Randi Weingarten wrote a letter to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, criticizing his sympathetic response to the Vergara decision, which held that tenure and seniority were unconstitutional in California.
She wrote:
“This week, we needed your leadership; to demonstrate that teacher and student interests are aligned; that we must press—60 years after Brown v. Board—for educational equity; that it takes more than a focus on teachers to improve public education; that, when it comes to teachers, we need to promote strategies that attract, retain and support them in classrooms; and that, of course, removing teachers who can’t do their job in quick and effective ways is important, but so is due process, so teachers can take creative risks that enhance teaching and learning.
“But instead, you added to the polarization. And teachers across the country are wondering why the secretary of education thinks that stripping them of their due process is the way to help all children succeed.”
But Arne Duncan showed that he IS a leader: a leader in the effort to strip teachers of due process and a leader in the well-funded campaign to erode public confidence in public schools. He befriends the privatization movement. He likes to close public schools and turn them over to private operators. He is a cheerleader for charters. He admires those like Michelle Rhee who spend vast sums of money to remove any job protections for teachers. His silence and inaction on the subjects of poverty and segregation are notable. Yes, he is a leader, but on the other side.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Arne Duncan is to U.S. education what Robert McNamara was to U.S. defense. A clueless zealot for extraordinarily damaging policies.
McNamara did some serious reflection late in his life and questioned many of decisions. Wisdom comes with age. Wonder if Duncan will get smarter as he gets grayer? Of course, assuming he just isn’t on one big audition for a nice job at Pearson.
Randi blasts Duncan! Wow! What a strong response!!! Heaven forbid she would actually call for real action along with Van Roekel of the NEA.
Why was anyone shocked by Arne Duncan’s response to the Vergara verdict? Race to the Top was designed to strip teachers of due process across the nation. The unions signed on to Race to the Top and pushed it down their members throats. A couple of bad VAM scores and it doesn’t matter if you have tenure or not, you’re fired.
I was shocked because I don’t think the US Department of Education or the Obama Administration should be validating and endorsing a trial judge’s opinion before it goes to appeal.
I think it’s unseemly and completely inappropriate. They shouldn’t be weighing in at all prior to appeal, let alone participating in what sounded like a political campaign with ed reformers fanning out to media to also endorse the opinion.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Duncan personally asked Welch to fund the lawsuit against teacher tenure. Thanks to the wisdom of Governor Brown, California did not apply for RTTT funds or the NCLB waiver. He couldn’t let the largest state in the union get away with retaining teacher tenure. Since they had a governor who was smart enough not to be duped by Arne’s bribe money, he had to find another means to end tenure. Hence, file a ridiculous lawsuit in the name of the civil rights of minority children funded by a billionaire.
Not quite accurate, Kafka. Please see my comment below re Jerry Brown and CC.
Duncan is an butt-wipe. He was an fool in Chicago and now is one one a bigger stage. His response is not surprising and he should not be the leader of a national education department that does not support teacher’s rights. Throw the bum out.
Maybe she could ask him to publicly comment on this, in the same way he publicly commented on the case.
The expert who testified says the numbers the judge cited in the opinion are “guesstimates” and “pulled out of thin air” :
“This seemed like a fairly important piece of the decision—if you’re going to argue in court that a state law is dooming children to second-rate educations, you ought to be able to quantify the problem. Politically, it also seemed liked a pretty awful indictment of the state government if officials knew for certain that so many useless teachers were lounging around California’s classrooms. But where did this number come from?
Nowhere, it turns out. It’s made up. Or a “guesstimate,” as David Berliner, the expert witness Treu quoted, explained to me when I called him on Wednesday. It’s not based on any specific data, or any rigorous research about California schools in particular. “I pulled that out of the air,” says Berliner, an emeritus professor of education at Arizona State University. “There’s no data on that. That’s just a ballpark estimate, based on my visiting lots and lots of classrooms.” He also never used the words “grossly ineffective.”
Does the Obama Administration always rely on “guesstimates” and numbers “pulled out of thin air” when attacking public schools?
http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2014/06/judge_strikes_down_california_s_teacher_tenure_laws_a_made_up_statistic.html
Chiara: critical info.
Thank you so very much for sharing this with us. A classic example of Andrew Lang’s observation:
“He uses statistics like a drunken man uses lamp posts — for support rather than for illumination.”
