'Two Teachers And A Microphone' Rap A Public Letter To Education Secretary Arne Duncan

Twitter's 140-character allowance wasn't enough for anonymous rapping teacher duo Two Teachers and a Microphone to talk education with U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

Released just before Duncan's Twitter town hall Wednesday, the Los Angeles-based former teachers, who have turned to hip hop after they were served pink slips, rap "a letter for Mr. Duncan."

They've rapped about education issues ranging from budget cuts to standardized testing. But this time, they're shining the spotlight on Duncan, questioning his qualifications to serve as Secretary of Education and his support for charter schools, among other issues:

Public education is under attack/ By those who caused our economic collapse/ The Department of Ed put your letter on the Web/ Did you read the comments? What the teachers said?

The ex-teachers also reference Duncan's advocacy for higher teacher salaries, rapping that "your 150 Gs we don't really want it/Can't buy our respect, you already lost it."

The Education Secretary has said that teachers should earn between $60,000 and $150,000 based on performance. He reiterated his stance during the Twitter town hall Wednesday, noting that "a great, young teacher" should have the opportunity to earn an annual salary of $100,000 or more.

While Two Teachers call on the president to replace Duncan, they also offer some insight into how they think the Education Secretary should proceed in his position:

Arne Duncan, please listen/ A lot of things in our schools we're missing/ Smaller classes, arts and enrichment/ Light a fire and the kids will listen / On the front lines, where you ought to be/ Trust teachers and communities/ Acknowledge poverty/ And talk honestly/ About race, and class, and equality!

Watch the full video below and tell us what you think.

Comments

[avalonsensei]

04:28 PM on 09/10/2011

Unless you have been a teacher or a careful observer and supporter of public schools, you cannot imagine the feelings teachers have experienced in the last two years by those who would like to privatize schools. Comments in this thread show their attacks have worked.

I for one, as an experienced and accomplished teacher take my hat off to these two teachers who are using their passion, talents, and knowledge to bring attention to the destructive policies of the Department of Education in the last 10 years. Their facts are air-tight. Go ahead, research them yourself. If you need links, respond to the comment and I will post them for you.

Don't let the comedy fool you; sometimes we have to laugh in order to keep going. And we will not stop.

Martha Infante
National Board Certified Teacher, Los Angeles

[Debater60660]

11:15 AM on 08/27/2011

Creative . . . defensive . . . mean-spirited. It's typical of the hateful level of debate about public education. It makes vouchers attractive.

Arne Duncan is the least of the teachers' problems. .It's the public that they need to convince. Teachers feel victimized. Though the target is their Unions, they have been in Wisconsin, Indiana and Ohio. But, in those places, they are casualties of the public's war with unions, which have zero credibility. They have protected too many bad folks for too long and, worse, have had the nerve to be self-righteous about it.

There is much that teachers and the general public agree on and can come to terms on. But juvenille schtick like this won't get them there. Like anyone else, public school teachers need to have objective accountability measures and standards. RT3 is all about forcing states to do that. Thank you Arne. There is nothing anti-teacher in it. Anti-teacher sentiment arises because of the irrational battles theiir unions fought against accountability and standards and the fact teacher unions spend too much time defending the worst of their membership.

Teachers must realize that their unions, in losing the accountability debate, have also lost their credibility as representatives of a profession. That produced the disasters in Wisconsin, etc. What teachers must do is change their union leadership so that the public preceives them to share the same values. That's not true right now.

[Teacheronthemic]

03:14 PM on 08/27/2011

The idea of objective, test-driven accountability sounds great. For someone who has never actually taught children before, it makes a lot of sense. After all, kids are a lot like plants. They have no free will of their own, just passively absorbing the elements in their environment. As a teacher, you are the only person in this world providing them with sunlight. You sprinkle them with water and protect them from the harsh elements. It is because of you--the teacher alone--that this little plant has an opportunity to grow.

