There is a surprising overlap between the views of the Tea Party and those of some in the left towards the Common Core. In Indiana, Democrats and Tea Party activists combined to defeat far-right State Superintendent Tony Bennett and elect educator Glenda Ritz. Democrats opposed his support for privatization and his haughty treatment of teachers: Tea Party activists opposed him for his zealous support for the Common Core.
Anthony Cody here describes the issues that unite political opposites:
1. “Sharing of student and teacher data with third party developers of all sorts, with no guarantees of privacy. As noted in this post, there are plans in place in some states such as Illinois and New York, and others as well, to collect massive amounts of data, which will be housed in a cloud based databank maintained by inBloom, a non-profit created by the Gates Foundation for this purpose.” Parents of all persuasions are equally concerned about invasions of their children’s privacy.
2. Both sides are upset by the secretive proceeds in which the Common Core was developed and foisted on the schools across the nation.
3. The federal government is legally barred from interfering in curriculum yet the Department of Education has been deeply involved in promoting the Common Core.
But the two groups part company on other issues, such as allegations that Bill Ayers wrote the Common Core (he did not) or that Linda Darling-Hammond is part of some conspiracy (she is not).
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Tea Party and Libertarian-minded folks want the federal government out of education, so they oppose Common Core and federal mandates like RTTT. But, many of them are supporters of charters, vouchers, home schooling, and unschooling.
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I view the Tea Part and people like Glenn Beck are oportunists who are jumping on this bandwagon to drive their anti government agenda. We should not lose sight of the fact that the extreme right has instigated the mess we are in. Their NCLB agenda, their hyjacking of our textbooks, and interfering with academics like science is well documented. These groups often ignore the science behind age and human development, and real pedogogy.
Beck’s grand conspiracy theories aside, he is a vocal critic of teachers and their unions. The Tea Party is looking to destroy public education, merely because its “public”. We all forget Wisconsin so fast?
You know some people say, ignore the differences as long as they are on your side on this issue. I say, NO WAY! I refuse to compromise on my principal beliefs, I refuse to get into bed with any group or individual only for a single issue. I refuse to be associated with groups or individuals that are so fundamentally flawed that they look for the destruction of our national identity.
No not me.. not one bit. Lets defend public education from the high ground, I refuse to slither like a snake.
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+1
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You don’t have to compromise your principal beliefs to work with other Americans who want to abolish Common Core and InBloom. As long as Americans remain divided, the privatizers win.
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Before I am ready to do any bridge building, I need to see if they bridge will actually lead anywhere . Unfortunately, the Tea Party’s and Glen Beck’s motivation leads me to suspect their end of the bridge rests on sand.
Check their motivation for their sudden move against CC. It certainly is not due to their love of public education or teachers, or as a matter of fact the needs of inner city kids.
They see this as an opportunity to gain support. Period
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Totally agree. United we stand.
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ummm – do the math – a vote on 1 issue is 1 vote on 1 issue.
in 2012 King County (WA.) Democrats had a great platform which has been sold out, over and over and over, decade after decade, by political sell outs, political pathetics and those who are a mix. Jay Inslee, Chris Gregroire, Patty Murray, Gary Locke, Maria Cantwell, out Congress critters — ALL run on LOTE LOTE LOTE (Lessor Of Two Evil) platforms against right wingers who represent thieving 1%-ers and who have jingoistic, racist, sexist, bigoted 13th century flat earth social policies –
YAWN – but we’re Dim-0-Craps and we’re progressive and we’re not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good and … how connected is Rahm and the rest of his ilk to the Clintons and the Obamas?
The first DLC sell out I voted for was Dukakis in ’88 when I was a 10 buck an hour cook in Boston. Guess what I got for voting for social climbing yuppie scum sell outs over the decades? Sold out. At least with the Tea Partiers, I never voted for ’em!
IF they help halt Corp-0-RATs on this issue – I’ll take the vote.
