Teachers, time to make your voices heard!
Parents, help your children’s teachers get fair treatment!
Students, you need teachers who can speak truth without fear!
Teachers should not be fired for teaching “The Invisible Man.” Teachers should not be fired for opposing war. Teachers should not be fired for allowing students to express controversial views. Teachers should have due process, the right to a fair hearing.
Time to speak up!
There’s an important conversation happening Thursday night, and we need your help—and your tweets—to make sure the right questions are asked.
Former journalist Campbell Brown is going on “The Colbert Report” to spin a new lawsuit she’s pushing in New York state. It’s a copycat of Vergara v. California, and it would strip New York’s teachers of key job protections like due process.
Brown’s organization—ironically named the Partnership for Educational Justice—has hired some of the fanciest PR firms in the country, including the firm that ran Mitt Romney’s online program in 2012, to sell its snake oil. This will be her first big media appearance to sell it.
Brown is hoping to get softball questions and spin them to blame teachers. But there’s one big question she doesn’t want to get: Who’s funding these attacks?
Brown refuses to disclose her donors, but we know she’s deeply connected in the corporate “reform” crowd. Her husband even sits on the board of StudentsFirstNY!
We need to make sure Campbell Brown doesn’t get a free pass from the press. We’re launching #Questions4Campbell to make sure our voices are heard every time she makes an appearance.
Will you ask Stephen Colbert to make Campbell Brown answer the right questions? You can just click any of the suggested tweets below, or write your own using #Questions4Campbell and tagging @StephenAtHome.
Why won’t @campbell_brown disclose her funders? Afraid Americans might not like what they see? #questions4campbell @StephenAtHome
The usual anti-teacher funders: Walton. Koch. Wall St. Silicon Valley. Who’s funding @campbell_brown? #questions4campbell @StephenAtHome
Just “holding the coats” or pulling the strings? @campbell_brown doesnt speak for this NY parent. #questions4campbell for @StephenAtHome
One of your “student plaintiffs” has a parent who’s paid by StudentsFirstNY. Conflict of interest? #questions4campbell for @StephenAtHome
You’re against due process for teachers. Who else shouldn’t have rights, @campbell_brown? #questions4campbell on @StephenAtHome
Campbell Brown and her friends want to sell you the same “blame teachers” line we’ve seen from Michelle Rhee and right-wing politicians for years. They’ll tell you tenure means a job for life and that due process makes it impossible to dismiss ineffective teachers. Now, emboldened by a radical ruling in California, they’re spreading this misinformation across the country, starting in New York.
Their claims couldn’t be further from the truth. In New York, teachers are granted tenure—and due process protections—after three years of success in the classroom. Once your boss grants you tenure, due process simply means he or she must produce just cause to discipline or terminate you. Due process gives teachers the protections to speak up for their students, stop cronyism and innovate in the classroom.
Campbell Brown is hoping to cruise through her media appearances unchallenged. But news shows and the media are paying more and more attention to social media.
Your tweets can be a powerful force in the fight to reclaim the promise of a high-quality public education for every child. Help us challenge the “blame teachers” crowd by adding your voice on Twitter right now.
In unity,
Randi Weingarten
AFT President
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Thank you, Randi! I’m on it!
Here’s Jersey Jazzman’s takedown of Campbell Brown’s appearance on the “Stephen Colbert Report” : (which includes an embedded video of her entire exchange with Colbert):
http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2014/08/campbell-brown-lame.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+JerseyJazzman+%28Jersey+Jazzman%29
Some of this rival’s the great Edushyster’s wry sarcasm:
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“Let’s start with her detractors: apparently, some folks showed up to protest outside the show, which Campbell says they have the right to do. Except she also says what they’re really doing is silencing debate, which I guess is what happens when someone opposes Campbell’s point of view.
“So yes, let’s have a debate, except let’s not…
“Ooo, is that scary! I mean, look at these thugs, what with their magic-markered poster boards and their peaceful milling around on the sidewalk! No wonder Campbell won’t say who is financing her operation — clearly, these parents who are “trying to silence debate” are “going to go after people who are funding this”!