Arne Duncan & others subscribe to this growth model, failing to account for the very real factors beyond the classroom impacting student achievement. You call it excuses. I call it reality: Last year a friend of mine taught a student whose mother was murdered by her own father. How in the #&@K do you create an algorithm for that?

I love teaching. I love my students. I don't teach to the test. I teach to my students' needs.

There are millions of teachers like me. We are educated & experienced. We understand pedagogy & childhood development. When you disaggregate the data & remove poverty from the picture, America's students are among the highest achieving in the world. The problem isn't with our teachers.

Instead of throwing $ at these fake accountability schemes let's make a greater investment in pre-k education. Let's lower class sizes so we can give our children the one-on-one attention they deserve.

[Debater60660]

07:37 PM on 08/27/2011

No one says there's an algorithm for tragedies and no one's trying to hold teachers accountable for how you find your stuents . . . it's what you do with them once you get them that people care about . . . and we can argue about art vs. science and the multiplicity of variables that teachers confront, but bottom line is you can measure whether things improve or get worse and you can use it as factor in judging the value of a teacher.

Refusing to be judged and refusing to accept that you should have an objective growth measure as one part of that judgment is just unreasonable. Teachers are not just Picassos and Van Goghs. The effect they have on their students is not something to be left to "the eye of the beholder."

[Cream of the PLANETEARTH]

06:25 PM on 08/25/2011

I was with you guys up until the "Diane Ravitch" for Secretary of Education line. Alfie Kohn is a MUCH BETTER choice!

[Vgman]

05:41 PM on 08/25/2011

Good rap.

[corwin]

01:53 PM on 08/25/2011

As some of you may know,U of Missouri econ profs recently did a study highlighting ed depts have much higher average grades than other college depts. Now, I know why.

[Teacheronthemic]

12:39 AM on 08/25/2011

Thanks to all who are contributing to the conversation! In a democracy like ours, it's important for us to have a two way conversation where we actually listen to one another. Instead, we have thousands of teachers and concerned citizens tweeting questions to #askarne and having them dismissed for being "hostile."

What is hostile? Hostile is the vicious and unrelenting smear campaign against America's public school teachers. Hostile is publishing our names in the L.A. Times and labeling us "least effective" based on flawed bubble test data. Hostile is the corporate takeover of our public institutions, the uprooting of teachers from their school communities, the stripping of collective bargaining rights. Hostile is the surrendering of billions of our tax dollars to educational companies without a public outcry.

This is the legacy under Arne Duncan, our U.S. Secretary of Education.

Either join us, or get out of the way. We might be jobless right now, but WE WILL LIVE TO TEACH ANOTHER DAY. What will come of you?

My goal is 40 years. After 40 years working a classroom teacher I'm going to retire with a big party on a big yacht. I'll invite my students. We will pop bottles. I'll dance like an old white man and someone will shove a mic in my face and goad me into busting some of my completely whack teacher rhymes.

Folks on the yacht will be like, "Who the $%#k is Arne Duncan?"

[LATEACHER1X]

10:44 PM on 08/24/2011

Once again, teachers are stepping up and taking action while the rest of America moans and groans.

[murfiani39]

09:49 PM on 08/24/2011

Great video... Get business out of education and put educators in charge. enought with this trickle down model it is not working wake up America fund education fix our public schools get charters out of public buildings if they want to compete let them with out public funds. profit in education means your child will not learn

[HugAThon]

07:09 PM on 08/24/2011

News Corp. High? Shift that paradigm back to reality.

[Timothy Bladel]

06:27 PM on 08/24/2011

teachers do not want to be paid on performance, but that should not matter. Because it is the child that should matter most. We have to find the soft spot between making sure teachers are doing their jobs, and not allowing teachers to get unfairly blamed when out side factors hinder a child's development. The big issue I have is right now we are more worried about what happens to the teachers than the children. That is not ok. Our children our our future, but if we fail them over and over, we will not have a future.