Being in room filled with the stench of bigots will be different than being in a room filled with the stench of diaper wetting ‘progressive’ fear – yawn.
rmm
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Far be it from me to read the leaves of the TEA Party mind, but I suspect they oppose C²S² for very different reasons than most progressive folks.
Let us put aside their overriding fears of those well-known communist plots — critical thinking, evolution, science in general, The Real Founders, and all that nonsense — since very little of that will survive in Pearson’s Weltanschauung, whether intentionally or not.
Most likely they fear the possibility that any style of curriculum norms will eventually be applied to their pet schools — home schooling, charter schools, private schools, religious schools, segregated academies, and so on. That fear is probably groundless, since the Company Store Commercial School industry has nothing so “common&rdqu in mind as that. They will be perfectly happy to tailor their testing products to the discriminating tastes of whatever markets are large enough to guarantee a bounteous profit.
Still, political bedfellows are where you find them, as they say …
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Those who advance the Common Core, and those who advance the agenda against public schools, are also seeming “opposites” and also united. I think with regard to saving public schools in our country, we have to work with those who present themselves, distasteful to the left as this may be.
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I only wish Bill Ayers did have a hand in writing the “Standards” – they would make a lot more sense developmentally, socially and emotionally. He spent years running a daycare in New York with BJ Richards. I’ve only passingly met Bill, but I know BJ well and have heard her talk a lot about Bill. I think he has a deep grasp of the needs of young children, including and especially the need to play and the need to be protected from the edubullies.
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Statistically speaking,
“Even a broken watch is correct twice a day.”
The Tea Party folks are correct for the wrong reasons. Loosing the moral high ground to build an alliance with the Tea Party will be detrimental to public schools.
Beware..,
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Although many here despise the Tea Party, ‘ceptn’ Harlan, I don’t have the same contempt. I live among many who agree with the Teapee Partiers and basically, they are good folk, just very misinformed about many things. And I’ve had many a constructed conversation with some, learned a little along the way. It would not be “loosing the moral high ground” to work with them on this issue (whatever and wherever the hell the moral high ground is).
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Yeah, but you already have an interest in guns in common. That’s a big advantage. What am I going to talk about with them? Barbecue?
“(whatever and wherever the hell the moral high ground is).”
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I agree. Bridge-building.
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D,
One of us does not understand Yeats.
It is a circus of sorts though…
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The left and the right don’t always occupy different planets. Sometimes common ground is found, and if we are wise we’ll seize the opportunity to fight an evil with whatever allies we can find.
Today Justices Ginsburg, Sotomayor and Kagan joined together in a dissent to oppose the DNA swabbing of arrestees. Who joined them and wrote the dissent? Justice Scalia. If Justices Ginsburg, Sotomayor and Kagan can find common ground with Justice Scalia in a dissent, we can surely put aside differences with the Tea Party when they agree with us on certain important matters.
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Although that’s not an example of Scalia’s reasonableness. It’s the opposite. Scalia’s originalist approach has probably turned him into the Supreme Court’s best defender of our Fourth Amendment rights. Technology can revolutionize the world and completely revise our sense of whether our expectations of privacy are “reasonable.” But the Fourth Amendment will still say that the government needs a good warrant if it wants to search “persons, houses, papers, and effects,” even when it becomes unreasonable to expect any of those things are private.
Too bad my emails on Google’s servers aren’t my “papers.”
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Up until as recently as 10 years or so ago, it was normal to find common ground with the political opposites and attempt to work towards a solution. Today it’s “100% agreement or nothing” and we all lose.
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Yes. We need more bridge-builders, fewer zealous–people who think philosophically.
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meaning we need more people thinking philosophically (‘cuz I don’t think zealots do).
