Duncan: Keeping No Child Left Behind Is 'Height Of Arrogance Or Tone-Deafness'

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced a mass override Monday that would allow states to apply for regulatory relief from student testing requirements in the federal No Child Left Behind law.

One of the provisions of the regulation aims to have all students proficient in math and reading by 2014, but the law has actually encouraged states to lower standards, Duncan has said. The major override would create distinct accountability systems among states, countering what Duncan called "one-size-fits all solutions that simply don't work."

Tuesday morning, the Education Secretary spoke with John Hockenberry of The Takeaway, a co-production of WNYC Radio and Public Radio International, in response to the overhaul and its implications.

A few highlights:

Hockenberry asks if the overhaul is just another way to say that students will not be proficient in math and reading by 2014. Duncan responds:

It's not. What I want to say is that if one child— right now the law's what I call a blunt instrument. If you have one child in one subgroup not making it, that school is treated as a failure just as a school that has 1,000 students not making it. And we just think the story's much more complex than that. And where you have significant growth and gain, we should be recognizing that, rewarding that, celebrating that, learning from it, incentivizing that. Where schools are legitimately struggling, we absolutely need to deal with that. But what we want to do is take a much more thoughtful approach to this, and much fairer, frankly, in how we evaluate schools and districts and ultimately states.

Hockenberry later plays a clip from former Assistant Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch, a vocal critic of No Child Left Behind.

"[Duncan is] saying, 'If you don't like the law, I will give you a waiver, but you have to do what I say, and what I say is you must evaluate teachers by their student test scores,' and virtually every testing expert in the country has said you cannot do that with individual teachers. It doesn't work," Ravitch says in the clip.

To which Duncan responds that he and his department has the ability to waive portions of the law. He adds:

But to maintain a law that is so fundamentally broken that teachers and principals and students reject and are rebelling against because it doesn't make sense, to just sit here passively in Washington and do nothing, to me, would be the height of arrogance or the height of tone-deafness.

Listen to the full interview below, or visit The Takeaway for a full transcript of the exchange.

Comments

[elblanc0]

06:45 PM on 08/12/2011

Time to leave NCLB behind. It is a failure. We have dropped in performance under it. It has created an environment of fear and dishonesty. It discourages real learning. We are the worse off for it.

To answer President Bush's question (who championed the bill), "Is the kids learnin?" The answer is No.

[davidwees]

06:32 PM on 08/13/2011

Shouldn't the answer be, "No, they isn't."? :)

[TurnSeiki]

11:42 AM on 08/12/2011

NCLB was a good idea. But, the assumption that everyone strives to be the best they can be was ill-advised. I was raised on the premise of NCLB, and I raise my children under the same premise. If I came home with a B, I had some explaining to do. My only job was to go to school and learn. And, I was expected to do that. I treat my children the same way. If everyone had that sort of work ethic, NCLB would have probably worked. But, it is BRUTALLY obvious that far more parents, far more teachers and far more students do not place the same importance on education as those of us that do. NCLB worked on the basis that everyone wanted to be the valedictorian. When in reality, most people just want to get a C.

[wayne the pain]

10:10 PM on 08/10/2011

This guy is the most incompetent, unqualified Secretary of Educarion in history. The only thing this guy has ever done with any success is play basketball. He wouldn't last a day as a teacher in any inner city school in America. These schools are a little different than the University of Chicago campus K-12 private school he attended. Duncan as a public school leader is a joke. Any third year teacher in any urban school district in America has forgot more than this guy ever knew!

[Jimmy Kilpatrick]

08:41 AM on 08/10/2011

Just a puppet fro the union thugs. the blacks had a chance for an education with accountability and now they don't. Just another prime example how the liberals use blacks as pawns to help their rich publishing pals.

[OneVoiceInFL]

10:34 AM on 08/10/2011

Wow... have you been reading the news for the past year or so? Duncan has basically flat out said he is anti-union. His time as Chicago schools chief supports that. NCLB itself has been a boon for the rich publishers. Believe me, they are no "pals" to the unions. It is NCLB that has turned companies like NCS Pearson, CTB McGraw-Hill, and Harcourt Educational Measurement into the giants they are, and they wield their power over our legislators dangerously. These companies, with their lobbyists, fight alongside ed "reformers" like Gates, Broad, and Walton to push for more and more "accountability" in the form of more and more tests, which translates to more and more money in their coffers. These testing companies and ed reformers are the ones holding ALL students hostage for a multi-billion dollar ransom.

