A reader sent this, commenting on post that asked whether the President would oppose Wisconsin’s Act 10:
Submitted on 2012/09/18 at 1:02 pm
“Don’t label a school as failing one day and then throw your hands up and walk away from it the next. Don’t tell us that the only way to teach a child is to spend too much of a year preparing him to fill out a few bubbles in a standardized test…You didn’t devote your lives to testing. You devoted it to teaching, and teaching is what you should be allowed to do.” — Candidate Barack Obama, Summer 2007
Diane Ravitch's blog 
So, what happened?
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To Mark: I dunno. Beats me.
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Arne Duncan happened. Or better yet, to piggyback on another notorious saying, “Arne Duncan happens”.
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Uh, he appointed Arne Duncan. Unless I get a bona fide update from the current version of Obama, I have no recourse but to believe what we have been hearing for months on end – there is no discernible difference between either party’s leadership on teachers and education.
President Obama, affirm or deny the 2007 remark. Please!
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I guess I was naive, but this is the candidate I voted for. From what I’ve learned since, though, that candidate didn’t go anywhere, he just never existed in the first place.
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Well, he was Advertising Age’s Marketer of the Year in 2008, beating out Apple, Zappos, Nike and Coors.
http://adage.com/article/moy-2008/obama-wins-ad-age-s-marketer-year/131810/
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You do realize that candidate never really existed, right? The candidate you quote was buying votes for really cheap–your gullible enthrallment with words and the promise of deeds. This same candidate is now running on his deeds and his only case for defending his actions is to say (not do) that he is not as bad as his opposition from the same class he defends today. You want a candidate to solve your problems? Run the Chicago Teachers Union for office–along with every other unionist, activist, artist, and seeker of liberty and freedom. Only then will you have a “candidate” worthy of your vote; because s/he will by Us. We don’t need more Parties or candidates of War and Plunder, We need a Party of Working People and the Oppressed who not only stands for us, but is Us.
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Well said, mtomas3. Never was, never will be. Now please, everyone, stop the whining and pontificating and start by working on this locally–NOW. Run for local & state offices, school boards,any/all government positions. That should help us to be ready by 2016, and we’ll have the candidates 99% (or the 47% of ) America needs and deserves.
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It’s not only Obama! Look the statement the U.S. Conference of Mayors released about the Chicago strike.(Linked in this article.)
This article from Dan Denvir at the Philadelphia City Paper also shows the game Mayor Nutter of Philadelphia, who is currently President of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, is playing with the public:
Mayors Conference takes hard line against teachers unions but Nutter flees Philly controversy
http://www.citypaper.net/blogs/nakedcity/Mayors-Conference-takes-a-hard-line-against-teachers-unions-but-Nutter-flees-Philly-controversy.html
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Then vote for Jill Stein. 😉
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Diane, is there any way we can mobilize our country’s teachers and parents to write a letter (maybe drafted by you) to President Obama? Surely if we had enough people doing it, he’d have to listen.
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In an earlier post, I drafted a speech that President Obama could give to restore confidence among teachers and parents. It basically says, I apologize for Race to the Top and I am canceling it today. I’d be glad to draft a letter if you thought others would sign.
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I think that maybe some of us have slipped into a parallel universe in which common words have opposite (or completely absurd) definitions. I mean, how else to explain everything? Too bad there’s nobody to beam us back home. (Accepting that this is our reality is sometimes too painful to contemplate.) Sigh.
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