“And by “go after,” I guess Brown means “hold up hand-made signs”! Clearly, we must protect Brown’s plutocratic backers from this danger at all costs — including any normal standards of transparency. This also explains why Brown must raise funds to pay off a high-priced PR firm with ties to the Obama administration. I mean, when 20 people can show up at one of your many media appearances and do this – ”
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and on it goes with a detailed point-by-point rebuttal of everything Campbell Brown says… all of it leading up to this knockout finish”
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“And that is precisely the problem: the debate about tenure is now dominated by telegenic partisans who have no knowledge of education policy and won’t reveal their funders — all while the voices of teachers are excluded. Campbell Brown can be as illogical as she pleases, because no one, as of yet, has been allowed an opportunity to debate her on equal terms.
“She can make as many rambling, self-contradictory, and ignorant statements as she likes, because she is the only one at the table. She doesn’t have to make a lick of sense, because no one is there to call her out on her nonsense. My guess is she’s going to take the path of Michelle Rhee: refusing to publicly defend her positions against well-informed, well-reasoned critique.
“How lame.”
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Mercedes Schneider just posted an in-depth expose of fellow Louisianan Campbell Brown’s background, connections and motivations.
A MUST-READ:
Glad to hear of this effort. However, I will be very pleasantly surprised if Colbert tosses anything but softball lobs at Campbell Brown. I remember when he had Margaret Spellings on. Extremely disappointing. One hoped he would ask her something like, “Are all students above average now?”
Also there is Colbert’s connection to Jonathan “we know what works” Alter.
Good idea.
My thoughts: isn’t what she represents more important than the funders? I have started applying my usual preacher’s daughter experience to the funding question. Would anyone ever not go to a funeral because you don’t know who paid for the pews? Or the lights being on? Or would anyone skip a wedding because you don’t know who paid for the sheet music the organist uses? I have come to think we might be too hung up on the funding, which distracts from the meat of the arguments.
Second, when I am perplexed at human behavior I take the words out of a situation and just watch actions. Campbell Brown clearly likes her new celebrity status and may as well be promoting a movie or book in her own mind. (Not sure that this point lightens the harmful significance of her cause, but it does bring her back down to human size).
I hope the Tweeting is a success.
I can’t stand this sanctimonious woman and this die hard belief in the ultimate fallability and liability of teachers in education. Teachers aren’t perfect, but our society is also far from perfect. It seems they want teachers judged in a vacuum based on one person’s perceptions.
My big question again and again – who would want to make teaching a career with all this “stuff” hanging over our profession.
A big difference with teaching is that training does take a long time – but if you get a black mark against you, it will tail you for however long you have left in your career. And that black mark SHOULD have a lot of thing preventing it until it’s proven objectively that you did something wrong and should have known enough to do or not do something different.
I think it balances out with the permanence of bad ratings vs. the difficulty in getting teachers dismissed. Teachers do have an investment in their licensure.
How will we convince anyone to pursue this relatively low paying, unstable profession, intent on blaming teachers for society’s ills, assigning blame or reward based on mathematics so opaque it makes the head spin, and worrying about the public system being phased out for low paying charter jobs, while also trying to keep politicians from bankrupting the pension system we invest in.
WHO WANTS THESE JOBS?
Ask when he is going to have Diane on.
I do not have a tweet link, but a link to http://www.muckety.com has a large-scale map/diagram of the whole cast of characters in the lucrative world of educational “reform.” This group includes the latest grifters, Brown and her cronies. I hope that someone can find a way to tweet this link to the Colbert show. No need to look any further for the $$$ connection. In my view, this incestuous network shows the shallow nature of the world of education profiteers.
Here’s a link to the Muckety story and map:
http://news.muckety.com/2014/07/02/brown-and-senor-take-on-new-york-teachers/47161
And here’s a link to the larger map:
http://www.muckety.com/D22F574953F2ADBA21FAE8906BA4DC82.map?autoGroup=7,7&big=true
Cross posted at http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Tonight-Tweet-to-Stephen-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Children_Funding_Help_Parents-140731-303.html#comment503776 with this comment, by me, at the end:
If they took the professionals,the doctors out of the hospitals and replaced them with trained medics what would happen?
