On July 2nd, 2013 Secretary of Education Arne Duncan will deliver a Keynote Address at The National Alliance of Public Charter Schools (NAPCS) annual conference. Secretary Duncan will speak alongside former NYC Chancellor and current Amplify CEO Joel Klein and Armando Christian Pérez, AKA Pitbull, musician and founder of SLAM Public Charter School in Miami.

Pitbull's music is blatantly misogynistic and disrespectful towards women. It is in remarkably poor taste for NAPCS to hold Pitbull up as an exemplary "civic leader" and charter school founder. But for the Secretary of Education to appear at a conference espousing Pitbull as the epitome of the conference's theme, “Delivering on the Dream,” is simply unconscionable.

This is especially insulting when on the same day the National Education Association (NEA) is holding their Annual Meeting and Representative Assembly. There the Secretary could speak alongside actual educators like Linda Darling-Hammond, Professor of Education at the Stanford University School of Education and Dr. Jerry D. Weast, Former Superintendent of Schools, Montgomery County, MD.

It is deeply troubling that on July 2, 2013 the Secretary of Education is speaking alongside a CEO and a pop star before 4,000 charter school advocates, and not alongside an Education Professor and a Superintendent before 9,000 public school teachers and education support professionals.

Tell the Secretary he is making the wrong choice. Ask him to support real educators and cancel his appearance at the NAPCS conference.