New Jersey blogger Jersey Jazzman has written a brilliant and funny essay on “America’s Most Invasive Species: The Wonk.”
This is the kind of article that reminds you how serios humor can be.
He noticed that wonks thrive at conferences. At these conferences, panels of wonks deliberate what to do about issues in which they have become experts without actual experience.
Wonks are not to be confused with scholars, who devote themselves to deep study. Nor should they be confused with practitioners.
Their rise to power and prominence may suggest a parallel with hedge fund managers, who have financialized the economy via buying and selling, the manipulation of paper, not by producing anything.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The timing of your post JJ is perfect for our latest fiasco here in CT. The Board of
Regents, set up by our revolutionary governor, has just been rocked by a scandal, which was investigated and reported by an online newspaper, the CT Mirror, and then picked up by the major papers. Read here…policy wonks, political hacks, boot lickers, sychophants are alive and well in the State of CT…..still revolutionary is our state slogan…how about revolting instead:
Board of Regents taps former UConn president to repair tarnished image
The board that leads the state’s scandal-marred, merged public college system endorsed former University of Connecticut President Philip E. Austin on Friday to help salvage its image — a move prompted by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy.
The Board of Regents of Higher Education, which accepted the resignation of embattled President Robert A. Kennedy, also promised that a special study panel would move quickly to address a trio of controversies that have arisen in recent weeks.
Michael P. Meotti, the executive vice president at the center of those controversies, resigned Friday night, hours after the board’s chairman, Lewis Robinson Jr., said Meotti would remain as the system’s second-highest-ranking administrator for now.
But Robinson was quick to add that the regents remain sensitive to the issues connected to Meotti — who accepted a $48,000 raise earlier this year while the wages of most state government employees are frozen. Meotti has since decided to forgo the raise.
http://www.ctmirror.org/story/17734/board-regents-taps-former-uconn-president-repair-tarnished-image
Let’s hope that this is the beginning of the end of “DINO Dan” Malloy.
Do you think he could ever get re-elected?
If only the papers would cover the K-12 leadership scam…Vallas, Adamowski, Pryor…we have our own stooges.
I’d like to think that “DINO Dan” wouldn’t even have the chutzpah to run again, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he and his enormous ego would think they could further save Connecticut. He has alienated so many people in such a short time, I truly think the days of the DINOsaur are numbered.
Last spring I checked out the staff websites of many local ed deform groups funded by the Gate$ foundation & other deform bigshots – there was ONE person of appx. 50 who claimed teaching or in a school building paid for a living experience.
League of Education Voters (LEV), Stand For Children (SFC), Democrats for Education Reform (DFER), Partnership for Learning (PFL), Center For Reinventing Public Education (CRPE), Alliance For Education (A4E), Our Schools Coalition (OSC), … outside of wishy-warshy BUT meddling here – NCTQ National Council on Teacher Quality
BTW – this is year 8 of teaching high school math. I’d welcome ANY ideas which are costed out in steps to implement, and paid for, which would make me more effective. Is it interesting how these wonk-a-sites just feed off the public host, offering NOTHING of value to those of us vexed with their incessant lies ??
Ummmm … since the real goal of the ed deform string pullers is turning public education into a branch of blackwater –
rmm.
I wish the facts were a powerful enough repellant to the wonks. I think they are more like the Tribles from Star Trek, you just can’t get rid of them. It would be nice if they could be sued for malpractice, you need a license to teach, you should need one to pontificate. These guys should at least come with warning labels like most consumer goods.
“America’s Worst Invasive Species: The Wonk”
While reading JJ’s fabulous post, a stink bug landed on my iPad screen.
For a moment, I thought that perhaps “The Wonks” are a species similar to the stink bug; seemingly useless, potentially stinking up the place, and almost impossible to get rid of.
But then I quickly realized that they could not be alike because stink bugs are really, after all, quite harmless.
Excellent post! Somehow, I noticed that the Wonks seem to be dominated by a sub-species know as the neo-clasical economist.
I printed out the article to give to a teacher friend of mine when I go to see her later today, and I bet she’ll get a kick out of it. It’s almost like a bunch of people who were going to give Ted talks got in a circle and passed their speech topic one person to the left hehe