Arne Duncan: Windbag or Douchebag?
Last night I watched Jon Stewart’s interview with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.
And it was just terrible. Here is the link. He is the caricature of a crazy, zero independent thought, Washington, DC TalkingPoint Man. It’s amazing how far that and an Ivy League degree can get you.
Though she has stopped returning my calls, I still consider Valerie Strauss my girlfriend and she had a great summary of the interview.
But after letting the disgust from the initial interview pass, and after reminding myself that this guy is the education guy for a president I really like; here are my questions:
How engaged with education policy do you really think Obama is? Does he even know that Duncan was on The Daily Show last night? Does he care?
Can the growing displeasure of teachers with Duncan be used in a way that matters? Or are we stuck with the Duncan Puppet dancing for the amusement of Rhee and Gates for the next five years as our best-case scenario?
Just moments ago I joined Dump Duncan on Facebook. You should, too.
Mr. Teachbad
Douche-windbag.
Duncan is a complete and total douchebag. He’s a politician, not an educational leader. It’s ironic that his responses were centered around a few talking points and that he could not offer a shred of on-the-spot, creative, analytic thought, considering that the standardized testing he so enthusiastically advocates for causes students to look for a single right answer in everything and to not give value to outside-the-box thinking. I voted for Obama, but I have never been happy with his decision to make Duncan the Secretary of Education. He’s Michelle Rhee with a dick, and -worse- he’s in a position to fuck-up our entire nation’s education system (something Rhee can only dream of).
He was just as pathetic back in 2009 when he did the Charlie Rose show. One lame slogan after another. Rose actually got furious with the guy, and Charlie Rose never gets mad at anybody. He actually began poking fun at him in a contemptuous manner. Quite entertaining in a way. Duncan’s problem is that he has only held upper-echelon jobs in the Daley administration, and let’s just say that creative thinking is discouraged and government by sloganeering encouraged.
That’s no shit. I just watched about 45 seconds of it and I couldn’t take anymore. Fuckin’ nimrod.
Nobody in the decision-making echelon of education knows a goddamn thing about education. Imagine having a brain surgery conference attended only by master plumbers who determine policy (no disrespect intended to plumbers, especially those who know they aren’t brain surgeons). That is the essential structure of any National or State Department of Miseducation. It’s a bad joke with no punchline.
Ask teachers! It seems so simple. We’re not all geniuses; I’m not suggesting we’re all brain surgeons, but WE witness each day the possibilities, probabilities, and more importantly, the animated faces of the population we are letting down. More importantly, WE have ideas that are influenced by reality.
When our military sets out to capture enemies of the State, nobody suggests the Cub Scouts plot a plan of attack. When our buildings are burning, nobody suggests sending in the Lollypop Guild with little hoses. We don’t expect AARP to sponsor a team in the Olympics or the Braille Institute to carve Mount Rushmore. But we rely on social retards and billionaires, or their minions, millionaires, to understand the nuances of effective education of common folk and write policy that advances the collective intellect.
The further away from the classroom the players of “the game” get, the more detached they are. Yet, in keeping with some weird, exponentially inverse, perverse, negative correlation formula, the more ignorant one is about education, the more power they seem to wield.
I was and sort of still am a vague supporter of Obama, but he’s proven he knows jack about education. He’s another out-of-touch rich guy politician jacking things up. The only refreshing thing is that he’s a rich black guy jacking things up, so there is hope in equal opportunity. Obama is just another floater in the petri dish in the grand (and tenuous/possibly failing) experiment that is America. Arne Duncan isn’t even a floater. The next douche bag President will continue the legacy no doubt.
The key missing component to making education work is educators. Until someone confronts this void in the process, we will continue to descend into an abyss we may never swim out of. Duncan, Obama, nor any other miserable, self-serving abomination of human potential politician will provide any answer beyond that which provides an expedient means to their political ascent. Strewn among the carnage of this wreckage is the future of people too young and inexperienced to kick back–our students. Cynical though I am, I cannot but mourn the fact that amid this mess, they are the real victims and casualties. Yes, even the contingent of asshole nonproductive messes occupying our classrooms are counted here, since to some extent their condition is the result of adults who have failed them. You and I know that any measure of success we have is tied to some mentor who bestowed on us some secret to success—where is theirs? Even if it is us, can they hear us above the din of ignorant windbags who call their shots?
I guess the only honorable thing to do as educators is to commit to not being the cause of their failures and instead provide them clues to their success so that one day they can know hat someone was in their corner. It is a selfless endeavor. Sad, but realistic. In short, I’m not a supporter of Duncan because he’s a bag of shit who should not have any of his tainted fingers stuck up the butt of education. I’d like to think I’ll care which whore runs this country after the next hokey election, but I’m likely not to. They’re all the same really—talking heads. It’s up to us at a grass-roots level to make a difference.
Amen