arne duncan

Literally tens of thousands of Los Angeles public schoolteachers and support staff are on strike this week, demanding that the wealthy elites who run LA's school district address the desperate need for more resources and supports for their students. But just weeks before the strike began, former U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan wrote an op-ed in The Hill essentially telling educators to back off their demands because there's not enough money to fund them - even though those public school educators live in one of the wealthiest states in the nation.

Let's be clear. Arne Duncan has never taught a day in his life. He sent his children to an elite private school with small class sizes and great resources. He landed his job as CEO of Chicago Public Schools through insider ties--where he pushed policies that hurt our public school students' access to the very same resources his own children had. He's pushed endlessly for school privatization, and he's been a national proponent of the teacher blame game as a way to dodge the real need for more resources for public education. Now he wants to silence Los Angeles teachers who are demanding the very supports for their students that Duncan's children received--in a state with the fifth largest economy on the planet.