Secretary Duncan to Hold #AskArne Twitter Town Hall

The Department of Education announced today that Secretary Arne Duncan will participate in the first-ever #AskArne Twitter Town Hall on August 24, 2011 at 1:30 p.m. EDT. Veteran education journalist John Merrow will moderate the town hall that will also be broadcast live on ED’s ustream channel.

Beginning today, Twitter users can submit questions to the Secretary using the hashtag #AskArne.

Read more here.

It's not going to be quite so easy to ask meaningful questions with Twitter character limitations, but I've got a few:
1) How much is the total cost down to the local level to implement the new generation of assessments?
2) Where is the money going to come from to fund this initiative?
3) Will sub-group comparisons still be required?
4) Why is it necessary to implement excessive standardized testing?
5) What recommendations do you have to confront the high turnover of teachers at charter schools?
6) What is the rationale for a database from birth to first year of college?
7) Given the rash of security breaches and hacking into secure sites, why should any parent or community have confidence FERPA Privacy protections will be maintained?
8) Why should parents be excluded from any access to their student's information?

Then, I might Twitter: "I am a NUT. No Unnecessary Testing."

What questions will you pose?

SOS March on Washington D.C. July 31

The U.S. Congress is accountable to the People and not to powerful corporate interests. The job of the People is to remind them of that fact. Living in a democracy is not easy and must not be taken for granted. The persistent trivializing of serious concerns over federal "education reform initiatives" and overreach by government is not acceptable. The intrusion of non-profits and corporate entities into educational public policy is not acceptable. At the core, democratic principles are at stake. At the center are the nation's children. Mainstream media has either ignored the concerns of parents, community members, and taxpayers or recycled education reform talking points and narrative. Bloggers, on the other hand, across ideologies, have done a great job at reporting facts and providing analysis. Market-driven education reform directed by corporate interests and brushing aside all other voices, parents, community members, taxpayers, and teachers aside is not a democratic process. States and local school boards are under incredible financial strain and reports emerge that many are defying federal mandates. State and federal legislators and the U.S. Department of Education collude with corporate interest to force experimentation, excessive, unneeded and expensive testing, and the development of a massive database from preschool through college on every child in the nation.
Who benefits?

There is no other option than to protest. It is a democratic right and sorely needed now.

Support the SOS March on Washington D.C. on July 31. Watch for it on the news, look for blogs describing events, and then twitter those events to your legislators. How about a wave of 1 million tweets to the U.S. Congress?

Under Investigation and Other Reform Practices Questioned

June 20 UPDATE: There are now two investigations of the U.S. DOE underway. According to the Daily Caller, Republican U.S. Representative Issa is planning an investigation into the recent new regulations for how non-profit schools do business. Read the Daily Caller reports here and here.

The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) reports that U.S. DOE Inspector General Kathleen Tighe is conducting an investigation of the U.S. DOE to determine if "officials reporting to Secretary Arne Duncan leaked market-sensitive material to short sellers--including a non-public audit from her own office. Did anyone trade on the confidential information?"

Among other things, Tighe will examine whether confidential DoED information and draft documents, including one produced by her own office, were transferred to Wall Street short-sellers seeking informational advantage in their bets on the future of the $35 billion for-profit education industry. Beyond the propriety of the Education Department's conduct, the phenomenon raises broader questions about the integrity of government decision-making in the face of relentless Wall Street scrutiny.

The investigation will conclude sometime this summer. We will have to wait until then, but I wonder if the report will indicate any inappropriate communications between government officials and representatives of the testing, publishing, and computer testing industries in relation to Common Core initiatives.

Forbes reported on a New York cozy relationship in the educational marketplace. Last November, Robert Murdoch's News Corp hired New York State Chancellor Joel Klein to develop an education division. Two weeks later Murdoch purchased Wireless Generation, a company that develops software and data systems to track student progress. The company currently is a contractor for the New York city school system. Murdoch purchased the company for $360 million saying this of his investment:

Education in the U.S. is a $500 billion sector “waiting desperately to be transformed by big breakthroughs that extend the reach of great teaching,” said Murdoch in a statement, and Wireless Generation is at the “forefront” of individualized, tech-based learning.

Murdoch is an astute businessman and clearly sees a business opportunity.
Forbes announced that Wireless Generation just was awarded a $27 million no-bid contract funded by Race to the Top grant money. Forbes comments that this no-bid contract "smacks of cronyism" and ends with:

"ARIS may indeed be a useful tool for educators and administrators, but you have to question the very real conflicts of interest in all of this."

Murdoch added Kirsten Kane and Peter Gorman to the new education division:

- Kristen Kane is the former chief operating officer of the New York City Department of Education, will become the COO of the News Corp unit.

- North Carolina Charlotte-Meckleburg Superintendent Gorman announced his resignation to become Senior VP News Corps new education division this summer. Gorman had a rocky end of school year with vigorous protests by parents over the surprise piloting of tests covered on Grumpy Educators here.