This will provide the usual unfounded grist for the mill of edufrauds and edubully enforcers and accountabully underlings in the service of the leading charterites/privatizers. The 1-3% “grossly ineffective” will make the rounds the MSM in ever-increasing reverberating echoes, while David Berliner’s clarification will be contested as “urban legend” promulgated by “union thugs” and “defenders of the education status quo.”
Another excellent example why this blog is so important.
😎
Yes, Chiara…the “guesstimate” was an eye opener. Who takes a statement like that as fact? Both Berliner and Chetty used phony stats, and this judge seems to ignore that. Kind of a Lance Ito moment for us.
The question is why did the state let this so called expert get away with this guessimate. Shouldn’t he have questioned it or at least put on a contrary opinion
Seems like a no-brainer, doesn’t it?
David Berliner IS an expert. He wrote the Manufactured Crisis in the mid-90’s, foreshadowing the progress of the reform movent. Google him. He’s great.
A fish rots from the head down. Obama, who was never smart enough to be President of the U.S., has done so much damage to our country. It is evident in his appointment of this loser, Arne Duncan. George Bush also did a lot of damage with his two terms. We’ve had almost 16 years of fools leading our country. It’s sad, but it is true. You can’t get President of the U.S. anymore if you are an intelligent person.
How much of the Obama Administration publicly endorsing the trial judge’s opinion was political? Didn’t Governor Brown famously defy some of Duncan’s “reforms”? The opinion implicates California state government (based on made-up numbers, as it turns out, but still). Is that what this is about?
After much input from educators, and legislators who were educators, Brown made the decision not to allow CC testing this year. He saw the damage of testing before materials were even available to teach (as we know, teach to the tests probably). So testing which was to start last January at the mandate of Obama/Duncan, was postponed.
Maybe if the AFT/UFT had taken a stand from Day 1 when it was clear to so many where the entire ed deform movement was heading, we wouldn’t be in this position. That has caused many teachers to raise the question of: Did their own unions betray them first?
Precisely. I get so tired of hearing that you have to play “inside baseball” to remain relevant or “have a seat at the table.” Randi’s got a seat at the kids’ table, while rank and file are starving out in the cold. You KNOW Randi’s going to be gung-ho for Hillary, because, ya know, where else ya gonna go?
As with climate change, we’re probably past the point of no return with regard to teacher rights. In ten years most of the urban districts will be 100% at will temp jobs and most suburban ones will no longer have due process. If things are going to change for the better, it’s going to have come down to white middle class parents with voting clout.
I agree. Teachers need allies in this war – parents. We can’t win it alone because we are fighting on two ideological fronts. Right now, parents are isolationists. They have too many other issues to deal with – jobs, health care, college costs, aging parents, crumbling communities. When they realize that good schools and teachers are important to many of these issues, I believe they will respond. Until then, teachers must keep fighting the Thermopylaen battle.
Agree Mathvale that parents must step up to save our public schools, but in California, with the parent trigger law, The Parent Empowerment Act, too many duped or uninformed parents are manipulated to take down their school in favor of promised improvements which turn out to be an embedded charter school.
Since the CSUN Parents Forum, I do have hope that (very slowly) inner city parents are being educated by their community activists as to how bad LAUSD really is for the entire community. But we still see little response from parents, or teachers, in the second largest school district in the country.
Actually, in a report in the LA Times yesterday, parents are raising a legal issue about Deasy appointing only his choices to the oversight committee mandated to be watchdogs of his use of funds. He chose all the parents for this group and they are voiceless accept as rubber stamps.
I am delighted that the group of parents who just came out against him, have the courage to defy him, and Eli Broad. I hope this plays out in court, but not before Judge Treu.
Sorry..rushing to type…meant except…not accept. Parents MUST speak out.
Well stated Norm. Duncan was never a friend to public schools or teachers. Hence, Randi did very little to advertise the first SOS Save Our Schools march on Washington which thanks to your efforts, I was able to attend. Very few union reps and classroom teachers were even made aware of this protest. And when Duncan speaks, let’s remember he also speaks for Obama. But which union leader’s response came first…..Chicago’s Lewis or Randi??? And will this response end with words, or would it be followed by action like a nationwide rally?
Supreme Court case Harris vs Quinn, at the end of June, is “the most important labor case the court has heard in decades”. Joel Rogers, in March, described its significance, in The Nation.
Is the AFT involved?
If the plaintiffs win say good bye to unions. Every state will be a Right to Work state and membership will drop to near zero.