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I’d say around 15-20 years ago. I feel that the 24-hour cable news cycle changed the tone (and subject matter) of political discourse for the worse. Sometime in the mid- to late-1990s, the Internet set it on fire with a new style of news and commentary. The classic formula of objective news was (1) talk to sources on the phone about possible story ideas; (2) take some choice quotations and build the story around those; (3) write a strong lede; and (4) make some calls to get the obligatory opposing viewpoint. Internet content providers decided that model didn’t work for the Web. No more “news,” because news was a fungible commodity (which you could rent from the wire services). It was all “commentary.” And the commentary had to be short, aggressive, irreverent, and absolutely unequivocal. It was “Here’s my strong opinion, and anyone who disagrees with it is a complete moron.” I used to call it the “rant.”
Now everyone uses the style. X is right, and anyone who disagrees is a moron, or corrupt, or naive, or spineless. Make your point fast and get out as soon as possible. For best results, insert one-line zinger. And don’t ever, ever concede anything.
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Excellent Chris.
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Bravo Chris. An enemy that is every bit as problematic as high stakes testing, the Common Core, and Pearson itself is ideology. Any ideology. Dogmatism, “purity,” an exclusive claim on the truth, even the notion that the left holds the moral high ground here–it’s going to get us nowhere. The attack on education is going to need a multi-pronged approach to defeat it. If we waste time denying folks the right to participate, we’re turning our energy in the wrong direction. No one says you have to marry these folks. Just find overlap and stand united against a bipartisan effort to destroy education n the name of profit.
For my part, I stand with anarchists in a march; I will stand with individual conservatives or tea partiers; I will stand with rich misinformed white liberals who are still on the side of the mayor here in Chicago if and when they switch sides. We can’t afford to be picky. There is too much money and power against us.
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I don’t see the link to Cody’s story. Here it is:
http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2013/06/is_the_tea_party_right_about_t.html
And here’s the comment I made about it there:
The Tea Party isn’t right about anything, but I think we’re dealing with a different force here. The Tea Party bogeyman is now invoked by corporatists in both parties to marginalize conservative resistance, and distract progressives with a fun and easy target. We need to think this through.
I’ll let a conservative answer Sherrie’s red herring about what people actually support on that fuzzy survey. People might answer a general survey question about supporting some unspecified common core affirmatively. But when they actually see what is being marketed, they are recoiling mightily.
Here is conservative blogger Christel Swasey characterizing the argument that supporting standards doesn’t mean supporting monopoly domination:
“Americans used to be in favor of legitimate, non-experimental standards for children that were unattached to corporate greed, and legal. Aren’t we still?”
This is worthy of study. I want to post two links for this quote. Here’s a dignified layout on Heartland’s site:
http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2013/04/02/truth-behind-truth-about-common-core
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Oh, rats, my comment is awaiting moderation. I have to slice it up more.
I don’t see the link to Cody’s story. Here it is:
http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2013/06/is_the_tea_party_right_about_t.html
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And here’s the comment I made about it there:
The Tea Party isn’t right about anything, but I think we’re dealing with a different force here. The Tea Party bogeyman is now invoked by corporatists in both parties to marginalize conservative resistance, and distract progressives with a fun and easy target. We need to think this through.
I’ll let a conservative answer Sherrie’s red herring about what people actually support on that fuzzy survey. People might answer a general survey question about supporting some unspecified common core affirmatively. But when they actually see what is being marketed, they are recoiling mightily.
Here is conservative blogger Christel Swasey characterizing the argument that supporting standards doesn’t mean supporting monopoly domination:
“Americans used to be in favor of legitimate, non-experimental standards for children that were unattached to corporate greed, and legal. Aren’t we still?”
This is worthy of study. I want to post two links for this quote. Here’s a dignified layout on Heartland’s site:
http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2013/04/02/truth-behind-truth-about-common-core
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The comment pointing out that conservative opposition to Jeb Bush iisn’t equivlent to Tea Party still didn’t post. Please see it on Anthony’s Blog, and also look at his magnificent follow-up piece, “Lesson for Our Leaders: The Best Defense is a Good Offense.”
http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2013/06/lesson_for_our_leaders_the_bes.html
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I am wondering who is saying that Linda Darling-Hammond is part of a conspiracy. Could you give some citations?
