What is the U.S. Department of Education

Doing Illegally TODAY?

(Or, Who Owns Arne Duncan?)

Guess what I just found out? Even as I wrote yesterday’s post about the U. S. Department of Education illegal act of controlling curriculum (see “The U.S. Department of Education is Breaking the Law; Pass It On“), Secretary Arne Duncan was making illegal phone calls! A quick reminder of the pertinent section of the Department of Education Organization Act 1979:

What the Law Says The U. S. Department of Education Shouldn’t Be Doing

No provision of a program administered by the Secretary or by any other officer of the Department shall be construed to authorize the Secretary or any such officer to exercise any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum, program of instruction, administration, or personnel of any educational institution, school, or school system, over any accrediting agency or association, or over the selection or content of library resources, textbooks, or other instructional materials by any educational institution or school system, except to the extent authorized by law.” (emphasis added)

An AP story dated May 18, 2011 appeared in The Republic (Columbus, IN) titled, “US education chief gets involved in Louisiana’s superintendent search.” [EDITOR’S NOTE: The link originally shared has been taken down from the newspaper’s website.] Say what?!? Secretary Duncan is also forbidden from getting involved in personnel issues.

At least two state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) members said Wednesday they have received calls from Duncan about John White, the newly hired leader of the Recovery School District (RSD) and Gov. Bobby Jindal’s choice to be interim state superintendent.

Jindal press secretary Kyle Plotkin wrote in an e-mail, “We appreciate his (Secretary Duncan’s) interest in supporting our ongoing reform efforts.” Just one problem, Kyle – IT’S AGAINST THE LAW.

Jindal’s proposal for White to run the RSD and be interim superintendent has divided the 11 board members who will choose the superintendent. Johnson and Givens, along with others, oppose hiring White as interim superintendent. It takes eight votes on the 11-member board to hire a superintendent.

The board isn’t thinking the way the governor wants, so he brings in the big gun, the U.S. Secretary of Education himself. Just one problem, Governor – IT’S AGAINST THE LAW.

The Chicago Connection

President Obama came out of Chicago. Secretary Arne Duncan is the former CEO of Chicago public schools. Guess where White once worked?

White, 35, came to the RSD job earlier this month to manage failing public schools taken over by the state, mostly in New Orleans. He was a former deputy superintendent of New York City schools and former executive director of Teach For America in Chicago. He taught high school English in Newark, N.J., and Chicago for the organization. He has never run a school district. [Emphasis added.]

After White’s RSD hiring was announced, Duncan called White a passionate and committed education leader. He said he’d worked with White in Chicago and New Orleans was lucky to have him.

The president of one of Louisiana’s teacher unions criticized Duncan’s phone calls as “political bullying.”

President of one of Louisiana’s teacher unions, it’s not just political bullying – IT’S AGAINST THE LAW.

Follow the Money Associated with the U.S. Department of Education

In the May, 2011 issue of Boom Vang, Parent at the Helm’s free newsletter, the feature article, “Bill Gates and Partners Purchasing Control of U.S. Schools (Part 2 of 2),” explains much about who is purchasing power over your child’s schooling, thanks to the investigative reporting of Joanne Barkin in the Winter, 2011 edition of Dissent Magazine.

Arne Duncan did not disappoint. He quickly made the partnership with private foundations the defining feature of his DOE stewardship. His staff touted the commitment in an article for the department’s newsletter, The Education Innovator (October 29, 2009):

…The Department has truly embraced the foundation community by creating a position within the Office of the Secretary for the Director of Philanthropic Engagement. This dedicated role within the Secretary’s Office signals to the philanthropic world that the Department is “open for business.”Within weeks, Duncan had integrated the DOE into the network of revolving-door job placement that includes the staffs of Gates, Broad, and all the thinks tanks, advocacy groups, school management organizations, training programs, and school districts that they fund. Here’s a quick look at top executives in the DOE: Duncan’s first chief of staff, Margot Rogers, came from Gates; her replacement as of June 2010, Joanne Weiss, came from a major Gates grantee, the New Schools Venture Fund; Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Russlynn Ali has worked at Broad, LA Unified School District and the Gates-funded Education Trust; general counsel Charles P. Rose was a founding board member of another major Gates grantee, Advance Illinois; and Assistant Deputy Secretary for Innovation and Improvement James Shelton has worked at both Gates and the New Schools Venture Fund. Duncan himself served on the board of directors of Broad’s education division until February 2009 (as did former treasury secretary Larry Summers).

Taxpayers pay the salaries of these folks trained by the “philanthropists” – public schooling costs over $500 billion per year these days – and the “philanthropists” set government policy with their multi-million dollar “donations.”

I highly recommend every parent read the Dissent Magazine article. So often we’re caught up in our day-to-day lives, there’s little time to check into what is really happening with the American school system. The slippery slope toward more expensive but less productive schooling kicked into high gear in 1979 when – unconstitutionally – President Carter formed the new Department of Education. More recently, the Broad Foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and their fellow “philanthropists” began purchasing access to policy making, some say with designs to destroy the public school system.

It appears their inside guy, U.S. Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan, is willing to repeatedly break the law to further their agenda, whether it’s creating curriculum, attempting to influence Board votes on personnel issues, and attaching demands about how school personnel – teachers and principals – are evaluated to a state’s ability to receive federal funding (via Race to the Top), demands brought about by the Broad Foundation.

Where, dear parent, in all of this, do you see the Department of Education working for the good of your child?

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