Epic Fail: Obama's Education Secretary Blasts Texas School System Under Perry

It's quite obvious who Obama fears, isn't it?

Education Secretary Arne Duncan, coming out early and tough against Texas Gov. Rick Perry, said he feels “very, very badly for the children” in Texas who go to public schools under Perry’s administration.

It was entirely predictable that Duncan would blast Perry, who just entered the race for the Republican presidential nomination and who has made it something of a sport to attack the president.

Just the other day, I wrote that no U.S. governor has been at public odds with Obama’s education policies more than Perry, and that tensions would only escalate. It’s safe to say they have.

Even as other Republicans have found bipartisan ground with Obama on education reform, Perry has repeatedly criticized Duncan’s Education Department, accusing it of attempting a “federal takeover of public schools” with the Race to Top competition in which states vied for federal funds by promising to implement specific education reforms.

Perry opted out of Race to the Top last year in a very public way, blasting the administration.

Now, in an interview on Bloomberg Television, airing today and tomorrow, Duncan said that public schools in Texas have “really struggled” under Perry.

“Far too few of their high school graduates are actually prepared to go on to college,” he said. “I feel very, very badly for the children there.”

“You have seen massive increases in class size,” Duncan said of the Texas public school system during Perry’s terms as governor since December 2000. “You’ve seen cutbacks in funding. It doesn’t serve the children well. It doesn’t serve the state well. It doesn’t serve the state’s economy well. And ultimately it hurts the country.”

So obviously the Chicago public schools under Duncan's stewardship must have done a bang-up job, right?

Um, uh...

But what about the fact, I responded, that on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), Texas' fourth- and eighth-graders substantially outperformed their peers in Chicago in reading and math?

Naturally, Obama's stooge replies with a non-answer.

"I would have to look at all the details, but there are real challenges in Texas. And like every other state, they should be addressed openly and honestly as in Illinois, as in Chicago, and everywhere else."True, the national averages aren't great, but Texas is right there with the pack. So why is Duncan dissing the Lone Star State? Its minority students outperform minority students in Chicago, albeit by smaller margins. And with a high school graduation rate of about 73%, Texas may be slightly below the national average, but it's doing a lot better than Chicago, which only graduates about 56% of its students.

So much for that lame line of attack.

As if those kids in Chicago are prepared for college.

Wednesday's legislative hearing came after the Tribune reported last month that the South Side public university intentionally allowed failing students to remain in school to boost its enrollment numbers.

Maloney, who requested state financial aid information after the Tribune report, said that during the 2008-09 academic year, 449 Chicago State students received state grant money even though, under university policy, an untold number of them should have been dismissed for poor academic performance.

Of those students, 106 had a grade-point average of 0.0 and still received aid from the taxpayer-funded Monetary Award Program, known as MAP.

Who was it who represented Chicago's South Side?

Oh yeah, some guy named Obama.

I wonder whether those college kids could even find Martha's Vineyard on a map?

'It's Clear That We've Got a Problem That We've Got to Address'

It seems scaring the daylights out of kids and focusing on nonexistent global warming/climate change has had the desired effect: Americans kids are extremely confident yet aren't all that bright when it comes to math and science. But they certainly know global warming is the greatest crisis facing mankind or something. Don't worry, though. Al Gore is coming to the rescue.

The United States educational system is failing students in the areas of science and math, according to former Vice President Al Gore.

"When you look at math and science education, it's clear that we've got a problem that we've got to address," Gore said during a recent online conference sponsored by Time Warner Cable's Connect a Million Minds program.

Based on a worldwide assessment of teens' math and science, the U.S. is currently ranked 29th in science and 35th in math compared with the rest of the world.

"We're not in a position we want to be in today; that's the facts," said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

Nearly 6,000 people logged onto the Connect a Million Minds town hall from countries such as the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany and more.

Ironically, according to the recent theatrical film "Waiting for Superman," the U.S. ranks No. 1 in confidence. Yet research shows many students here tend not to worry about school, so those who do are called nerds.

Of course we rank No. 1 in confidence. Keep building that self-esteem and tell kids how great they are without showing any results. That ought to help. Oh, and let's ignore actual math and science and let's go on a decade-long campaign to indoctrinate them with junk science, like Gore has done. Then have him come fix the problem. Sure, that'll work.

More Time for Indoctrination: Obama Wants Schools Open Longer

I'm sure this will go over well with Obama's pals at the teacher's unions. On the upside for him, this will allow more time for kids to sing songs to their Dear Leader.

Students beware: The summer vacation you just enjoyed could be sharply curtailed if President Barack Obama gets his way.

Obama says American kids spend too little time in school, putting them at a disadvantage with other students around the globe.