I believe they have betrayed us. Randi has said done things that show where her loyalties are. She is the most overtly culpable as she has accepted millions from Broad, Gates and Waltons. She also accepted her own pair of lucrative charter schools according to sine reports. She disparaged teachers in rubber rooms as crazy or criminals, denying them due process as eagerly as Bloomberg and Klein did. Last summer she warned ” bad ” teachers the unions would not have their backs so they better resign now and save us all a lot of trouble. She backed CCSS and instead of speaking out against Vergara, she has been busy helping Gates save the common core, even appealing to teachers for help in making that mess fly. Yeah, veteran teachers will do that so it’s ready for the interns in line to replace them as administrative ambushes and test scores level their careers to rubble. Now Randi, knowing full well Ravitch is all that stands between her and a mob of angry teachers who ought to burn her at the stake so she knows how it feels, is making unconvincing noises in defense of due process and aimed at Arne Duncan’s ear. Big Deal! She takes our dues but she works for the enemy. Maybeit is hitting her now that by betraying teachers, she ultimately betrayed the union and of course, herself. I bet she has enough money to uffer the blows most teachers can’t . She may even get a job as a consultant for Teach Plus, students first or E4E. I wonder if she realizes how many teachers have lost their jobs, their houses, and hope. . You now that thing Obama dangled in front of us when worked to get him elected only to discover he too is a fake.
EXACTLY. That is the question
Agreed! When Randi invited Gates to the 2010 AFT convention in Seattle to speak about his “education policies(sic)”, that was the first betrayal writing on the wall.
The Vergara decision and the drooling of the ed deformers like Arne Duncan saw the door opened, they have pushed their ways in and it will create more destruction and havoc in our nation.
Arne Duncan has thrown the full weight of the Obama administration behind the ‘deformers’, privatizers and charlatans who are destroying our public schools. On element of the process of destruction is delegitimizing the worth of teachers and attacking their hard earned due process rights.
Randi Weingarten’s letter to Duncan was based on the mistaken assumptions that Duncan has any interest in cooperating with teachers unions and that he understands the causal connection of socioeconomic status and educational achievement. Duncsn has not demonstrated a scintilla of interest in these ideas. He is in the thrall snd owned by the enemies of teachers and public education.
In summary, the Weingarten letter is a piece of puffery that demonstrates, once again, that she still thinks she can influence, have a veritable ‘seat at the table’ with the ‘deforners’ and influence their behavior. She continues to continue her trek to maintain her power while not fighting hard to protect her real constituency: teachers, kids and public schools. The AFT membership must get rid of her before they are completely stripped of their due process rights and their jobs.
“Arne Duncan has thrown the full weight of the Obama administration behind the ‘deformers’”
He really has. Has the Obama Administration broken with the ed reform lobby on anything? The devotion to charter schools and charter school promoters really belies the claims of “we’re agnostics!”
Is there a single former Obama Administration official who works for a public ed lobbying group? I see their names all over the ed reform roster. They’re running all kinds of ed reform groups. Did any of them go thru the revolving door in government and actually join a group that promotes public education?
Margaret Spelling is on the board of the Broad Academy.
John a,
I’d say Weingarten’s letter is more even cynical than that: it is really directed at the teachers she (mis)represents, by faking outrage at the actions of the so-called reformers whom she has enabled.
Randi’s not on the teachers’ side. It’s too cozy in that DC office for that.
I agree with you. Weingarten calls on Duncan to “lead”. But this IS his leadership. This is precisely what he has been leading towards from Day 1. You cannot call on someone to “lead” when they already are leading in a destructive manner. You call on someone to change direction or to stop.
Frankly, I don’t see Duncan as a leader at all. He is simply a mouthpiece for the reformers who are not-so-subtly pushing from behind, both with money and with actual people in the office of the USDE. I think Duncan is simply a follower. Your mileage may vary, of course.
We know all of this, can’t afford grand gestures and finally, we are nearly out of time. Indignant letter to Duncan? Easy for the public to ignore and never encounter.
Randi, go to media school or stay off of Blitzer’s corporate CNN mouthpiece interviews. That was a very valuable moment wasted, and should have been “staffed” by a smart, articulate, well-rehearsed classroom teacher. We needed someone who would not take one second of Wofie’s ignorant abuse, someone who grabbed the nitty-gritty of the issue, argued back hot, rapid fire and oozing credibility. This letter does not compensate for the lost opportunity.
