Duncan and Bennett on CNN

[erinlough]

Did anyone but me listen to Duncan and Gamblin Bill Bennett, former Bush education secretary, on CNN with Blitzer? Bennett was just about gushing with praise for Arne's new programs, how he admired him for supporting the closing of the RI school, and saying how much he liked seeing Duncan get tough with the Teacher's union. Duncan was looking at Bennett like he was in awe of him. My, we are screwed if the two of them agree.

[mediaman007]

1. Just a couple of guys, who never set foot in a classroom, sitting around

telling America how the schools need to be reformed. Must be nice to just focus on outcomes, never on the causes. These guys don't even do research!

[proud2BlibKansan]

2. A true story about Bill Bennett

This bastard needs to be kept as far away from our kids as possible. No surprise he is cheerleading for Arne.

When I was chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (1993-97), I asked Bill Bennett to visit my office so that I could ask him for help in seeking legislation that would pay for internet access in all classrooms and libraries in the country. Eventually Senators Olympia Snowe and Jay Rockefeller, with the White House leadership of President Clinton and Vice President Gore, put that provision in the Telecommunications Law of 1996, and today nearly 90% of all classrooms and libraries do have such access. The schools covered were public and private. So far the federal funding (actually collected from everyone as part of the phone bill) has been matched more or less equally with school district funding to total about $20 billion over the last seven years. More than 90% of all teachers praise the impact of such technology on their work. At any rate, since Mr. Bennett had been Secretary of Education I asked him to support the bill in the crucial stage when we needed Republican allies. He told me he would not help, because he did not want public schools to obtain new funding, new capability, new tools for success. He wanted them, he said, to fail so that they could be replaced with vouchers,charter schools, religious schools, and other forms of private education. Well, I thought, at least he's candid about his true views. The key Senate committee voted almost on party lines on the bill, all D's for and all R's against, except one -- Olympia Snowe. Her support provided the margin of victory. On the House side, Speaker Gingrich made sure the provision was not in the companion bill, but in conference again Senators Snowe and Rockefeller, with White House support, made the difference. The Internet has been the first technology made available to students in poorly funded schools at about the same time and in about the same way as to students in well funded schools.

http://www.sfschools.org/2005/10/tpm-cafe-true-story-about-bill-bennett.html

[earthside]

3. I've heard Bennett ...

... say this same stuff on his radio show in the mornings (in this market the worst conservative station is between two others that I listen to, so I sometimes stop and listen for a bit).

And, yes, he is absolutely full of praise for Arne Duncan and the whole test-them-to-death schooling theory.

If a person needed any clues that Bush-Obama education policies are the same, well, there it is.

[Orlandodem]

4. Yet another reason I won't vote for Obama in 2012. He has lost the teacher vote.

asdf

[Starry Messenger]

5. We are so hosed.

:banghead: