Duncan Advocates Segregated Total Compliance While Giving Lip Service to Control "Restraint and Seclusion"

The hundreds of millions of vulture capital dollars that have gone into the development of the KIPP empire have yielded a much more substantial result than just the few dozen total compliance cults spread across the wide span of U.S. media markets. These segregated cadillacs of child penal pedagogy have inspired a near universal acceptance among urban public schools and urban charter chain gangs of a virulent form of total-control, no excuses regimentation that extends all the way down into urban kindergartens.

Closing the achievement gap without doing anything about socioeconomic disadvantage remains the pipe dream the modern day eugenicists at the Gates Foundation, and it will require a whole new regimen of mind management and behavior buttressing among the children of the poor: KIPP's kiddie-corporate model of shot-gunned happiness treatments through the use of Seligman's positive psychology dog-training tricks is now seen as the intervention to imitate across urban America.

And so it is with a degree of irony that Arne Duncan will never be able to appreciate that ED has just issued new guidance on "restraint and seclusion." Are we not supposed to notice that ED has also advocated KIPP's unique brand of psychological neutering as the final solution to problem of poverty among children? From ED:

Today, the Department posted a summary of state laws, regulations, policies, and guidelines regarding the use of restraint and seclusion techniques in schools:http://www.ed.gov/policy/seclusion/seclusion-state-summary.html. The summary is a result of U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s letter issued to Chief State School Officers on July 31, 2009, urging a review of current state policies and guidelines regarding the use of restraint and seclusion in schools. Since August, the Department’s regional Comprehensive Centers have researched and compiled information on state-by-state restraint and seclusion techniques.

“Restraint and seclusion policies should be reviewed regularly to prevent the abuse of such techniques and ensure that schools provide a safe learning environment for all of our children,” said Duncan. “I am pleased that many states and territories have begun to work with their stakeholders to develop or revise current practices. The Department will continue to serve as a resource throughout the process to ensure that all students are safe and protected.”