Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education
During the interview, Duncan explained part of the new president’s proposed agenda for public schools AND utilization of stimulus monies.
Part of the interview . . .
DUNCAN: I think our schools should be open 12, 13, 14 hours a day. So it’s not just length –
ROSE: So eight to eight, or something like that?
DUNCAN: Yes, and let me tell you what — not just lengthening, obviously, the school day, but a wide variety of after school activities: drama, arts, sports, chess, debate, academic enrichment, programs for parents, GED, ESL, family literacy nights, potluck dinners. At home, we attached health-care clinics to about two dozen of our schools. Where schools truly become the centers of the community, great things happen. So I think we need the schools open much longer hours, and by the way, we don’t have to do this all ourselves as educators. You can bring in great nonprofits: the YMCAs, the Boys and Girls Clubs, mentoring and tutoring groups to co-locate their services and bolster the community from the school. And every neighborhood in our country, you have schools. In every school, you have classrooms, you have computer labs, you have libraries, you have gyms, many have pools. Those buildings don’t belong to you or I. They don’t belong to the unions. They belong to the community. We have these great physical resources, and we even maximize them.
ROSE: Keep them open 12 hours a day, 12 months a year.
DUNCAN: Yes.
ROSE: Twelve hours a day, 12 months a year.
DUNCAN: And I would go to six or seven days a week, not just Monday through Friday.
Wait a minute! Wait a minute! 12 hour school days! WHAT!?!? We can’t even keep kids in school now!
But Duncan explains that he and the president envision a public school becoming a community center.
This means that when they advocate lengthening the school day, they’re not necessarily calling for more public money to be spent on after-school programs.
They are talking about, literally, using the building as a community center.
Yep, sounds like a great utilization of resources!
As a matter of fact, in The Kingsland Plan, Don shows how part of the plan brings communities and schools closer together. Also, the plan utilizes school facilities to conduct biweekly parenting classes in the evenings. These would alternate with parent/community concern and curriculum meetings, held in those same schools in the evening or on the weekend.
However, in this time of politically-correct policies, how do communities (or Big Brother) decide WHICH GROUPS will utilize these great public facilities?
O.K. YMCA, tutoring and health clinics sound ideal, but what if a subversive group like the Boy Scouts wants to use the building? The ACLU and other PACs will be outraged if equal access is given to a group that discriminates against women (not allowed, except as Den Mothers) and homosexuals (not allowed at all).
Policing “political correctness”, in the use of public places, will give the ACLU, and other special interest groups, a stronger grip on our educational system. Which is the last thing we should want.
I’m all for good utilization of resources, but . . .
Tell ya’ what Mr. Duncan. Why don’t you spend your efforts and our stimulus money FIRST on changing EDUCATION, to get improved LEARNING results?
Let’s stop the escalating dropout rates! Let’s have ALL of our students who DO graduate able to read and write and think.
THEN, if you’re gonna take the decision out of the hands of local communities, let’s concentrate your energies and our taxpayer money, on deciding who gets to set up programs and use the buildings after the school day is done.
JMHO,
Brennan
Obama and his friends not only get to run our auto industry, our health care but now they want to run our communities and raise our children. 24/7. That’s right, we are not smart enough to raise our own kids. This is well hidden under the cover of more efficient use of facilities. Let communities do that now BIG BROTHER. This is leading down the primrose path to socialism, communism. Study your history people and not the revised government school version.
Dear Heide,
You’ve said it so well. And actions taken by Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan since I wrote this post show that the path being taken is even further to the left than ever anticipated. We have to get the message out and speak up.
Stay tuned for future posts and THANK YOU for your comment.
Brennan