[toomanymeatheads]

07:41 PM on 08/24/2011

How in the world would you measure "outside factors"? Would you hire a social worker for each child? Teachers are on the front line every day and for you to state that children are not put first is insulting. That is a teachers job! The tiny percentage who are slackers nedd to run out of the system and unions should make it easier.

[frank day]

06:09 PM on 08/24/2011

Arne Duncan is biding his time counting the hours till he

gets his reward by going to work for a Lobbying concern

advocating for privatization.

[kid icarus]

05:49 PM on 08/24/2011

That was awesome.

[jojofrance]

05:22 PM on 08/24/2011

A+

[deborahjoybrat]

05:17 PM on 08/24/2011

Oh yeah. Rap music will help. !D!OTS

[thewholestory]

07:33 PM on 08/24/2011

wow!

[Noble Bo Bogarty]

05:10 PM on 08/24/2011

This rap would be believable if the statistics was on the teachers an union side of the issue learning. Race to the top has proven that schools can reach a higher learning for their students by becoming more accountable in hiring and grading the teachers by results. Unlike Georgia where teachers was found cheating on standard test scores just to get grants and save jobs. Race to the top makes teachers and schools accountable for their work and not by their seniority. The movie"Waiting for Superman" showed just how bad our school system has gotten, the funny part about the movie was that in these poor neighborhoods parents really did want the best education for their children, while some teacher unions just wanted to make sure some bad teachers kept their jobs.. I recommend to everyone in America to rent this movie and watch how bad our education systems in inner cities has gotten. For once I give Kudos to the Secretary of Education for not putting teachers union first but the children.

[ibdave]

05:48 PM on 08/24/2011

The movie, "Waiting for Superman," has all kinds of problems, especially with statistics. Because it is a movie, it is easy to believe all that is in the movie. I would suggest that individuals NOT rent the movie, but go in to the schools and see for themselves the dedicated group of teachers that are working with our students. I would encourage individuals to look at real data, not that which is skewed by sound bytes by politicians promoting their agenda. Our schools are doing an amazing job (even outperforming charter schools), with fewer resources than comparable countries. We do more testing of our students than other countries, and the type of learning by the students is beginning to show. I, for one, do not want my children to merely pass a test to demonstrate 'good results.' I want them to think and know that learning extends beyond a little bubble on a test sheet. It will take years to undo that which NCLB created. What will our future world be like? What will our economy be based upon? Reading and writing? NO! It is math, science and technology. The back to the basics and testing mentality will do more harm than good. Don't blame the teachers . . they are doing a phenomenal job (yes, there are some not so good ones!) . . . the problem lies with the politicians promoting their agenda.

[Ted229]

05:53 PM on 08/24/2011

>>The movie, "Waiting for Superman," has all kinds of problems, especially with statistics­.>>

What statistics­ do you find incorrect?

[Noble Bo Bogarty]

06:12 PM on 08/24/2011

I was blessed to go a private school and further my education after leaving high school, one thing I found out while in college is that people who went to public schools had great difficulty with advance math and science courses, where I was taught most of my science and math subjects throughout my early academic career. I had no problems with classes like statistics or physiology. I also admit that their are good teachers in public schools because some of my former college classmates now teach at these schools. When I talk to them about how is things going at their prospective schools, they always tell me that some teachers who have been in teaching for a period of time seems to don't care if students pass or not. They also tell me that some students make it hard to teach because their is no discipline in the classroom. So I never experience those things while I was in high school; maybe it was because my family was paying a tuition for me to attend that school which made me understand the importance of education.

[kid icarus]

05:56 PM on 08/24/2011

Read what IBDAVE had to say because he's on point.

WfS is a propaganda piece being pushed by people who want teachers out of the way so they can open up education to private corporations and their "solutions."

Look at the data, then go to the schools, talk to the teachers, meet with the board members, have a supper with the principal, and then have conversations with other parents. You'll learn a lot more about reality from doing those things than from watching WfS