In a hidden conspiracy they removed the veteran professionals, the mentors from the schools, labeling them in a controlled media as ‘dead wood” and creating a national narrative about evaluation of ineffective teachers that ended public education. The schools did not fail until the professionals staff was GONE, replaced by novices who follow orders and mandates to replace learning with test-prep.
This is not just the battle for teachers to have the protections of due process which was severely eroded when the unions looked theater way and suborned the grievance the process. This is about YOUR country’s road to opportunity, a public school system that elevates everyone, and it is about ensuring that our schools do not fall into the hands of the billionaires’ club. See how Koch is already writing what students should learn HuffPost: How the Koch Brothers Are Bringing Their Ideas to High School Studentshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/16/koch-brothers-education_n_5587577.html?utm_hp_ref=tw
We need to protect our teachers so they can inform and educate our citizenry with the truth. As Randi says: Campbell Brown and her friends want to sell you the same “blame teachers” line we’ve seen from Michelle Rhee and right-wing politicians for years. They’ll tell you tenure means a job for life and that due process makes it impossible to dismiss ineffective teachers. Now, emboldened by a radical ruling in California, they’re spreading this misinformation across the country, starting in New York.”
TELL YOUR CONTACTS TO TWEET TONIGHT
Don’t wait til tonight. The show tapes in the evening, about 7:30 from what I could glean online. I’d get those tweets off soon,
Just ask her one thing: what are these supposedly bad teachers doing (or not doing) that that they should or should not be doing? That’s all it takes. What would you do differently? They have no answer for that question because they don’t know. They’re not educators and children’s educations are not their concern. Money is there concern. That’s all this is….
But the UNiv of Pittsburgh’s Lauren Resnick was an educator who knew, and Harvard tested her theory, and guess what… in the thousands of classrooms that were in the real National Standards research, funded by Pew — the rubric, the criteria, the principles that always are present in the BEST PRACTICE that was observed over years in this study, were proven to work!
Haven’t heard of her,or the National Standards research… Hmmm… no one else has either, and I am beginning to think I imagined being the cohort for 2 years, IN NYC when this 3rd level research was conducted!
To all of whom it may concern:
From May King, Back2basic in Canada
We should organize and request Jon Stuart or “the” Show which will be on air at the same time as S. Colbert’s show to have Dr. Ravitch speaking on our behalf. so that,
we can deflate Colbert show as flat as zero or below by FOCUS on show that invites Dr. Ravitch. No audience for Campbell Brown, nor for Colbert is to show them that Randi cannot underestimate educators’ self-esteem, determination and wisdom.
We, (all educators, all parents, all students, and all tax payers who really concern our democratic procedure, such as the true color of union goal in protecting all blue and white color workers), should organize or request a show with Dr. Ravitch in the subject Public Education in all States versus Charter Schools: Pros and Cons regarding Tenure and Due process. This is how Union leader should do. Back2basic
Agree!
Diane was a guest on Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show, and on Bill Moyers, but as the Krugman article I posted here explains her KNOWLEDGE is NOT the Power that decides issues… THAT power goes to the liars and manipulators who have the podium to the popular media which is wholly owned by those who hire shills like Cambpell to manipulate opinion with rhetoric that twists truth until lies shine!
The best thing teachers can do is STOP watching Colbert! Tell everyone you know to STOP watching his show and eventually his sponsors will go to greener pastures. Otherwise his ratings go up and other talk show people see the advantage of giving Brown TV time to destroy Public Education. We are doing exactly what Colbert’s PR people were hoping for, helping sell his show! Sad!
I was pleasantly surprised. Colbert didn’t lob softballs at her.
Reblogged this on SD Educators United and commented:
Campbell Brown is the new Michelle Rhee. Look to this link for further info.
Here’s a question for Ms. Campbell, what is the real motive behind her commentaries and push for the restructure of tenure and due process?
