In Valerie Strauss’s blog “The Answer Sheet” in the “Washington Post,” Professor Alyssa Hadley Dunn subjected Campbell Brown’s statements on the Stephen Colbert show to a fact check. Dunn, who taught high school English, is now an assistant professor of Teacher Education at Michigan State University.
Dunn compares what Brown says to what research shows.
She concludes: “Quite simply: there is no research demonstrating causation between teacher tenure laws and lower rates of student achievement, which is the entire argument behind the lawsuit.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Thank you, Diane! I am grateful for and humbled by your support. Thank you for all you do to fight for teachers and students.
Watching the interview again, I just caught something telling. In the middle of the interview, Brown makes a quite damning contradiction. I call attention to her use of the pronouns “we” and “our”.
Watch the interview again at, paying attention to the following:
http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2014/08/campbell-brown-lame.html
Pay attention to these two snippets:
(NOTE: CAPITALS for “WE” in the first, and for “OUR” in the second clip, … are mine, JACK)
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00:55 – 01:05
CAMPBELL BROWN: “First, let me just correct something you said. WE (Parents for Educational Justice) are not filing this lawsuit. Seven parents who have kids in public schools in New York state are bringing this lawsuit.”
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Now, here come Brown’s slip-up
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03:47 – 03:52
CAMPBELL BROWN: “Can I just mention some of OUR plaintiffs are out here tonight, too (she gestures to the audience). They’re very happy to be here.”
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Whoa, whoa, whoa… hold on here, Campbell. Three minutes ago, you said that “we”— your group “Parents for Educational Justice”— were not filing the lawsuit, as in that it’s not “our” lawsuit, it’s the plaintiff parents’ lawsuit, and that you’re just giving them a little help. Suddenly, you’re referring to those same plaintiff parents as “our plaintiffs.”
Woopsie-daisy!
Again, notice Brown doesn’t say “the” plaintiffs, as in “the plaintiffs to whom our group is lending support.” She says, “our.” If only Colbert had been quick enough to catch her on that.
Campbell Brown was hoping for a heart-warming, Oprah-show-like cut-away to those minority children plaintiffs sitting in the audience.
No such luck.
However, her attempt to effect that cut-away backfired on Brown as she let loose with the slip-up just described.
It seems the sad truth that competent scholarly research does not compete with lies and half truths in the public education sector now. How tragic when education has always been the search for ultimate truth. Political hacks have usurped the rights of true educators it seems now. How can a country long endure when this is the case. Whether in the public schools or in the media, the media which is supposed to educate, the half truths, innuendo, selective “facts”, ad nauseum seem to be the order of the day. It was stunning a few months back when the “Columbia Journalism Review” lead article was “Who Cares if it is True”.
Nuff Sed.
In fact, there has been a decades-long natural experiment on this subject. Teachers in New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts have due process rights, teachers in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana do not. So where do you want your kids educated? Who wins the battle of the test scoresheet? Louisiana or New York? Mississippi or Massachusetts? Alabama or New Jersey? The argument for abolishing due process for teachers falls apart as soon as you look at it
So it’s poverty’s fault up until the precise moment you’re attempting to prove the superiority of education in heavily unionized states, then it’s okay to throw student demographics out the window? Lame.
Hopefully the folks who are fact-checking Campbell Brown can also fact-check the opposite side of the argument. There is no evidence at all to suggest teachers in heavily unionized states have more of a positive impact on their students than their counterparts in “right to work” states.
http://shankerblog.org/?p=1941
It’s not necessary to show “that teachers in heavily unionized states have more of a positive impact…”. It’s Campbell Brown’s claim that tenure harms students, so it’s up to her to prove it, not up to opposite side to show that tenure benefits students (although Diane has already published several reasons and examples of why it does).
Lets just say teachers feel more free to fight for their students rights in heavily unionized states. They don’t fear being fired because they speak up about schools breaking federal and state laws say for special ed. or schools like in LA that don’t have sanitary conditions, or parents that are endangering their kids. Tenure doesn’t just protect the teacher it protects the students and the teachers right to fight for them without being fired for it, or taking down an incompetent principal by taking him or her to court etc. Nope TIm, teachers that have a union are much more likely to have students that are being protected too. Contrary to popular opinion and the media hype of the reformers teachers are some of the most giving, unselfish people on the planet and their main love and motive is helping their students. Their mouths are shut without a union or they lose their jobs, that is a sad sad truth. Even with a union they go after teachers that speak out. Many who are speaking out now about common core are being threatened.
Certainly, there are other blogs with opinions that contain facts that dispute this opinion by Shanker.