I’m not a teacher or a union member and Duncan’s a deal breaker for me, with national Democrats. Republicans don’t support public schools either, so I’ll take a pass on the DC politicians on the midterm ballot.
I’m not endorsing the destruction of public schools with my vote. I think it’s an epic, historic mistake that the public will deeply regret. If we lose public schools we’ll never get them back, and I don’t want a public education system like the Obama Administration health insurance system, where we pick a private provider off an exchange and become consumers rather than owners. That’s not a good deal for the public.
Chiara, spot on.
I recently told a friend of mine that I’m a man without a party. And therefore, without a meaningful vote. Republicans screw us and Democrats betray us.
Really, not only do we have to fight these deformers who issue from the Repubs but the Demos also are supporting these measures to get some of that campaign money. We have no support except the public and we need to inform them correctly. The unions, have been bought. Our struggle is definitely going to have to come from the grassroots.
Our narrative needs to be heard. When I talk to those outside of education-they have very little understanding of the issues. …and some of our issues, have huge signifiicance to what democracy is all about. We need to get our voices heard and with clarity. This blog is an important step towards that purpose-what do we need to do next?
Randi, when are you going to announce the national teacher walkout to end VAM, high-stakes testing, and the loss of professional autonomy?
Teachers in Mexico, Australia,Great Britain, and Venezuela have stood up to the bullies and remaining in solidarity until their voices are heard and the bullies back off.
We need YOU to lead, Randi. Stop the triangulation that has cost us our profession and endangered the very existence of public education in this country.
Stand up to the bullies and say NO MORE!
Exactly what I’ve been wondering. When are we all – every public school teacher in America – going on strike?
In many states it is illegal for teachers to strike. We’d have to have a critical mass so we couldn’t be all fired at once. At least at my school, that critical mass will never happen. Most of the teachers have their heads in the sand: “I’m a good teacher, so they’ll never fire me.”
My forebears in WV faced gunfire from both the hired thugs of the mining bosses and the federal government. Many died to earn the right to organize and collectively bargain and to end the abusive practices of the owners.
Sometimes you have to make a sacrifice in order to achieve a good. When teachers are prepared to stop being rule followers and start being agitators then we may have a chance to save our professions and public education.
My own state is “right to work.” Striking or any kind of overt action is now illegal here and punishable by huge fines and jail time. That way they effectively mute us and prevent us from acting on our own behalf. We have to be willing to suffer and sacrifice if we want a chance of winning this war.
I will share my favorite Frederick Douglass quote:
“Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are people who want crops without ploughing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”
I can’t give up myself. I’ve spent the better part of 30 years fighting for LGBT equality and against HIV/AIDS. Many people told me it was too much, too soon and that America wasn’t ready. We needed to go along to get along and “prove” that we are just like them. We had to work within the system, not against it. Etc, etc.
If we had followed that advice we would be watching couples marry in joy in state after state. We would not see people serving openly and proudly in the military. We would not have seen the Supreme Court overturn laws that declared our very existence illegal.
These battles can be won but not without cost and sacrifice. We need to determine if our profession and our schools matter enough to us to commit ourselves to the battle, accepting the casualties and losses as we go.
As Mother Jones so famously said about the coal miners’ fight:
“Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.”
Great statement of principles, Chris. Rarely see Mother Jones quoted but your comment is so apt.
Good for you being willing to sacrifice your life and profession for this. But if you are not backed up by colleagues, as I have not been, it will be for nothing.
The Obama Administration and the “Center for Union Facts” are on the same page, apparently.
Incredible. What’s it like to work for the Labor Department in that administration? That must be awkward.
I bet they don’t get invited to cocktail parties – stuck in some federal agency backwater for the unpopular kids, completely ignored and shunned 🙂
After Obama sat quietly by while his buddy, Rahm, destroyed the Chicago public school system, I have support for him. Bring on Hillary. I hope she doesn’t disappoint.
Bring on Elizabeth Warren !!!
Hillary would surely continue the same policies as Obama. She and Bill are even more in league with the corporations. People forget her lifetime activities, Rose Law Firm and all of it. Her daughter went only to elitist schools. NAFTA, which was Bill’s legislation, rapidly killed off middle class American workers, and the double whammy of Welfare to Work put these folks on skid row where they still abide. Then the collusion with Phil Gramm and Larry Summers to bury Glass-Steagall and impose Gramm Leach Bliley on us all, destroyed the economies of the world. We are still trying to recover. Bill said we got a twofer when he was elected…no reason to think the Clintons are not still a twofer.
