There is perhaps no greater event that will impact the future of public education in this nation than the appointment of the next Secretary of Education in 2016, yet their is hardly any discussion of this event by the various education bloggers. Below are my thoughts on this issue.

Linda Darling Hammond – Will She Be Hillary Clinton’s Choice as Education Secretary in 2016 ?

Educators across the nation are in a quandary concerning which way Hillary Clinton will turn on education issues if she is elected president. Some claim she will follow the policies of President Obama and Arne Duncan in their support of standardized testing accountability for teachers as well as supporting charter schools. On the other hand, the teacher organizations such as the National Education Association (NEA) and the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), who have already given their early endorsement to Hillary Clinton, are hopeful that she will not follow in the footsteps of Barack Obama on education issues.

It appears that both the corporate education reformers and the teacher unions are searching for clues from whatever comments Hillary Clinton makes on the campaign trail regarding education issues pertaining to what direction she might take. According to a recent Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article regarding Hillary Clinton’s public education views, there is some hope for the NEA and the UFT as the article depicted Hilary Clinton as questioning the use of student test scores as a way to evaluate teachers. Moreover, according to the WSJ article, Clinton believes” there is no evidence” to support this practice. Likewise, her comments concerning charter schools also raised eyebrows when she stated “they don’t take the hardest-to-teach kids, or, if they do, they don’t keep them..” These comments are considered quite unique among presidential candidates of either the Democratic or Republican party

Hence, her comments concerning the lack of evidence in using test scores to evaluate teachers as well as her comments concerning the cherry- picking policies of charter schools were earth shaking, especially to the wealthy corporate education reformers such as Eli Broad. The WSJ article claims that billionaire Eli Broad needed reassurances from the Clinton campaign leaders, primarily Bill Clinton and John Podesta, who quickly gave these assurances. They indicated to Eli Broad that presidential hopeful Hlillary Clinton, if elected, would not deviate from the education policies of President Obama and Arne Duncan concerning the use of standardized tests for teacher accountability as well as continued support for the growth of the charter school movement. Hence, these assurances pose a dilemma for the NEA and UFT as well as for the millions of public school teachers, parents and students across the nation.

One of the gravest errors of Barack Obama’s administration was his choice of Arne Duncan as Secretary of Education. In essence, Obama’s choice for the crucial cabinet post was what the business community and corporate education reformers preferred rather than a learned and esteemed educator such as Linda Darling Hammond who had served as Obama’s education advisor during his presidential campaign. Ironically, Linda Darling Hammond was in the running for Education Secretary but was passed over for Duncan. As a result, we now have the failed Common Core State Standards (CCSS) with its very expensive, flawed tests, created by non-educators which are developmentally inappropriate as well as being very unpopular with parents. Duncan also gave rise in his nearly eight years as Education Secretary to Teach for America (TFA) which is now deeply embedded in the Department of Education in Washington, DC

For those of you who are not familiar with Linda Darling Hammond, she is the Charles E. Duncommun Professor of Education at the Stanford School of Education where she launched the School Redesign Network. She is a proven education leader who understands that curriculum development and implementation takes time and needs to come from the grassroots. Perhaps her most significant achievements occurred when she served as executive secretary from 1994-2001 of the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future. (NCTAF)

It was at one of the NCTAF conferences that I was fortunate to attend in which Linda Darling Hammond was the keynote speaker where I learned how very much research oriented she is concerning her work with teaching. Moreover, she was responsible for sweeping policy changes affecting teaching and schooling and was cited by Education Week who claimed that her research on teaching was the most influential work of its kind affecting U.S. education. In light of these credentials, one has to wonder how President Obama could possibly bypass such a research oriented, learned individual as Linda Darling Hammond for Arne Duncan who, in essence, according to many of his critics, claim him to have been a failed superintendent of schools in Chicago.

Needless to say, one of the most crucial appointments Hillary Clinton will make in the early weeks of her presidency, if elected, will be in her choice for Secretary of Education. Choosing another candidate similar to Arne Duncan will mean a continuation of the policies advocated by the corporate education reformers including the use of student test scores for evaluating teachers, support for Common Core, continued support for the growth of charter schools as well as the TFA. It remains to be seen whether Hillary Clinton in her appointment of Education Secretary in 2016 will succumb to her husband’s and John Posdesta’s advice on yet another corporate education reformer. Teachers and parents across the country are hoping she will make her own decision and choose someone such as Linda Darling Hammond for the position of Education Secretary who will usher in a new era for the nation’s public school teachers, parents and students.

Joseph A. Ricciotti, Ed.D.
Retired Educator
185 Lindamir Lane
Fairfield, CT 06824
203-255-1809
jar643@gmail.com