Obama's education secretary: Let's boycott school until gun laws change

[DonViejo]

By Perry Stein May 19 at 7:45 PM

Former Education Secretary Arne Duncan pushed a radical idea on Twitter: Parents should pull their children out of school until elected officials pass stricter gun control laws.

His tweet came hours after a shooting rampage at a Houston-area high school Friday killed 10 people — a mass shooting that came just three months after 17 students and staffers were slain at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.

When Peter Cunningham, a former education department employee, tweeted that it may be time for parents to pull their children out of school until gun laws are changed, Duncan, the education secretary under Obama, responded that his family “is in.”

Link to tweet

Duncan said in an interview Saturday that the idea was intended to be provocative but that an aggressive approach like a school boycott is needed if gun laws are ever going to change. He has school-age children and said if this idea were to gain traction, his family would participate. “It’s wildly impractical and difficult,” Duncan said. “But I think it’s wildly impractical and difficult that kids are shot when they are sent to school.”

-snip-

A school boycott, Duncan said, is just one suggestion, and he said he’d consider other creative ideas that could impel policy changes.

“I’m open to other ideas, I’m open to different ideas, but I’m not open to doing nothing,” Duncan said. “We will see whether this gains traction, or something does, but we have to think radically.”

more
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/obamas-education-secretary-lets-boycott-school-until-gun-laws-change/2018/05/19/5ce3ebb0-5bab-11e8-8836-a4a123c359ab_story.html

[beachbum bob]

1. I think the kids across the country should stage another national walk out in September

empty the high schools...tie in voter registration efforts at the same time

[Turbineguy]

2. Boycotting schools would be just what

republicans want. Trump loves the under-educated.

[Oneironaut]

3. The "The Only Book You Need is the Book of Jesus!" far-right would probably cheer.

[struggle4progress]

4. "And let's not eat any more vegetables until all Americans have health care!"

[ecstatic]

5. Unrealistic. School doubles as daycare for working parents. nt

[Reader Rabbit]

6. Given the damage *he* did to public schools, I'm not listening to anything Arne says.

He didn't seem to care that much while he was EdSec. He spent most of his time trashing teachers, their unions, and public school parents and students who dared to question his love affair with standardized testing, charter schools, and data.