Trying To Look Bad?

Is the Department of Education trying to make themselves look bad? Why do they have a blog headline aligning themselves with a racist? What if I told you that they turned to David Duke for help in fixing the education system? Well it isn't Duke. But this is the headline for their blog entry:

Duncan Enlists Sharpton’s Civil Rights Network in Education Reform

Why did they phrase it like that?

This posting is from a "Guest Blogger." I am assuming the post was written by Kimberly Watkins-Foote, Director of African American Communications and Outreach. She is mentioned as a tag line at the bottom, but official credit is given to "Guest Blogger." Are guest bloggers' posts vetted? Because this post is a bit, ... charged.

What happened is that Secretary Arne Duncan spoke at the National Action Network’s 14th Annual Convention. It is Al Sharpton's organization. Why didn't they use the organization name? It could go by unnoticed by some people. I wouldn't have noticed.

NAN is not working with the Department of Education officially or monetarily from what I can tell through this blog post. Unfortunately what Duncan does is he twists education into a civil rights movement concept. I have not yet been able to find a video of the speech or a transcript, but what is presented is reframing education in a civil rights vein.

The study about disciplinary actions, teacher experience and pay, and available classes and how minorities get the worst of it is cited, again. I've already told you what I think the problem is : teachers, the teacher's union, and government. The holy trinity that can do no wrong.

Duncan goes on to state that due to the treatment of minorities in school that it becomes the "school-to-prison pipeline." The historic desegregation of schools was definitely a good thing, but what is happening now is the incompetency of government and not a civil rights catastrophe. Doesn't Duncan know that the problem he is complaining about was created by the same organization he wants to fix it?

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NOTE: If you find a video of the speech or a transcript, please post a link to it in the comments. I would like to have full context of the speech, not presented snippets out of context. "Out of context" can get you into trouble.

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