On Politico this morning:

“OF PHILOSOPHERS AND PICKETS: Democrats for Education Reform planned a nice quiet retreat this week at the luxurious Whiteface Lodge in Lake Placid, N.Y. where top strategists of the education reform movement could map out their next moves at seminars such as “Living to Tell the Tale: Changing Third-Rail Teacher Policies” and “Rocketships, Klingons and Tribbles: Charters’ Course to Where No Schools Have Gone Before.” For a VIP registration fee of $2,500, participants were promised a chance to hobnob with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu and other “thought leaders on education reform.”

– Then the teachers’ union got wind of it. A couple public school teachers tried to register for “Camp Philos” and were told it was booked. (Your POLITICO Pro Education team tried to get in, too, but we were told unequivocally: No press). Irate at the idea of wealthy “thought leaders” planning the future of public education without them, about 300 members of the New York State United Teachers union showed up at Whiteface Lodge on Sunday in matching green T-shirts, bearing handmade signs with slogans like “Don’t Sell Our Schools to the Highest Bidder.” The members, plus American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, picketed in a downpour. They got even more fired up when they heard that Cuomo would be addressing the conference by video, not in person – crediting themselves for scaring him away. Check out the Twitter hashtag #picketinthepines for photos and rally slogans galore.

– DFER, meanwhile, was undaunted by the protests. Executive Director Joe Williams said: “If anything, a lot of people here are used to being the ones out there protesting, so it is fascinating to witness it from the other side. It reinforced the notion, which brought people here in the first place, that there remains a fight over the soul of the Democratic party, and that it is kicking into high gear.”

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The greatest “thought leaders” of our time, who all seem to work on Wall Street or run hedge funds and control billions, held their meeting of the minds in upstate New York, but Governor Cuomo didn’t show. He is, of course, the biggest “thought leader” of all, apparently a direct descendant of Hobbes, Nietzsche, Machiavelli, and Emerson. Anyway, he appeared on video to thank his campaign donors for $800,000 or more and pledge his fealty to their cause of privatizing the nation’s public schools.

Meanwhile, hundreds of teachers and parents picketed outside in the rain, many carrying posters saying “No Mo Cuomo,” and similar anti-Cuomo sentiments.

Is it strange that hedge fund managers meet to “reform” the nation’s public schools? Is it strange that the teachers and parents were outside, not inside?

Joe Williams of DFER says in the story above that it is the hedge fund managers who are usually found outside, picketing in the rain. Please, someone, remind me of the last time that happened.

We are in a New Age, the Bush-Obama era, where those who are richest get to decide the fate of public schools.