Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, and his Race to the Top

I was interviewed recently for a New York Magazine article, Homework Tea Party. I really liked the piece and my quotes:

“Duncan’s [Race to the Top] plan is cut from the same cloth as the education policies of the Bush administration,” said Sara Bennett after watching the show from her Park Slope home. “It is misguided, disastrous for schoolchildren, and has no basis in sound research.”

When I googled the reporter, Thaddeus Russell, I came across a piece he wrote a few years ago, contrasting workaholic Bob the Builder with his long ago slacker cohorts, Fred Flinstone and George Jetson.

Read the New York Magazine piece here. Read the Bob the Builder piece here.

And, while I’m on the topic of Arne Duncan, here’s another unflattering piece about him in Edweek.

What to do about Race to the Top? Take a look at Stop National Standards, a group of concerned educators and parents (of which I am one), which came together to figure out ways to be vocal about the harms of standardized testing. We have a campaign, the Say Yes card, which we urge people to print out and leave around their community and schools.