Arne Duncan at King Middle School

If you have time, take a look at this video from Portland's WCSH-6. The 3 minutes of video provide a fascinating text of things said, implied, and ignored in the effort jump on the King bandwagon - a bandwagon that I'm on by the way. Some points:

First, Expeditionary Learning is not "so-called,"as the reporter described it, nor is the term interchangeable with "experiential learning," a wonderful term but far more generic in the sense that Maine Public Radio used it. Expeditionary Learning Schools has, over 17 years, "grown from a small adventurous group of ten schools into a network the size of a substantial urban school district." It is what in school innovation circles is described as a "replication model:" a (usually) non-profit organization that works with existing public schools and/or starts new public schools - often charter schools and often as part of the Gates Foundation's high school reform work. Why is this significant?

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Strange bedfellows

When Secretary of Education Arne Duncan visits King Middle School tomorrow, he can claim credit to being part of the team that got some of the fiercest fiscal conservatives in Maine to defend President Obama. How did he do this? Am I about to write what I think I am - that the Maine Heritage Policy Center is right about something?

In the wake of Maine's dismal Race to the Top performance, Mr. Duncan is, among other things, cheering teachers up and trying to convince them that the Obama administration does not have it in for them. If he has it in for anyone, it is for those in positions of power and influence who continually seek to protect their institutional interest at the expense of our public school students.

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