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Where is Harlan Underhill in all of this?
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Look, let’s get clear about this:
If I can be part of an ultimately successful anti-Common Core coalition, comprised of people who oppose it for ANY reason, that would be terrific.
Where is it written that I can’t join forces with another citizen to oppose the vile CC, because we disagree on reproductive rights or taxation rates?
By what law or logic should we require some sort of ideological litmus test before we’re allowed to work together to dismantle and bury Common Core?
Let each of us choose OUR OWN reasons for opposing Common Core, while respecting each other’s viewpoints on health care, unions, climate change, Pentagon spending or anything else.
I don’t care if you believe Barack Obama was born on Mars or that the crash of 2008 was caused by Teddy Roosevelt’s anti-trust policies—I really don’t—IF we can join forces and work together in our common interest.
We’re fools if we play into the hands of the pro-Common Core shills and propaganda professionals who are paid to split the rapidly growing opposition into warring factions. They love it when we “little people” waste all of our time and energy on hating each other.
Time is too short. And the stakes are too high. I’m not interested in some sort of “Pre-Qualification” of people who want to join the fight against Common Core. And I trust that most of us—regardless of how or why we oppose Common Core—will be pragmatic and smart enough to do the same.
We can refuse to work with those who oppose us on other things and lose; or stand together in a COALITION and win.
We may not get another chance at this. It’s a no-brainer, or should be, for any of us on the left, right, or anywhere in between.
United—across the political system, with no suspicions or resentments—we’ll win. But if we let the Jeb Bushes and Michelle Rhees and Joel Kleins confuse us, and turn us against our natural coalition partners, we’ll lose.
Let’s do it. Let’s unite—and STUN those who thought such a thing couldn’t be possible—and let’s win this fight against Common Core!
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All this chatter about coalitions and working together sound great until you are stabbed in the back by your newly found allies. Sorry,I just can’t quite reach that knife that the Tea Party and Beck has already thrust into public school teachers backs to remove it and move on.
They may be against the Common Core for whatever reason, I am not interested in winning a battle if it means we lose the war. Yes folks, it is a war to preserve our nations most important asset, our PUBLIC schools.
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I’m no bigger a fan of the Tea Party than you are. I can assure you of that. And I agree that Beck is a miscreant who appears to be truly unbalanced.
Some battles are BIG; and you won’t win any kind of war without them. If you lose Gettysburg…there won’t be any tomorrow.
Quite the contrary to your point: If we lose the battle on Common Core, the war might end, then and there; with a permanent victory for The Privatizers.
“But Mr. President, do you see what you’re suggesting? Are you saying you want to join forces with Joseph Stalin! Stalin! You know this man. He’s publicly preached hatred against our country and everything we stand for. He’s a mass murderer. He’s a vicious dictator. And, worst of all, he made a pact with GERMANY of all things! GERMANY! The very same people he now wants us to help fight!”
“Please listen, Mr. Prime Minister, why should we trust someone like Stalin—given his recent friendship with these very same people he now wants us to help fight, just because they betrayed him? He’s playing us for fools. If anything, some people are saying, the USSR might even be worse than Germany!”
I’m sure that both Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill—one a proud liberal Democrat, the other an assertive Conservative—heard some version of this in 1941-42.
I’m glad they made what proved to be the right choice. Who knows what the ultimate outcome would have been otherwise.
And last I checked, neither the US of the UK had any difficulties with a rapid postwar switch in policy, to one of adamant, and ultimately successful opposition to their temporary—but absolutely essential—ally.
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rratto, no disrespect intended, brother. We’re obviously on the same side here. I couldn’t agree with you more about this being a a war to preserve our nations most important asset, our PUBLIC schools.