Forget about Hillary. I watched the Sawyer interview and she has no coherent argument for anything.
Rick Berman brags about his access.
I considered writing Duncan a letter, but I soon came to realize that a conversation with my dining room table would probably be more fruitful.
Talking to myself would be more fruitful than trying to get Duncan or anyone in the Obama administration or Congress to listen. My representative is a former classroom teacher, but he has also bought into the deform politics. It’s disgusting.
You know who would have made a great president? That young man who gave the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. What ever happened to him?
Been wondering that myself Bob. I did just send one more “I’m disgusted” letter to the White House on their Conact Us web page.
Teachers should start a “movement” to reform DC.
Campaign finance rules that are actually enforced, ethics rules, a ban on moving from government to lobbying and back again, transparency that doesn’t involve personally ponying up for a FOIA request.
I think that would be hugely popular with the public, and, well, you are “the public”.
What is the congressional approval rating? 8%? The presidential approval rating isn’t much better. They’re not adding a lot of value. Should they really be focusing on California teacher tenure? Why don’t they reform their own profession? Because everyone involved benefits from it, except for the public?
Chiara…you are right that a mass teachers movement would grab the attention of the nation, but despite the abysmal rating of Congress, it seems impossible to get a united voice from teachers.
We see Diane working hard to do this, and we see Bad Ass Teachers and also Leonie organizing on the east coast, but in my state, California, it is almost impossible to even get a quorum of 4 teachers to raise their voices.
There are wonderful local LA area retired teachers such as our own ‘educator’ and ‘linda johnson’ who write letters to editors, and blog with such intelligence, but they are by far in the minority. I plead with teachers every day to work in their own self interest by organizing, to little avail.
For years, Lenny Isenberg has been trying to get wounded and jailed LAUSD teachers on board to join forces in legal battles, also to slim response.
Maybe it is that we live in the land of the Lotus Eaters, and the eternally good weather keeps them zoned out. But as Mother Jones was quoted above, “…fight like hell for the living….”
“Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
Till it’s gone”
MathVale: with thanks to you and profuse apologies to Joni Mitchell—
They took all the public schools
And put ’em in a school museum.
And they charged all the people
A dollar and a half just to see ‘em.
Don’t it always seem as though
You don’t know what you got ‘till it’s gone.
They razed public ed
Put up a parking lot.
😎
Why is Duncan still in office? If we take Bob’s McNamara analogy, ultimately McNamera is
to LBJ what Duncan is to President Obama. LBJ spent his final days agonizing about
Vietnam; he knew he was responsible. I admire and respect the President: However, If President Obama is on the side of
Public school teachers and education, he should fire Duncan and appoint someone
who has the best interests of the students , teachers and society at heart.
The fact that President Obama appointed Duncan as Ed. Sec. raised serious questions about whether he was on the side of public school teachers and education. The fact that Duncan is still on the job, as far as I’m concerned, ANSWERS those questions resoundingly.
It is evident that Obama was a Manchurian Candidate and he has not been a supporter of public ed from the beginning, but rather, his appointments to his cabinet and his advisors, have since Day 1, leaned far Right even if they were/are nominally Dems. Summers and Rubin and Immelt and Emanuel, and most others, are supporters of Wall Street and big business and ultimately the 1%.
I am astounded that these naïve comments are made so late in the game. Obama and Duncan are Siamese twins…joined at the brain and the heart. They are united in their currying favor of hedge fund managers, not teachers.
Is this a joke Marek? There is no evidence whatsoever that Obama is on the side of teachers. His buddy Rahm is destroying public education in Chicago. Arne serves at the president’s pleasure. Randi is our enemy. Wake up and smell the coffee folks.
Very good point NJ teacher…Randi has done much harm…and our California unions are not shining beacons either.
Once labor unions are gone, who will DC politicians blame their failures on?
They should keep one or two around. They’re wonderful scapegoats for all the ills in this country.
I ask myself this question a lot. And my answer is ultimately what it always is: the poor. Union dismantling is almost totally bipartisan, as is ed “reform.” One small area of difference between Dems and Reps right now is that Dems usually support unemployment and safety net provisions. But once unions are out of the way, both parties will train their guns on the poor and the elderly. You’re already seeing the contours of it now with Obama’s full court press for chained CPI. The purpose of the state is to weaken collectivism.
