George Will: Good Things About Arne Duncan | Newsweek George F. Will

Arne Duncan, the new secretary of education, says that under No Child Left Behind 'we have been lying to students and their parents.'

Published Mar 14, 2009

From the magazine issue dated Mar 23, 2009

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Sonorous Washington talk about education in grades K through 12 is usually solemnity without seriousness—the issuance of imperious commands to an unimpressed future. In 1994, Goals 2000 anticipated a high-school-graduation rate of "at least" 90 percent (it is 75) and American students being "first in the world in mathematics and science" in six years. In 2002, No Child

Left Behind decreed 100 percent math and reading proficiency by 2014. That will not happen.

Now comes Arne Duncan, 44, the new secretary of education, fresh from seven years leading Chicago's public schools. There he showed a flair for innovation, which he acquired at his mother's knee. Now 74, she was, her son says, "the crazy white lady" who in 1961 opened, in the "absolute chaos" of a rough neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, an after-school tutoring program for young African-Americans, for whom she still toils, 48 years later.

Her son is impressively impatient with what George W. Bush called "the soft bigotry of low expectations." But under Bush's NCLB, Duncan says, "we have been lying to children and their parents because states have dumbed down their standards" of proficiency. "Sometimes," he says, "you have to call the baby ugly."

For decades, state legislatures, encouraged by teachers' unions, have embraced the theory that schools' cognitive outputs were a function of financial inputs. The theory was: As with soybeans, so with education—if you want more, increase subsidies.

But in 1966, the Coleman Report concluded: "Schools are remarkably similar in the effect they have on the achievement of their pupils when the socioeconomic background of the students is taken into account." That was a delicate way of not quite saying that the quality of schools usually reflects the quality of the families from which the students come. One scholar estimated that about 90 percent of the differences among schools in average proficiency can be explained by five factors—number of days absent from school, amount of television watched in the home, number of pages read for homework, quantity and quality of reading matter in the home and, much the most important, the presence of two parents in the home. Government cannot do much to make those variables vary, but Duncan correctly thinks that we actually know how to make schools effective anyway. The keys are time and talent.

Ronthelibrarian, you are a God! FINALLY, someone with knowledge of what really goes on behind the classroom doors and having enough guts to lay it on the line. It is surprising to me that no one in any type of leadership position doesn't address the real problem in schools. Often times It isn't the curriculum or most of the teachers. It's the clientèle we deal with day in and day out. There are more dysfunctional students in the classrooms these days that take away from the learning of themselves and others. More time is spent, managing behaviors than actually teaching - I know, because I teach in an inner city school. Students are completely aware that nothing can or will happen to them, regardless of what they do (short of killing someone). However, if they have an IEP (SpEd) they can just about kill someone with little ramification. Parents further enhance the dysfunctionality by not allowing, no insisting, their children to take responsibility for their behavior as well as their learning. No Duh, as parents model the same irresponsible behavior themselves. It is very disheartening to be blamed for things I have no control over. Obama has said he favors merit pay for teachers of high performing kids. I would be happy to do that as long as I am not held responsible for things I have no control over (parentage, substances parents took prior to or during gestation, child's subsequent I Q and/or learning capacity, language fluency, attendance, homework completion, health, amount of sleep,..Need I say more?). We can not fix the problem at the school level only. We have to start at the family level and work up. We cannot take 5 years of dysfunctional upbringing and fix it in school. By the time we get the children they are severely damaged and it is almost impossible to fix this damage. We need to eliminate the entitlement mentality. If my children dropped below a B average in high school their car insurance increased, so, if they got anything less than a B, they didn't drive. Simple as that. Drop out? Not an option. Why are kids dropping out of school. Where are their parent/s? If the government is going to hold me responsible for student achievement, they must hold parents equally if not more responsible for their children's academic achievement as well as behavior. I could ramble on and on.....

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Posted By: dktacoma @ 04/14/2009 12:04:13 AM

John R22, I take umbrage to your blanket generalization of teachers as being sub-standard. I believe that if someone said that about your profession you too, would be insulted.
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Posted By: dktacoma @ 04/13/2009 11:56:04 PM

Ronthelibrarian, you are a God! FINALLY, someone with knowledge of what really goes on behind the classroom doors and having enough guts to lay it on the line. It is surprising to me that no one in any type of leadership position doesn't address the real problem in schools. Often times It isn't the curriculum or most of the teachers. It's the clientèle we deal with day in and day out. There are more dysfunctional students in the classrooms these days that take away from the learning of themselves and others. More time is spent, managing behaviors than actually teaching - I know, because I teach in an inner city school. Students are completely aware that nothing can or will happen to them, regardless of what they do (short of killing someone). However, if they have an IEP (SpEd) they can just about kill someone with little ramification. Parents further enhance the dysfunctionality by not allowing, no insisting, their children to take responsibility for their behavior as well as their learning. No Duh, as parents model the same irresponsible behavior themselves. It is very disheartening to be blamed for things I have no control over. Obama has said he favors merit pay for teachers of high performing kids. I would be happy to do that as long as I am not held responsible for things I have no control over (parentage, substances parents took prior to or during gestation, child's subsequent I Q and/or learning capacity, language fluency, attendance, homework completion, health, amount of sleep,..Need I say more?). We can not fix the problem at the school level only. We have to start at the family level and work up. We cannot take 5 years of dysfunctional upbringing and fix it in school. By the time we get the children they are severely damaged and it is almost impossible to fix this damage. We need to eliminate the entitlement mentality. If my children dropped below a B average in high school their car insurance increased, so, if they got anything less than a B, they didn't drive. Simple as that. Drop out? Not an option. Why are kids dropping out of school. Where are their parent/s? If the government is going to hold me responsible for student achievement, they must hold parents equally if not more responsible for their children's academic achievement as well as behavior. I could ramble on and on.....
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Posted By: Artiluna @ 04/09/2009 11:40:12 AM

We know our content. Of course a person can site an example of the one or two "bad" teachers they encountered, but this is the exception. The simple truth is parents need to support learning from home and work with their children. This is the reality, but it is too difficult to change, so instead we try to force teachers to undergo more training, when most are already proficient to begin with. They only result will be talented individuals fleeing from teaching and entering careers where they are not used as scapegoats for society's problems.