How Arne Duncan Exposed the NEA.

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2014/09/asd.html

Speaking of Duncan, here’s EIA’s Mike Antonucci on how he (and Obama and everyone else) is totally ignoring the NEA’s call this summer for his resignation:

How Arne Duncan Exposed the NEA. The big story that came out of July’s National Education Association Representative Assembly was the union adopting a measure that called for the resignation of U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. You don’t have to take my word for it. The Associated Press ran it on The Big Story page.

There never was a realistic chance that Duncan would resign, but we were assured that it was necessary to send a message that it was intolerable that Duncan would “promote policies and decisions that undermine public schools and colleges, the teaching education professionals, and education unions.”

But during the summer that new business item seems to have lost any teeth it had.

…NEA and Duncan do have a lot in common, and it’s only practical to continue to deal with the fact that he isn’t going away. But the union’s disillusionment with Duncan goes far beyond standardized testing, and it wasn’t even the trigger for the vote on the resignation NBI – his positive reaction to the Vergara ruling was.

I’m reminded of the laundry list of complaints about Duncan the union passed in 2011 – I described it then as “two counts of heavy focusing, four counts of failure to recognize, one count of felony myth-perpetuating, and a misdemeanor count of weighing in.”

Duncan has been U.S. Secretary of Education for five years, and there is every indication he will remain in that office for the rest of the President’s term. More than that, for all his perceived missteps and blunders, he hasn’t suffered a single tangible consequence. Indeed, the allowance from the NEA president that he’s “a very nice man” is probably the only compliment a union officer at any level will give him. Nevertheless, he is Education Secretary despite the union’s explicit and direct call for his ouster, and the education policies of the Obama administration move forward much as they have since 2009.

So the question arises: If President Obama and Secretary Duncan can safely ignore NEA’s demands, why can’t we all?