U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan has received a lot of unexpected response to a recent New Year’s Tweet in which he asked, “What if every district committed both to identifying what made their 5 best schools successful & providing those opps to all their students?”
Twitter has lit up with “what if” scenarios from educators, parents and public school advocates – using the hashtag #whatif – that are critical of Duncan’s education policies, including his emphasis on standardized testing and other so-called reforms.
The Washington Post collected these sample Tweets:
#Whatif teachers were respected rather than disparaged by this country’s wealthy and elite
— Randi Weingarten (@rweingarten) December 31, 2014
#WhatIf the public realized that our @usedgov has plenty of money to properly fund schools but they choose to channel $ to corps instead?
— TeacherReality (@TeacherReality) December 31, 2014
#Whatif we said it is OK for kids to paint instead of taking tests used to evaluate their teachers? @arneduncan pic.twitter.com/1lN730q80w
— Badass Teachers Asso (@BadassTeachersA) December 31, 2014
#whatif @arneduncan, children got their lives back, their joy of discovery and a safe place to learn to think critically? Play is real.
— Karen Lewis (@KarenLewisCTU) December 31, 2014
#WhatIf Every family & student boycotted @arneduncan ‘s high-stakes testing & we moved to a well-rounded education w/ authentic assessment.
— Chris Cerrone (@Stoptesting15) December 31, 2014
@arneduncan #WhatIf the DOE committed both to identifying what made their 5 worst reform initiatives failures & removing them from schools?
— Jeanne Berrong (@kayringe) December 30, 2014
@arneduncan #WhatIf the parents of my students were paid a living wage which enabled them to provide their children with adequate nutrition?
— Kathleen Jeskey (@KJeskey) December 30, 2014
@arneduncan #WhatIf my ESL classroom wasn’t a converted office with a dry erase sticker instead of a board? @BadassTeachersA #edequity
— Aixa Rodriguez (@japaspanglish) December 30, 2014
