In the world of ed politics, there are straight shooters and there are those who will say anything, depending on their audience. There's no better example of a straight shooter than Jonathan Kozol, who is being honored tonight by FairTest with the Deborah W. Meier Heroes in Education Award in recognition of his courageous activism. The event will be held at the Multicultural Arts Center, from 6 to 8:30 p.m., at 41 Second Street, Cambridge, MA

Duncan at AERA

Then there's Sec. Arne Duncan, who came to AERA last week to try and cover his ass left flank. To listen to him talk, one would think, here's the man leading the fight against the current testing madness. Hilarious and irritating at the same time. 

I didn't go to San Francisco this year but it sounds like few were taken in by Duncan's anti-test double-talk. He was understandably received with a resounding chorus of boos by hundreds of ed researchers who daily bear witness (about all researchers can do these days) to the destructiveness of Race To The Top and who know better than to take this educational know-nothing at face value.

Arnold Dodge, chairperson of the Department of Educational Leadership and Administration at LIU-Post does a great job of exposing Duncan-style demagogy in yesterday's Huffington Post.

Dodge quotes Duncan:

"Some schools have an almost obsessive culture around testing, and that hurts their most vulnerable learners and narrows the curriculum. It's heartbreaking to hear a child identify himself as 'below basic' or 'I'm a one out of four.' "

Dodge responds:

 This observation sounds more like the Secretary is talking to a clergyman in the confessional booth than to a group of educational researchers who have been studying the destruction of children's self-concept as learners by the very policy that his office developed and promotes.

You can read the rest here.