Mercedes Schneider checks out the origins and development of Campbell Brown, who is now threatening to take Michelle Rhee’s place as the leader of the anti-union, anti-teacher campaign. Mercedes hails from Louisiana, and so did Campbell. Campbell came from a very poor town called Ferriday. But she wasn’t poor. Her father served in the State Senate and as Secretary of State. She didn’t go to public schools. She went to some fine private schools. Off to college, then she marries Dan Senor, and take a look at her beautiful Vera Wang wedding dress. Let’s say it. She’s pretty. She’s privileged. She has had a very good life indeed. But it really troubles her that teachers are protected against vindictive principals or students who make false accusations or parents who object to the books they teach. This is intolerable to Campbell Brown. She is special. To her, teachers are not.
Mercedes, YOU ARE THE DEMON!!!!!
Your expose is amazing (sorry my keyboard does not allow for an accent over the last “e” in “expose”). We don’t know a person until we really GET to know them.
Add Campbell Brown to the list of cut off, disconnected plutocrats who have no idea how the masses live and what they need in all directions.
Hey, I’m thinking there was this other power couple in the late 1700s in France who also had privileged lives and really did not understand – or did not bother to understand – the life of the average person.
And look what happened to them and all those in their good graces . . . .
Mercedes (and Diane, I hope you don’t mind me saying this), YOU are a clone of Diane Ravitch. YOU are a leader, and a true warrior who uses words and truth to defend justice.
I’d like to see you write more about poverty when you have time. . . its genesis, its perpetuation, our power structures in the USA, our taxation, the whole gestalt of money and power. You are the Robert Reich and Bernie Sanders of public education.
You ask at the end of your blog if you writing is “liked”.
It isn’t. It’s loved!
Pity, Snitty, Flitty Campbell Brown
Made the mistake of going downtown
Walked right out in the middle of the street
And into the center of Mercedes’ beat
Who studied her in, studied her out
And caught her making mean
Using family clout
Exellent!
Cx:
Excellent!
She a version of a better supported (by an Iraq war profiteer). Cathie Black. May she meet the same fate.
Yet another post demonstrating why Campbell’s supporters want to remain anonymous. And one has to respect Diane’s consistency (if nothing else) for mentioning that Campbell is pretty again.
Stanley Silver, when I told a reporter that she is pretty but knows nothing about education, I set off a Twitter storm of denunciations. It seems that some people think it is sexist to say that a woman is pretty. I don’t agree. If I said that George Clooney is handsome, would that be descriptive or sexist? Anyway, I tweeted Campbell an apology for saying she was pretty. Meanwhile if anyone wants to call me pretty, I will say thank you.
“It seems that some people think it is sexist to say that a woman is pretty. I don’t agree.”
I’m not a woman, but it’s my understanding that there are some circumstances in which it’s perfectly fine to say that a woman is attractive, but other circumstances in which it’s not fine, even assuming that the statement is honestly intended as a compliment.
P-u-h-l-e-a-z-e!
We men are handsome and you women are pretty.
WHAT is so horrible about that? There does not have to be or should be one standard for attractiveness. So what if neither of us are on the cover of Vogue or GQ. That never stopped anyone from marrying and having children. If that were the case, only the clients at Eileen Ford would be married. What a Stepford world that would be.
As for you, Diane, you’re gorgeous. And you have a beautiful mind as well . . . .
Robert Rendo, as I sit here with an icepack on my knee, pondering life’s vagaries, you lift my spirit with your words. Gorgeous! I love it. Beautiful mind! Bring it on!
As for Campbell Brown, she is very pretty, She’s hot alright, but her nasty disposition and corrupt plutocratic predatory behavior color her looks, and as far as I’m concerned, she isn’t worth a fashion shoot in a K-Mart catalogue.
Elizabeth Warren beats her hands down . . . .
Lol!!!! Diane, you are lovely and have an amazing wit!!!
It is bad form to use someone’s looks to attack their ideas. Throughout history, women have been subject to this sort of attack — thus the charge of “sexism”. (I’m not sure if that label fits here, but that doesn’t justify your comments.)
It is also bad form to make intellectually dishonest arguments that suggest you were referring to Campbell’s looks as a casual aside rather than as part of an effort to discredit her. That’s pretty sad.
Stanley, something you might want to do, as found in the words of the quite preserved Joan Rivers:
“Grow up.”
Señora Diane Ravitch, congratulations on a very good job you are doing at exposing the special economic interests that underlay in the fight against teacher tenure in the USA. I am a teacher from Colombia, South America, and your fight is of the greatest importance for us, because our politicians copy whatever your politicians do, word by word, and we have tenure after the first year. So imagine if you lose that fight, soon we will follow suit. So for the sake of the teachers of the world, especially us Colombians, keep up the fight and WIN. Thank you.
Stanley, Stanley, Stanley…
If you’ve got nothing to hide, you hide nothing.
Bad form, eh Stanley?
TAGO!
Get’em, Duane.
Campbell is pretty, and yes that is one reason why she is where she is. She was also born wealthy, that additionally contributed to her being where she is in this debate. She also married right-wing “well” and this enabled her to have access to even more money and thus, power.
Pretty. Wealthy. Socially and politically connected. These adjectives describe why she is more in the public eye than someone else.
So these are descriptors. Is there any indication that without these three aspects, she would have risen to be a right wing pundit?
She got thrown out of school: tell me how many expelled, poor, unattractive, unsocially and politically connected people have become able to rise up to where she is.
Socially and politically unconnected.
Do you know anything at all about Diane Ravitch’s bio? The irony is melting the internet.
Ohnoyoudidnot!
I was thinking the same thing. Born into privilege, good looking. . . . Gee, how did she get her job?
Yet, those who rise to the top of the media profession and came from ordinary backgrounds tend to become bought and sold by their stations and producers. Not all, but most.
Just look at Whoopi Goldberg. She was not the most fortunate and she has risen to fortune. She has and continues to earn her keep. Too bad she is so uninformed. A big mouth with a teeny tiny brain.
Campbell Brown is a Marie Antoinette of “activists”. She too has a big mouth with a pedigree low social intelligence. Rich, popular, connected, uninformed, disconnected, and good looking. This is the mediocrity that America has raised as its highest level of expression . . . . . . .
I just wonder where we are hiding these supposedly “great” teachers. Are they waiting in caves, ready to advance into the limelight as soon as they “old bums” who are currently teaching get fired for incompetence?
And does Campbell Brown advocate eliminating 70% of the faculty across the state, since only about 30% of the NYS public school students are scoring proficient on the CC assessments?
I propose Mercedes write a new book: “How to Destroy a Perfectly Fine Public School System, Without Even Trying”.
Campbell Brown knows nothing or very little about how the public school system should work. She didn’t attend it nor did she come from a socially economically disadvantaged family who attended public schools, so why in the world should she feel entitled to attack it? Have we lost our shame?