He says it, but he really doesn't mean it.

A couple of weeks ago, Education Secretary Arne Duncan addressed the National PTA's annual conference and asked for parents' help in improving three specific areas:

“It is time to think beyond assessing students with narrowly-focused bubble tests. It is time to think beyond the bake sale-barometer in promoting parental involvement. And it is time to think beyond the focus on math and English alone, and give every child a well-rounded education. We must stop narrowing the curriculum. Our children need—and deserve—so much more. My hope is that PTAs around the nation can be leaders in pressing for higher standards, better assessments, for a richer vision of parental involvement, and for a well-rounded curriculum” (emphasis added).

WOW! That sounds great. He just checked off two of the four major school reform recommendations PURE has been promoting for years, most recently in the Parents Across America letter to Congress and President Obama. The letter opposed more charters, turnarounds, and testing and suggested instead:

• ending unfair funding disparities,

• reducing class sizes,

• providing a balanced curriculum with multiple assessments, and

• requiring that schools involve parents in the decision-making process.

So, are we halfway to our goal? Has Arne come around to our way of thinking, at least in two of our four major points?

Sadly, no. It's just ArneSpeak. The rhetoric sounds good, but a close read of Duncan's entire speech to the PTA makes it clear that we're not even close. In fact, ArneSpeak sounds just like Arne during his eight years in Chicago, when we had to listen to his empty rhetoric and fight every day against his policies of high-stakes testing, narrowing the curriculum, and shutting parents out of decision making.

I'll be taking that speech apart in the next few days.