-say-about-the-science-of-reading-it-may-surprise-you/

Reply on Twitter 1637502147515351043 Retweet on Twitter 1637502147515351043 18 Like on Twitter 1637502147515351043 45 Twitter 1637502147515351043
Retweet on Twitter Nancy E. Bailey Retweeted
deguire_mike Mike DeGuire, Ph. D. @deguire_mike ·
14h

"The privatization movement has been strategically designed...by billionaires and their fellow investors for specific purposes: to lower their own tax burden, and ideologically to dismantle public education." @NPEaction @NancyEBailey1 @TheAndySpears
https://medium.com/@jfiske80/billionaires-and-their-investors-are-impacting-education-policies-in-colorado-and-especially-in-c523579674af

Reply on Twitter 1637957759751831558 Retweet on Twitter 1637957759751831558 10 Like on Twitter 1637957759751831558 10 Twitter 1637957759751831558
Retweet on Twitter Nancy E. Bailey Retweeted
nepctweet NEPC @nepctweet ·
20h

"Let’s honor our students by providing them free quality democratic public schools that reject no one." @NancyEBailey1 https://bit.ly/3FE0KFA

Reply on Twitter 1637870110840094721 Retweet on Twitter 1637870110840094721 3 Like on Twitter 1637870110840094721 2 Twitter 1637870110840094721
Load More

Archives

Tag Cloud

Arne Duncan Autism Betsy DeVos Bill Gates charter schools class size Common Core Common Core covid-19 disabilities dyslexia early childhood education Education Secretary Betsy DeVos Florida high-stakes testing kindergarten learning disabilities Online Learning parents Personalized Learning phonics preschool private schools privatization public schools reading recess retention School Choice school libraries School Privatization school reform schools Social Emotional Learning special education students Students with Disabilities Teacher Preparation teachers Teach for America teaching Technology testing the arts vouchers

Copyright © 2023 Nancy E. Bailey · Website powered by Standing Pine Media.