Probably one of the worst things Obama did as President was appoint Arne "knows nothing about educating kids" Duncan as Secretary of Education

Arne Duncan ignores reality to embrace attacks on teachers (Click here to read more)

Rss@dailykos.com (laura Clawson) · Tuesday, June 17, 2014, 8:55 pm
.
The California court decision striking down several laws giving teachers due process has produced another unfortunate reminder that President Obama's Education Secretary Arne Duncan has basically Republican views on education. Duncan hailed the appalling decision, one flawed on more empirical grounds than can easily be listed, saying it "presents an opportunity for a progressive state with a tradition of innovation to build a new framework for the teaching profession that protects students' rights to equal educational opportunities while providing teachers the support, respect, and rewarding careers they deserve." Yeah, right. In assessing this, it's perhaps relevant to note that in this case centering on whether tenure violates the civil rights of students by protecting grossly ineffective teachers:
.

    Not only did none of [the plaintiffs] have a "grossly ineffective" teacher, but some of the plaintiffs attended schools where there are no tenured teachers. Two of the plaintiffs attend charter schools, where there is no tenure or seniority, and [...] "Beatriz and Elizabeth Vergara both attend a "Pilot School" in LAUSD that is free to let teachers go at the end of the school year for any reason, including ineffectiveness.

.
So we're going to build a new framework for the teaching profession by destroying laws that didn't even apply to several of the people in the case used to strike those laws down? If you want equal educational opportunities for students, you don't attack teachers. You fund schools. You fund teacher education. Most of all, you attack poverty and inequality. But that's not what this case-or Duncan's response to it-focused on. As the Los Angeles Times' Michael Hiltzik writes, this case attacked teachers:
.

    Not the imbalance of financial resources between rich districts and poor. Not the social pathologies--poverty, joblessness, racial discrimination, violence--that affect educational attainment in disadvantaged communities.
.
    Not California's rank at the very bottom of all states in its per-pupil expenditures, at $8,342 (in 2011), according to the quality index published by EducationWeek. That's 30% below the national average of $11,864, reflecting the consistent shortchanging of the K-12 system by the state. [...]
.
    Observes David B. Cohen, a schoolteacher and associate director of Accomplished California Teachers, an education advocacy group associated with Stanford University, one should be "suspicious of wealthy and powerful individuals and groups whose advocacy for children leads to 'reforms' that won't cost a cent, but will weaken labor."

.
Unfortunately, that's a suspicion that Obama's education secretary is too in love with corporate education policy to entertain.