I found that this interview was a lot longer than it needed to be. There were some very good points made, but a few of those points were repeated over and over (such as Arne Duncan’s comments about getting rid of bad teachers and making teachers more accountable). In the video, there were also clips of President Obama’s speech on education. Obama stated that we should make tachers more avertable, remove bad teachers, lift caps on allowable number of charter schools in states, and press everyone (governments, parents, etc.) to get dramatically better than the status quo that we’ve been at with regard to education. Arne Duncan agreed with Obama and I do, too, for the most part. Teachers should be more accountable for students, but they shouldn’t have to be the only ones. Teachers are not the only adults in children’s lives. Their parents should be more accountable, too, which has been a problem in recent years. We should remove bad teachers, but it may be hard to determine who exactly is a “bad” teacher. If we judge them on their students’ test scores, it wouldn’t be fair because some children are far behind their peers and can’t learn as well and some simply refuse to learn. Therefore, students who are failing for reasons other than their teacher will make their teachers look bad. As for charter schools, I believe that if they are working, then maybe we should open more of them. And finally, for Obama’s last point, we should press everyone in this nation, from parents to teachers to the government, to help our children grow beyond the current status quo. Instead of simply meeting the status quo and just being average, everyone should strive for excellence in education.
Duncan also mentions that he prefers to look more at a child’s educational growth, rather than annual test scores. This is very important. There could be a situation where a child has grown tremendously in their schooling over the years and are passing all their classes, but for some reason they don’t do so well on their school’s standardized tests. If everyone looked only at this student’s failed test and not their actual educational growth, they might see this student as a failure. This could lead to major problems later on as this student applies for college or for a job. Duncan also mentions that education in the U.S. is very stagnant compared to other countries, simply because they put more into their education. He believes that schools should be open longer and that they should become community centers. The reason for this, according to Duncan, is that society has changed in the last thirty years or so. No longer do most children return home from school to spend time with one or both their parents. Many children today have parents that are away most of the time working multiple jobs and some either go home to one single parent or to none at all. The schools could be a place where these kids could be looked after and keep up their education after school.
These are the most important points that I saw in this interview with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and I agree with them for the most part. Drastic times call for drastic measures and the times are changing fast (and not always for the best). We need to do something to help the children of the future and the points made in this video are a good start.
October 14, 2009, Arne Duncan Interview Comments
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