Tim, you are purposely and disingenuously distorting what Paul actually said. Paul demonstrated that the heavily unionized states do not have a deleterious effect on educational outcomes. The reform crowd and Campbell Brown are trying to say that unions, tenure and LIFO are bad for schools and the children. Paul offered an example that disproves that contention.
Joe,
It is difficult to show that heavily unionized schools have positive or negative impacts when unionization and relative wealth are closely correlated. I think that is Tim’s point.
A better comparison would be to match schools with similar SES makeup across states with and without heavy union presence to see if unionization, holding SES constant, has a significant impact on student outcomes.
Paul Gottlieb did, in fact, state either that A. tenure has a positive impact on student outcomes, B. not having tenure has a negative impact on student outcomes, or C. some combination of A + B, and he arrived at this conclusion by comparing apples and oranges–wealthy states with lower proportions of at-risk children vs. poor states with higher proportions of at-risk children.
The current research indicates there is no significant difference between the impact of teachers in union vs. non-union states. TE, I believe that some of the studies Di Carlo references did attempt the sort of approach you describe. The ultimate, of course, would be to establish some districts in Massachusetts that operate non-unionized schools and some in Alabama that are unionized, then assign kids to each format via lottery. Of course that’ll never happen.
Maybe there are to be lawsuits against her, sort of like a part 2 version of the Board vs. Brown . . . . .
Then summary judgment should be a snap for the defendants.
Not when the Judge has been bought and sold ten times over and his opinion (Trou) is based on nonsense.
I think Treu’s opinion was terrible, but can you point me to any “research demonstrating” that he has been “bought and sold”?
Either you are naive you think everyone else is Flerp. I don’t wish to engage an argument with you. I find you and TE’s baiting uninviting. If you really think Trou considered the nonsense and made an informed opinion based on the facts, good for you.
Treu’s opinion was terrible for reasons that do not rely on a paranoid, unsupported assumption that he was either “bought” or “sold.”
How about “bought in” and “sold out”?
Mercedes Schneider just posted an in-depth expose of fellow Louisianan Campbell Brown’s background, connections and motivations.
A MUST-READ:
http://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2014/08/01/pretty-campbell-brown-and-her-ugly-misguided-anti-due-process-crusade/
Wow, watch this video of billionaire “corporate reformer” Reed Hastings, who openly professes the corporate reformers’ goal of eliminating all democratic control of public schools—via democratically-elected school boards—-and replacing it with private control by him and his allies, where he freely admits there will be so much better off when these private entities provide ZERO transparency to the public, ZERO accountability to the public, etc.—- just give us all the control, leave us alone and trust us, folks….and education will then be so much better… like it is in say, New Orleans… NOT!
Another MUST-WATCH:
“She concludes: ‘Quite simply: there is no research demonstrating causation between teacher tenure laws and lower rates of student achievement, which is the entire argument behind the lawsuit.'”
Would that all education researchers promoted policies based on causal (and not correlative) analysis.
“Haters ‘re gonna hate. Right?”
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Campbell Brown said, smiling ear-to-ear, regarding those who criticize her, her organization, her refusal to reveal her funders, the funders’ motivations, etc.
at 07:29
at
http://uneditedpolitics.com/campbell-brown-on-morning-joe-we-need-to-evaluate-teachers-on-performance-8414/
We’re all just “haters.” Wow, that really put us all in our place… NOT!
This “Morning Joe” show was a total sham, perhaps to help Ms. Brown compensate for her disastrous performance on the Colbert show. It includes every talking point / canard put forward by corporate reformers:
— older, veteran teachers suck, but newer teachers, especially TFA are the greatest
— veteran teacher hate TFA because those veterans can’t handle the TFA’s 5-weeks-of-training-never-taught-a-day-in-their-lives brilliance and their new ideas and the competition that TFA teachers threaten them with; (CEJ’s lawyer incorrectly calls them “volunteers”… indicating his detailed grasp of the current educational landscape)
— we need to evaluate, reward, pay, fire, hire, etc. teachers based on merit (i.e. students’ test scores)
— destroying teachers protections and due process is actually being “pro-teacher”
— most/many liberals Democrats hate teachers and their unions as much as conservatives / Republicans
— corporate reformers like Campbell Brown and her billionaire allies/backers care more about the education of poor, minority kids more than those teachers who are there teaching those kids every day… it’s the “civil rights issue or our time.”
— we need to stop protecting teachers, and instead protect students
— this lawsuit isn’t an attack on teachers; it’s about helping them
— parents need to wake up and start hating their teachers, and get behind her.
That’s just a start of what they said.
In lieu of this, try reading the two links below:
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Mercedes Schneider just posted an in-depth expose of fellow Louisianan Campbell Brown’s background, connections and motivations.