It’s been extraordinary to watch the discussion on income inequality and stagnant (and falling) wages.
When it started, we were discussing what politicians and the business community did to cause or exacerbate this trend.
Then it was shifted to to how working people themselves and teachers in public schools are responsible. We’re all either poorly trained or lazy which is why wages are falling.
Nice dodge! I applaud the political and business community for their successful effort to completely avoid responsibility and accountability, for anything, by blaming other people.
Chiara…telling the big lie often enough works. They learned from Goebbels and use his business model.
I agree Chiara. That is the main difference between Republicans and Dems. While both agree on ed deform, the Dems see the teacher unions, esp Randi, as allies who can sell their policies to the members. No wildcat strikes with teacher unions around to make sure the members never get too militant. Thus Cuomo can give away the school system to charters and the unions will not oppose him. Randi has woven herself and the AFT/UFT/NYSUT into the very fabric of the Democratic Party and they are now like Siamese twins- inseparable. Thus, teachers in the classroom are left to their own devices to organize resistance while the union bureaucrats are very adept at managing the membership. The only option rank and file teachers have is to organize their own internal structures – as lobby groups internally to force their union leaders to act in their interests or as alternative caucuses to try to replace them.
What Diane does – and she does this for all sides – is act as a sort of ombudsman — yes Randi gets some cover in this post by making it look like she is making a stand. But as Michael points out this is a message to the membership – appearance over reality – watch what they do – like support the ed deform gov of Conn over Jonathan Pelto – not what they say. If Obama ran for election tomorrow they would support him.
And they will support Hillary — even through she and Bill were original ed deformers from back in their days in Ark in the 80s.
Remember this?
“I was surely not the only person who thought of this piece when I heard that President Obama’s Tuesday stop for his big tour to spread his economic message was an Amazon fulfillment center in Chattanooga. This is what he sees as an ideal venue to discuss a “better bargain for the middle class,” the subject of Tuesday’s speech?”
These places are sweatshops. They’re all temps and they’re pushed constantly to speed up. There’s a current class action suit for wage theft, related to how the workers don’t get paid for the time they spend going thru the elaborate “anti-theft” security system.
My mouth just dropped open. I couldn’t believe when I saw it.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/114077/obamas-amazon-warehouse-visit-sign-times
Is that right, Hillary an old deformer since Arkansas. Disappointing. What you say about the leadership of the unions is so true. Their main utility to deformers is controlling the membership. Every bad decision we have made as a union was endorsed by the leadership. Win 24% raise and voluntarily give 10% back. Approve an evaluation that includes VAM and have the district violate it from day one. Leadership in our unions is suspect for sure.
Chiara…think world history. Think Stalin, Mao, Hitler, think ALEC…think fascism.
So Randi wrote a nice letter. Great! No what? Where is her call to ACTION!!! When she was the UFT president she was asked under what conditions she would call for a strike. RW responded that the loss of tenure would provoke a strike. Still waiting. Such a major disruption would force parents to confront/understand how education is being controlled by a few in the billionaire boys club that makes a mockery of our “democracy”. (and personal financial gain the BBC members absolutely need)
Sternly worded letters are appeasement devices. They cost nothing, they do nothing, but hey, she’s “got my back!”
Isn’t she the same genius who got her picture taken partying with Bloomberg and who supported Common Core?
When Duncan publicly hinted in a June 9 press conference that he would hold Oklahoma accountable for dropping CC, no word from Weingarten. I suppose Duncan was “leading” then:
As for Duncan’s position on the Vergara outcome, it is in line with his position on teacher job security from 2001 and his appointment as schools CEO by former Chicago Mayor Richard Daley. Nothing new.
I agree with my rational friend in arms, Mercedes. Teachers and public ed are pawns in a far larger political game.
There is an old union song about the struggle to organize coal miners. It has a refrain: “Either you are a union man or a scab for J.H. Blair…” Taking into account the gender issues of those times, this refrain is applicable to Randi Weingarten. By her own actions, she has demonstrated whose side she is on….and it is not the side of her union membership.
Arne Duncan is hopeless. He is reprehensible, beyond disrepute. Even discussing his ‘deforming’ public statements and policy decisions is a waste of time. Soon, but not soon enough, he will be gone, thrown into the trash bin if history after the next election, regardless of its outcome. Sadly, like Caesar, the evil that he has done will long live after him. Similarly, the damage that Weingarten has wrought will live long after she has been deservedly tossed into the union trash bin. AFT rank and file membership has to awake to the failure of their leadership and toss them out in their heels.