There appears to be absolutely no daylight between us regarding our views on public education. Our only dispute appears to be a tactical one.
Again, I feel a need to emphasize the word coalition. It’s more analogous to a temporary business arrangement as opposed to a romance or even a one night stand.
KEY WORD: “coalition”
co·a·li·tion [koh-uh-lish-uhn]
noun
Definition: a combination or alliance, especially a temporary one between persons, factions, states, etc.
EXAMPLE SENTENCES:
– Two party leaders have to cooperate in a coalition government,
despite their political differences.
– The coalition leading the opposition is a mix of ideologies and
includes former regime members and expats.
(Please see my comments below as well.)
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its awful difficult to rationalize a coalition with a group that wants your demise.
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rratto,
Correction about the backstabbing: You can only be backstabbed by someone who you thought was a friend. That would be Obama, who pretended to like public school teachers just long enough to get union endorsements and money back in 2008, and then again in 2012. (I still can’t believe my fellow teachers were that gullible in 2012.)
The knife he has been plunging into our backs for the last four years has been Race to the Top, which is much more anti-teacher than anything Bush ever dreamed up.
The Tea Party gang never pretended to be our friends. They have always been honest enemies, attacking us from the front, so to speak, as opposed to that lying, dishonest creep in the White House, who has betrayed our trust in every possible way.
If any Democrats have a problem with teachers allying themselves with the Tea Party on a few discrete issues, then maybe they need to examine their policies and behavior.
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And remember, “they” hate “us” too.
Well, maybe “hate” is too strong a word in such a sweeping characterization of the Tea Party or any other conservative groups, but they demonstrate no more love and understanding than we do of them.
Disagree with these people if you will—and I certainly do, in almost every area—but they’re not all fools and dolts. Some are pretty savvy despite their retrograde views.
Don’t you think that they’re having the same debates on their websites and at their meetings as well? (Go check some out if you want to see proof of this.) “Should we trust these no-good liberals, after all the terrible things they’ve done to our country…blah blah blah…”
I’m glad there are factions on both ends that recognize their own self-interest. Nothing makes the Corporate Conservative Centrist Control Coalition, a.k.a. The Ruling Elite, or The Privatizers, happier than we “small fry”—as they characterize us, both financially and intellectually—fighting furiously with each other. (I’m sure it provides a lot of smirks and chittering on their yachts around this time of year.)
We can continue to hate and distrust each other 24/7 or we can at least explore the possibility of working together, at least on this one issue, to get what we both want.
And this is an easy one: It’s much harder to get all factions to agree when we’re trying to build, develop or establish something. It’s significantly easier when our mission is to derail, stop, end.
We may look back and say that this was the moment when it all was possible, but we let our hate and fear kill the possibility. Let’s not let that happen. It’s time to seize the day and use it to strike a blow to the heart of those who would remove from all parents and taxpayers, the right to control OUR local schools.
And that’s something we’re ALL agreed on, whether left, right, center, red, blue, purple, Republican, Democrat, Independent, Suburban, Urban, Rural or whatever.
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I will form alliances with the Tea Party for the sole purpose of getting the Federal government’s involvement the heck out of public education and having us use our federal taxes, which should be trickling back to our local neighborhood schools.
The money is critical and should be used based on local democracy; the policies of Arne Duncan and his ersatz department and Obama are deplorable. . . .
If this alliance were to lead to such needed results, I would then drop the TP as the allies dropped Stalin like a hot potato.
There’s nothing wrong with friends with benefits if it is focused on a mutual desired goal.
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And besides, I hear the TEA Party is planning on changing its name to the Social Welfare Party, all the better to garner the maximum amount of Social Welfare the rest of us saps send off to the IRS every year.
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It’s corporate welfare, not social welfare. I wish it WERE the latter.
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What, you mean you don’t think the TEA Party qualifies for 501(c)(4) tax exemption status!? How positively untrusting of you …
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