Posted on by arotherham

Jeb Bush: In His Own Words

Jeb Bush isn’t saying if he’s running for President but I spent 30 minutes interviewing him during “JebFest” last month and he sure sounds like someone with an eye on the oval office to me.  He talked a lot about social mobility and the barriers to it and about how he’d combine “hard edged” policies with a variety of supports.  New ‘School of Thought’ column at TIME has much of that interview including Bush’s take on President Obama’s education policy, Arne Duncan, where he parts ways with part of his brother’s education policy, and how he looks at education and poverty.

9 Replies to “Jeb Bush: In His Own Words”

  1. I am the Founder of Stop Bullying Now Foundation ,Inc and the Founder of Protect Public Schools, Inc.

    No one asks my opinion because they do not want to hear the solution.

    The problem with all this non sense with JebFest is that they do not understand that in order to improve public education you have to do it from the inside out and NOT from the outside in like all the elected officials want to do ..it will NEVER work…Charter Schools is NOT the answer….In Florida they think privatizing is a solution and they are wrong….561-374-0673

  2. Charter operators running the show in NYC:

    A high school for at-risk kids is facing eviction from its home to make room for a well-connected charter school to expand…the city is planning to create more space in the Brandeis building by moving the Innovation Diploma Plus school to a Washington Heights building that lacks science labs and a gym…The move also means the school’s teen moms will lose access to day care because Brandeis is one of a few dozen locations where day care is provided for students — NY Daily News

  3. After commendably mentioning the importance of poverty, Jeb says, “To me there are several ways to get out of this. One is to have a spiritual revival.”

    WHAT? I see, so schools and kids and districts and teachers need to get right with Christ. “Or building a high-growth economy where there are opportunities across the economic ladder, changing job training programs and things like that.” The high growth economy of the 1950s, for example, is notable for the opportunities afforded members of the “negro” race.

    “There are a lot of reasons why people are in poverty. The difference today is that increasingly they are in perpetual poverty. That is so un-American and such a tragedy.” Un-American? Has Jeb ever taken a college class in American history? What planet does this guy live on? Hey America, don’t think like Jeb is some kind of more intelligent version of his older brother. He’s cut from the same cloth and honestly, he sounds more ignorant than W.

    “One is to have a spiritual revival. I’m not an expert on that, way above my pay grade, but that’s one path historically we’ve seen, where wholesome, loving family life changes the course and direction of children’s plight and their future.” No, that is wrong. That is not correct. He’s pulling this out of his backside. This has never, ever happened in the history of the United States. Remember, the context is about poverty in America and Jeb’s response is to spew nonsense blather.

    “But without transforming the education system, where there’s access to high quality education, it doesn’t matter the zip code in which you live — I think we’re trapping a whole generation, not just kids at the poverty level. That is so dangerous for a country like ours that is based on the exact opposite premise.” I’m about to have a coronary here. This country is based on platitudes. When it was founded, some people were considered PROPERTY, ok? So Jeb, don’t go giving ME a history lesson on race relations and economic theory. YOU live in a bubble of ignorance. It’s nice and all you married a brown person but that says NOTHING about how you think about your governance style.

    “Yeah, there is a center. We’re a part of it if you call it a center. I’m getting nervous to be called a centrist. Breaking out in a rash. I’ve been accused of that now three or four times today. I’m pretty damn conservative to be honest with you.” Yes, he IS pretty damn conservative. Pappy Bush was a centrist with both feet (mostly) in reality. His sons, not so much. W got educated during his two terms in office and moderated. Jeb appears not to have learned much from his family’s experience with, what do you call it? Ah, yes, the real world.

    “I get tired of hearing people, well-meaning people, talking about African-American kids or Hispanic kids as if they’re all the same. Which isn’t true.”

    Oh really? What a revelation! I had no idea “well-meaning” people were doing that. Whoo boy, I didn’t see that one. Did Andrew call Jeb out on such an obvious straw-man? Tune in for the next episode, same time, same channel. But hey, here’s a great question from Andrew, “What’s the role of poverty in education?”

    “I would reverse the question: education impacts poverty, not the other way around. If we don’t empower families to be able to have a quality education, then their children for the first time in American history, truly the first time, will not have the same economic opportunities. That’s not speculation. The evidence is in.” NO, THIS IS BS. Like all of it. I’m proofreading my post and still, I can’t believe a powerful adult politician in 2012 would utter such nonsense.

    Truth be told, Jeb Bush doesn’t really have any kind of plan for education. And to be fair, the subject has been so divisively prosecuted in the public and private marketplaces of belief and evidence that the likelihood that the USA will arrive at some kind of national consensus on educational policy is a tad above ZERO.

  4. Agree. Jeff.

    More charter fun, or how to write for the Latenight Show:

    New Schools for Chicago director Phyllis Lockett said she doesn’t agree with the way the district calculates performance levels. She said low-scoring charter schools featured at the expo do a good job at things that aren’t necessarily measured—like getting kids into college. And Lockett said the new schools fair has a broader goal: to change parents’ thinking about schools.

    “The purpose of the expo is really to give parents first and foremost this notion and the sense that they do have a choice, that they should do their research,” Lockett said.

    She said parents will receive guides that help them figure out what questions to ask as they shop for schools.

    While Lockett takes issue with how CPS calculates its school performance levels, her organization has built a campaign around them: the “123 Campaign” is meant to raise awareness of the 123,000 CPS students “stuck in failing schools,” the New Schools website said. The 123,000 figure is the total enrollment of students in Level 3 schools.

    Lockett said she didn’t know that’s where the 123,000 figure came from. She said she got the number from the school district.

    “We’ve just been quoting what the former superintendent had reported,” Lockett said.

    http://www.wbez.org/news/charter-schools-failing-grades-still-featured-quality-schools-fair-104271

  6. Hey Phillip, that’s some return there. I especially liked the $ spent on advertising and media. I then see their website and I’ll be gosh darned if any of it makes sense. More disturbingly, I have begun to examine how far the tentacles reach. I googled “Education Reform Now Joe Williams” and the first hits were for DFER. Go figure. Page 21 is a hoot. What is most galling is that these “reformers” feel the need to hide behind astroturf organizations and sketchy front outfits. I’m really not trying to be snarky here (well, ok, a little) but seriously, this is how the mafia operates.

    These folks sound like they actually believe in all the high-minded rhetoric they spew and studies they perform or endorse. I mean, it takes someone pretty intelligent to write the briefs, studies, papers, and position papers and they have to know they are, at some level, not being truthful in intent. I get there are a lot of TFA’ers too naive to know what is going on and think it is their awesomeness that has landed them sweet jobs in .orgs but eventually, don’t they get they are being pwned?

  8. A really simple request for the education reformation movement.

    1. Would you please publish the names of all TFA ‘rs, their committed contractual time, how long they spent on the job, in what capacity, verifiable state proctored test results that show significant academic gains for all students, and the amount of federal dollars that were spent per candidate.

    2. Also, would you please provide all data used to make your conclusion so that it may be verified and retested by an established non-partial auditing agency.

    How soon do you think you can have this done?

    I am open minded, and if you can convince me of your success then I would become a big supporter of your movement.

    At that time I would admit I was wrong.

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