When Obama first took office, the Broad Foundation wrote this in its 2009-2010 annual report:
“The election of President Barack Obama and his appointment of Arne Duncan, former CEO of Chicago Public Schools, as the U.S. secretary of education, marked the pinnacle of hope for our work in education reform. In many ways, we feel the stars have finally aligned.
With an agenda that echoes our decade of investments—charter schools, performance pay for teachers, accountability, expanded learning time and national standards—the Obama administration is poised to cultivate and bring to fruition the seeds we and other reformers have planted.”
http://tinyurl.com/6w5sps2 (Page 5)
Thank you Philaken…I keep Broad’s information in a file to refer to when I think we actually are making a dent in this oligarchic onslaught.
Always welcome your sound comments.
Thank you Ellen. You should read my post “Who is Eli Broad and why is he trying to destroy public education?”
http://www.defendpubliceducation.net/
PhilKen…I not only read it when you first published it, but have sent it to everyone I know…and I mean everyone…family, friends, colleagues. Glad you published the link for all here to read.
It is an excellent expose of this self aggrandizing robber baron. His 14 story headquarters in Westwood, the KB Building, is a beacon for me as I drive by to teach public policy and make students aware of his bloviation and power-mad onslaught to bring down free public ed.
Contact AFT: http://www.aft.org/contact/
Contact the White House: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments
AFT: http://www.aft.org/contact/http://www.aft.org/contact/
The use of ‘betrayal’ indicates there was some collegiality at one point., There never was.
“Muddy water is an environment that suits the parasite, very nicely.”
“Sunlight” is the greatest disinfectant.
“If the soul is left in the “Darkness”, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not
(so much) the one who commits the sin, but the one(s) who causes the “Darkness”…
Is the darkness of subjectivity due to the absence of objectivity?
Do we not see the differences between “Official Policies” (What the Gov. SAYS it’s doing)
and “Actual Policies” (WHAT the policies ACTUALLY Accomplish)?
Unless contradictions are brought to a head, so that ALL can see “WHAT” the
real problem is, we will remain the same.
Bloggers shine the light on the takeover of “Public” Education as a large “Problem”,
in our society, at odds with the role of Public Education to serve as the foundational
cornerstone of Democracy, to function as the cultural apparatus in establishing the
consciousness of citizenship, to empower the disempowered through education.
Would the greater “Problem” be the success, of the mind-control regime of marketing
and propaganda?
Objectivity (Education) should counteract the mind-control regime of marketing
or propaganda.
WHAT sells (Charters), and the Political Landscape behind the distribution of
resources, is also a “Test Score”, is it not?
My problem with all of this is why is the nation of educators so shocked at this ruling? And why all this outcry after the fact?
Some of us in California have been alerting our colleagues as the portent of this decision almost since the pleadings were filed so long ago.
Where was the national outcry when it might have done some good?
Wake up Ms. Weingarten. Secretary Duncan is not a ” friend in high places” . Stop compromising and start organizing. BTW, about Governor Cuomo…
She knows that. She just tries to play many points on the line against the other, in multiple launchings, saying anything and everything to anyone and everybody, signifying all viewpoints and none of them, and resulting in nothing for us and everything for herself.
She is among the most quintessential political chameleons, if ever there was.
She had planned it this way and has gotten almost everything she has wanted.
And when the union collapses – and it will eventually – we will see her snapped up by some reformist think tank that wants to merely appear progressive while in actuality, is pushing privatization even more, and she will be their poster-child, token union leader who in their minds, will fool the public into thinking that neo-liberalism is really okay.
Randi, smile!
It’s a win-win situation for you. How can you possibly blow it by blowing off (false) steam to Mr. Duncan?
Randi Weingarten, does the expression “a day late and a dollar short” mean anything to you?
What depresses me is that this ‘vendu’ (sell out), Quisling, Ms. Weingarten and her lackeys , will remain in power and continue to represent the AFT until teachers wake up, become enraged at their mendacious ‘leadership’ and throw her the hell out of office.
If only the educators who post on this blog had a shred of power to make such decisions…and if elephants could fly. Nevertheless, we continue to struggle and to resist those who would crush and destroy public education.