[Jimmy Kilpatrick]

10:55 AM on 08/10/2011

So the failure of the system with thousands dropping out daily, students unable to read or do basic math, no knowledge of history etc. is the publishers fault. Look and see how many textbooks are bought then look and see how many teachers use them. I guess you will be happy to have Daddy O run your life.

[OneVoiceInFL]

11:12 AM on 08/10/2011

This argument is illogical and has nothing to do with your original points, which I soundly refuted. You just don't like teachers or anyone who doesn't subscribe to your views. As far as what you said about textbook publishers, they make their money largely off of southern (red) states like Texas and Florida, who control what textbooks school districts are allowed to adopt and require adoptions of new textbooks on a regular basis, rotating by subject. So once again, it has nothing to do with the teachers. Lets go back to the textbook companies like Harcourt, Pearson, and McGraw-Hill (names sound familiar?), who wield their power over the legislators. Education is a multi-billion dollar venture, and those who control the billions are those who control education. They are the ones who have set the standards and narrowed the curriculum. Teachers are just the convenient whipping-boys.

[Carlos Lopes]

03:33 PM on 08/10/2011

You sir, are an idiot.

The abuse of the educators in this country is absolutely laughable. How you can actually think this is a problem stemming from unionized teachers is a joke.

It is the drill and kill method of testing that has destroyed curriculum based education in this country, and by extension created robot test taking children who are incapable of thinking critically. this is precisely why i changed my major from education only 1 year away from a degree. The bully congressmen have done a marvelous job indoctrinating idiots like you. they have actually made you believe teachers are the problem.... you blithering idiot.

[navigio]

03:05 AM on 08/10/2011

maybe what duncen should do is suggest to all states that they refuse funding tied to nclb. they will then be free to ignore its mandates. the question of how to distribute that money back to states to use as they wish would be somewhat tricky, especially given there are surely some states that pay much more into the revenue for those programs than they receive in return. and others that are in the exact opposite position, but I bet they could figure out that problem much more easily than they can trying to deal with the mess that nclb currently is.

[been2there]

09:45 PM on 08/09/2011

There are several flaws in NCLB, but two of the worst are that it A) ignores the role of student effort and community/family support and B) punishes teachers and schools for things they do not control and can't really influence.
As a teacher, I am more than happy to be held accountable for knowing my material, planning lessons, homework, and tests carefully, ensuring that tests actually cover what I teach, and that I teach what needs to be covered, and that I get feedback to students quickly and accurately.
I cannot force students to listen in class, study at any time, value the subject, etc. I cannot force parents to support education, provide a quiet study area, encourage hard work, etc. I cannot make any subject interesting to every student.
When students are held accountable at both home and school, more will put in the work to learn, and when they do, most will discover that they can really enjoy school.

[rtgmath]

06:12 PM on 08/09/2011

NCLB is the law, and while Duncan has the right to waive part of its restrictions, he does not have the right to revoke the law or ignore it. Revoking the law is Congress' job. They certainly ought to do that.

[heymjo]

05:55 PM on 08/09/2011

When will the politicians learn that, like Bush himself and everything else that came out of the Bush years, NCLB is a total failure.

[garystartswithg]

05:48 PM on 08/09/2011

this will end well -- it makes no sense at all. just tweeking procedure more instead of getting rid of bad policy.

[changing]

05:18 PM on 08/09/2011

What a hypocrite. Duncan's RITT has been worse than NCLB. His new plan will probably be the scores will only be used to fire teachers and make charters nothing else. That is his real goal to make schools Walmarts for cheap newbies like TFA to practice on our children. He has never ever listened to any educator about anything.

[Hlynn]

03:07 PM on 08/09/2011

Height of arrogance and being tone deaf is a good way to describe Duncan.

He pretends to listen to teachers and then kowtows to the reformers who want to gut public education and to the uber rich who declare poverty has no relevance to why so many students are not learning and dropping out of school.