Posted by admin! / Under Duncan Idaho
“In all seriousness, I think schools should be open 12, 13, 14 hours a day, seven days a week, 11-12 months of the year,” Duncan said. “This is not just more of the same. There would be a whole variety of after-school programs. Obviously academics would be at the heart of that. But you top it off with dancing, art, drama, music, yearbook, robotics, activities for older siblings and parents, ESL classes.” He continued by explaining that the American school calendar is antiquated and must be modified so that American students can compete at the highest levels internationally.
Published on Friday 30th of July 2010 03:03:35 AM
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Posted by admin! / Under Duncan Idaho
When he led the Chicago schools, Arne Duncan kept a list of all the big shots who asked for help in getting certain children into the city's best public schools. The Chicago Tribune has reported that Duncan, now Obama's Secretary of Education, created a back door appeals system that helped the children of the Politically connected get first dibs on the best school slots. The list that Duncan kept included a compilation of politicians and influential business people who interceded on behalf of children during Duncan's tenure. It includes 25 Chicago aldermen, House Speaker Michael Madigan's daughter Illinois Attorney General...
Published on Friday 30th of July 2010 03:03:35 AM
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Posted by admin! / Under Duncan Idaho
I was born and raised a Democrat. My grandfather was a precinct captain for Tweed (the political machine, not the DOE) back in the day. He did the grunt work. Registered voters in cemeteries, voted many times in many places on election day, and left turkeys on the doorsteps of the indigent just before election day. I believe in the principles of the Democratic Party even though I have a strong libertarian bent, and actually conservative on some issues. I am not one of these Originialists when it comes to the Constitution and the role of the federal government in...
Published on Friday 30th of July 2010 03:03:35 AM
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Posted by admin! / Under Duncan Idaho
Last December, when President Obama launched his second escalation of the Afghan war, he did so with the unflinching support of the Republicans, the right, and neoconservativies. But a small group of conservatives, libertarians and assorted contrarians on the right has opposed the war, and yesterday I journeyed to the Cato Institute to find out whether that nucleus of anti-war opposition is significant or not. The answer: maybe, but probably not. The Cato conference was entitled "Escalate or Withdraw? Conservatives and the War in Afghanistan," and it brought together several ultra conservative members of Congress: Tom McClintock (R-CA); Dana Rohrabacher...
Published on Friday 30th of July 2010 03:03:35 AM
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Posted by admin! / Under Duncan Idaho
Joshua Dunn notes why Education Secretary Duncan's proposed civil rights "reinforcement" is not only misguided, but will ultimately lose in the courts if it comes to that: This is the same Department of Education that can’t support a voucher program in Washington DC to help minority children escape the grinding incompetence of the DC school system. Now it wants to spend its resources determining whether schools in Fairfax County or Westchester have a disproportionate number of white kids in college prep classes. Someone’s priorities seem misplaced. Even Nixon would blush. Second, it’s hard to see how Duncan can do this...
Published on Friday 30th of July 2010 03:03:35 AM
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Posted by admin! / Under Duncan Idaho
As mentioned yesterday, the Obama administration is going to begin looking "more intently" at civil rights in our public schools, notably disproportionate discipline rates, [lack] of access to college prep courses, and that 'ol "disparate impact" nonsense. Roger Clegg, who's usually dead-on about the effects of ... stuff like this, notes: ...the easy way out for schools -- and what school bureaucrat won't prefer the easy way out -- is to make sure the numbers pass muster, i.e., to make discipline decisions based not solely on the merits, but also on the basis of race. And since administrators aren't likely...
Published on Friday 30th of July 2010 03:03:35 AM
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Posted by admin! / Under Duncan Idaho
Maybe it’s because I live in Washington and am thus immersed in the daily political horse-race (who’s up? who’s down?), but it’s hard not to get the sense right now that the Democrats are in free fall. Evan Bayh’s retirement is like a major aftershock to the earthquake that was Scott Brown’s election. Now there’s talk about the GOP taking over both houses of Congress in the fall, and of a primary challenge to President Obama in 2012. To be sure, a month from now, and certainly six months from now, lots could change, and we might be talking about...
Published on Friday 30th of July 2010 03:03:35 AM
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Posted by admin! / Under Duncan Idaho
Over at the American Thinker, Jay Schalin has another example of the radical leftist agenda that Obama is trying to pull over on the American people. This time we see it in the extremist agenda for education that Obama is trying to implement by revitalizing the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity (NACIQI), a panel that Congress shut down in 2008 because it had become "too politicized." The NACIQI is charged with advising the Sec. of Education on "matters related to accreditation and to the eligibility and certification process for institutions of higher education." According to the government...
Published on Friday 30th of July 2010 03:03:35 AM
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Posted by admin! / Under Duncan Idaho
"One of the most erudite, prolific and acidic critics of national education policy." That's how the Washington Post memorialized Gerald Bracey shortly after his death in late October. One of his regular targets was President Obama's basketball buddy, US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. In an eerie parting shot from waaaay off-court, Bracey just slam-dunked Duncan. At the time of his death. Bracey was about to publish an article about the Save-A-Life Foundation's (SALF) relationship with the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) when Duncan was in charge. "The Skeleton in Arne Duncan's Closet" was supposed to appear on Halloween in Bracey's...
Published on Friday 30th of July 2010 03:03:35 AM
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Posted by admin! / Under Duncan Idaho
VIDEO: Arne Duncan appears as "animated pitchman" for the Save-A-Life Foundation, ABC7 Chicago, 11/17/06 PHOTO: Ronald McDonald, Save-A-Life founder/president Carol J. Spizzirri, and Arne Duncan The Skeleton in Arne Duncan's Closet by Gerald W. BraceyEducation critic Jerry Bracey had just finished this column when he died on Oct. 20. He had planned to release it at his Huffington Post blog on Halloween. Hence the rattling skeletons theme. Click here to read an October 23, 2009 Washington Post obituary/tribune to Bracey.Halloween season is an appropriate time to talk about rattling skeletons in the closet. US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan appears...
Published on Friday 30th of July 2010 03:03:35 AM
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