The Department of Education announced Tuesday that Secretary Arne Duncan will participate in an #AskArne Twitter Town Hall on next Wednesday, August 24, at 1:30 p.m. EDT.
Veteran education journalist John Merrow will moderate the town hall that will also be broadcast live on the Department of Education’s ustream channel.
Twitter users can submit questions to the Secretary using the hashtag #AskArne.
Many of us will be teaching at that time, but questions can be submitted at any time prior to the event.
A couple of weeks ago, on the eve of the Save Our Schools March, I wrote about my own experience asking Secretary Duncan a question in person.
After pursuing answers from this administration for the past year and a half, I have come to the conclusion that they do not have very good ones. After one of Secretary Duncan’s press secretaries accused me of misrepresenting President Obama’s remarks a few months ago, I was allowed to pose several tough questions. The answers I got really did not address the concerns I was raising. But I feel the process of dialogue is still very informative. I do not believe in demonizing anyone in this debate. As teachers we want what is best for our students, and we start from that place, and our own observations of how policies are affecting them, and we do our best to hold our leaders accountable for what is happening. I want to take advantage of every possible forum to make it crystal clear that, contrary to the Department of Ed’s assertions, teachers are NOT in favor of Race to the Top, and we have major concerns about where we are headed.
A search on Twitter reveals the questions have already started. I would like to encourage people to share your questions in the comments below -- whether you tweet or not. If you see a question you especially want answered, retweet it. Let’s get this Town Hall started!
Here are some of the questions that have been tweeted in the past day or so:
Martha Infante asks:
Teachers and educators have not been tapped for their expertise to help shape federal policy. Will this continue in 2011-12?
Clickety Keys asks:
If Finland, Korea, Singapore have better ed systems, why are we not following their lead w/ more support for teachers & families?
Rachel Levy asks:
Many public school educators & families have lost confidence in your admin's policies & leadership. What will you do to regain it?
Regina Navejar asks:
Comment on WI voucher schools taking fed tax $, not having qualified teachers (some), & not being required to post test scores?
I would like to ask the same question I asked Secretary Duncan two weeks ago:
If u label bottom 5% of schools failures, and subject teachers to firings and stigma, who will choose to work in high poverty schools?
What question would you ask? Please share below -- and remember, tweets are limited to 140 characters, including punctuation and spaces!