Gimme a break. Her motives are clear if you read this blog and know how the public is bamboozled.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/BAMBOOZLE-THEM-where-tea-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-110524-511.html
So that it can be sold magic elixirs:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Magic-Elixir-No-Evidence-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-130312-433.html
Read my comment about the Krugman piece and you have your answer.
Today, I read Knowledge isn’ Power” by Paul Krugman http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/01/opinion/paul-krugman-knowledge-isnt-power.html?emc=edit_ty_20140801&nl=opinion&nlid=50637717&_r=0
Although he is referring to the KNOWLEDGE of the authentic/professional ECONOMISTS who agree on the facts, he notes that the truth never makes it into the public arena because the media slants the truth, by putting out there the most outrageous manipulations of reality…like Campbell Brown, another Rhee clone.
It was Orwellian to listen to Campbell Brown ‘explain’ how parents are bringing the suit because children are being deprived of their rights, turning the ‘due process’ issue on its head because it is the lack of due process that has removed tens of thousands of teachers, and tenure, which when it is supported by the union, is the only way to ensure that our professional teachers can not be tarred and feathers… and replaced…. something the media has been touting for over a decade with it’s ‘dead-wood” rant.
Krugman says: “It usually turns out that there is much less professional controversy about an issue than the cacophony in the news media might have led you to expect.”
Right on ,Paul… professional educators agree on what is needed to enable learning.
In the following quotes from this article that nails the fact that WE have the knowledge but shills like Campbell, Rhee and Duncan have the power of the media. “More important,” Krugman continues: “over the past several years policy makers across the Western world have pretty much ignored the professional consensus on government spending and EVERYTHING ELSE placing their faith instead in doctrines most economists firmly reject.”
Exactly true for the doctrines and thesis of Professional Educators, including those of you who write on this blog.
Krugman continues {just substitute EDUCATION for Economics}: “Am I saying that the professional consensus is always right? No. But when politicians pick and choose which experts — or, in many cases, “experts” — to believe, the odds are that they will choose badly. ”
When the choice of an ‘expert’ is this pretty face, this entertainer, what more is there to say.
Go on Paul: “Moreover, experience shows that there is no accountability in such matters. All of which raises a troubling question: Are we as societies even capable of taking good policy advice?”
NOW Paul, THAT is THE question!!! When the ‘advice’ comes from the likes of Campbell Brown, Gates, Duncan and Rhee, instead of from real educators, we know the answer. Campbell Brown was chosen to represent the view of the education deformers, and Colbert gave her a forum. God Bless Randi for her actions to let him know what he has wrought.
When crisis struck education, we got the Duncan narrative not the professional advice of genuine educators: “When crises struck, however, much of what we’ve learned over the past 80 years was simply tossed aside,” says Krugman about economics, but the same applies to what genuine knowledge about how learning is enabled. Every cockamamie theory that comes out about ‘what the schools should do’, pushes aside the research that shows what actually works… like the REAL National Standards (yes Duane) that no one has heard about… despite the zillions spent by Pew to prove the * principles of learning’ out of Harvard. Campbell sells another magic elixir, ‘get rid of tenure, and ineffective teachers who are hurting our kids, will disappear… POOF!
Krugman sums it up for education, too, when he says: “And macroeconomics, of course, isn’t the only challenge we face. In fact, it should be easy compared with many other issues that need to be addressed with specialized knowledge…So you really have to wonder whether and how we’ll avoid disaster.”
You bet, Paul — it IS a disaster for our children who will not be children for long, but who will soon be running this country with none of the values and lessons of history, or even a knowledge of our Constitution.. It is a disaster for our democracy to have outrageous lies, like those spoken by Brown, cloaked in words that appeal to a citizenry ignorant of what the PROFESSIONALS ACTUALLY KNOW WORKS.
The defining issue for our democracy is ensuring that education is available for all our future citizens , and our Institution of Education is not dismantled by the deliberate manipulation of the truth by the likes of Campbell Brown!… because the disaster is real, and like climate change it is not a matter of opinion.
Here’s South Bronx Teacher’s analysis of the Colbert appearance:
http://www.southbronxschool.com/2014/08/campbell-brown-exposed-by-stephen.html