"Now, I know longer school days and school years are not wildly popular ideas," the president said earlier this year. "Not with Malia and Sasha, not in my family, and probably not in yours. But the challenges of a new century demand more time in the classroom."

The president, who has a sixth-grader and a third-grader, wants schools to add time to classes, to stay open late and to let kids in on weekends so they have a safe place to go.

"Our school calendar is based upon the agrarian economy and not too many of our kids are working the fields today," Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a recent interview with The Associated Press.

Fifth-grader Nakany Camara is of two minds. She likes the four-week summer program at her school, Brookhaven Elementary School in Rockville, Md. Nakany enjoys seeing her friends there and thinks summer school helped boost her grades from two Cs to the honor roll.

But she doesn't want a longer school day. "I would walk straight out the door," she said.

Domonique Toombs felt the same way when she learned she would stay for an extra three hours each day in sixth grade at Boston's Clarence R. Edwards Middle School.

"I was like, `Wow, are you serious?'" she said. "That's three more hours I won't be able to chill with my friends after school."

Her school is part of a 3-year-old state initiative to add 300 hours of school time in nearly two dozen schools. Early results are positive. Even reluctant Domonique, who just started ninth grade, feels differently now. "I've learned a lot," she said.

Does Obama want every kid to do these things? School until dinnertime? Summer school? And what about the idea that kids today are overscheduled and need more time to play?

Here's a radical suggestion. How about all those days during the school year when schools are closed soe the unions can have conferences while still getting paid? Maybe the teachers can do that during the summer.

Hundreds of Kids Beaten in Chicago Schools, Obama Education Secretary Did Nothing

More delicious, yummy change we can believe in. Barack Obama's Education Secretary Arne Duncan was notified of this gross abuse of children and did little if anything to stop it.

Thank goodness we now live in Obama's Age of Accountability, so I'm sure Duncan will now be held accountable.

Right?

Hundreds of students have allegedly been beaten by teachers, coaches and staff at Chicago Public Schools. 2 Investigator Dave Savini continues his ongoing investigation involving the illegal use corporal punishment.

Treveon Martin, 10, is afraid of a teacher at his school.

"I've seen him hit five of them in the classroom," Martin said.

Martin says he and others have been hit, grabbed and even struck with a belt.

"He's threatened almost all the kids in his classroom," Martin said.

He says it happened at Robert Emmet Academy in November but a Chicago Public School investigator didn't talk to him until last week - 70 days after the case was reported, and not until after we started asking questions.

"He holded my arms and he picked my body up, and then he just slammed me on the desk," Martin said.

An exclusive CBS 2 investigation discovered Treveon Martin is one of at least 818 Chicago Public School students, since 2003, to allege being battered by a teacher or an aide, coach, security guard, or even a principal. In most of those cases - 568 of them - Chicago Public School investigators determined the children were telling the truth.

"I'm thinking that I don't really feel safe," Martin said.

The 2 Investigators found reports of students beaten with broomsticks, whipped with belts, yard sticks, struck with staplers, choked, stomped on and pushed down stairs. One substitute teacher even fractured a student's neck.

But even more alarming, in the vast majority of cases, teachers found guilty were only given a slap on the wrist.

Just imagine if this weren't a bastion a liberalism and machine politics. Why, there'd be international cries for investigations. Human Rights Watch would be holding vigil. Congressional and Senate hearings would be convened. The New York Times would give this the Abu Ghraib treatment, putting it above the front-page fold dozens of times. World condemnation would be so severe, there'd probably be UN monitors sent in.

But ... it's Chicago.

Where apparently nobody cares about the children. Especially Obama's hand-picked pal to bring this style of education to the entire nation.

CBS 2 informed former Chicago Public School CEO Arne Duncan of our investigative findings shortly before he was promoted to U.S. Secretary of Education.

"If someone hits a student, they are going to be fired. It's very, very simple," Duncan said.

Before heading to Washington, he vowed to take action.

"Any founded allegation where an adult is hitting a child, hitting a student - they're going to be gone," Duncan said.

But that's not what happened under Duncan's watch. Of the 568 verified cases, only 24 led to termination. Records show one teacher who quote "battered students for several years" was simply given a "warning" by the Board of Education.

And another student was given "100 licks with a belt." The abuse was substantiated, but the records show the teacher was not terminated.

Alderman Pat O'Connor is on the City Council Education Committee. He wants all these cases re-examined including the way Treveon Martin's was handled.

"I'll tell you what it is - it's deplorable," O'Connor said. "I really believe that the Board has dropped the ball in this instance."

He says this information was never brought to the committee's attention until now.

What'll happen now is the whistleblowers will wing up paying the price.

Arne Duncan? He gets a promotion and glowing coverage in the New York Times.