A MUST-READ:
http://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2014/08/01/pretty-campbell-brown-and-her-ugly-misguided-anti-due-process-crusade/
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Here’s another great article about the people in Brown’s “Parents for Educational Justice”, the group backing the lawsuit:
http://mothercrusader.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-reformy-heavyweights-behind-new.html
Here’s a great snippet:
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
“While a look at Pirozzolo is certainly somewhat entertaining, the place you really have to look to understand how the Vergara case spread to New York so quickly is at Campbell Brown and her “newly launched” 501c3, Partners for Educational Justice.
“It is so new that there are no 990s or other documents yet available to check the group’s funding sources. However, one need not look much further than Partners for Educational Justice’s Board of Directors and Advisory Board to get an idea of where the money may come from.
“None other than Joe Williams, Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) Executive Director, is on the Board of Directors. Yeah, the very same DFER that tried to trample Ras Baraka’s campaign for Mayor by throwing well over 2 million dollars into Shavar Jeffries campaign through Super PAC Newark First. I don’t feel like I’m going out on a limb by saying it seems pretty likely that DFER will be throwing some cash behind Brown’s lawsuit.
“As an aside, Campbell Brown was right there beside DFER in the Newark mayor’s race, and personally chipped in $7,800 for Shavar Jeffries. When I found her name in the ELEC filings I did a bit of digging to see if, and if so how, she was connected to the world of ed reform, and that was when I learned her husband, Dan Senor, is on the Board of Directors of Student’s First NY (and was an advisor to Mitt Romney).
Seems Brown and Senor share a passion for trampling teachers’ due process rights and seniority protections.
“How quaint.”
Mother Crusader even takes on Brown’s claims — made on the Colbert show — that her group is not costing anyone that much money, as the lawyers are working “pro bono”:
– – – – – – – – – – – – – —
“And while Brown claims the New York suit won’t be as costly because they are getting the legal work pro bono ( from ‘a former deputy assistant for domestic policy to President George W. Bush’ no less), it can’t be cheap to hire a PR firm run by former aides to President Obama!
“The Incite Agency, founded by former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs and former Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt, will lead a national public relations drive to support a series of lawsuits aimed at challenging tenure, seniority and other job protections that teachers unions have defended ferociously. LaBolt and another former Obama aide, Jon Jones — the first digital strategist of the 2008 campaign — will take the lead in the public relations initiative.
“There you have it folks.
“The New York Vergara case brings heavy weights from DFER, NYCAN, StudentsFirstNY, together with top level former Obama staffers, and even a former Bush lawyer, to see if they can pull the wool over the eyes of a judge in New York like David Welch and his somewhat similar cast of characters did in California.
“Quite honestly, I don’t think they can replicate what happened on the West Coast. It’s hard to imagine this case won’t be seen as the dog and pony Public Relations show it truly is. Especially when Brown is saying as much in the press before the trial has even started.
” CAMPBELL BROWN: ‘The PR piece of this is essential because for the first time, we’re having a dialogue in this country about anachronistic laws and how we revamp our public education system for the modern world so it serves children first and foremost, Having that conversation is as important to me as the litigation itself.’
“While I give props to Brown for having the vocabulary skills to call the laws she aims to change ‘anachronistic’ instead of ‘bad,’ a la Pirozzolo, it still seems ill-advised to head into a lawsuit talking about how ‘essential’ PR will be to your case.”
I am trying my best to find out what Campbell Brown’s educational teaching experience and/or credentials are but, try as I may, I’m coming up empty handed.
Campbell, can you supply this information?
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell_Brown
“Don’t know much: Campbell Brown’s rallying cry”
***apologies to Sam Cooke**
Don’t know much about due process
Don’t know much, I do confess
Don’t know much about edumacation
Don’t know much about the teacher vocation
But I do know that tenure’s evil
And I know that if you buy my drivel
What a wonderful world this would be
Don’t know much geography
Don’t know much trigonometry
Don’t know much about algebra
Don’t know what a computer is for
But I know that one and one is three
And if your money could be made sent to me
What a wonderful this would be
I don’t claim to be an ‘A’ student
But I’m trying to be
Maybe my being an ‘A’ student baby
I can win your checks for me
Don’t know much about due process
Don’t know much, I do confess
Don’t know much about edumacation
Don’t know much about the teacher vocation
But I do know that tenure’s evil
And I know that if you buy my drivel
What a wonderful world this would be
Don’t know much geography
Don’t know much trigonometry
Don’t know much about algebra
Don’t know what a slide rule is for
But I know that one and one is three
And if your money could be made sent to me
What a wonderful this would be
SomeDAM Poet: TAGO!
I think Mark Twain must have known some Campbell Browns during his time—
“All you need is ignorance and confidence and the success is sure.”
😎
mindless self indulgence