The New York Times reports that Jeb Bush has the consent of his family to run for President.
With the war in Iraq now seen as a poorly planned disaster, with No Child Left Behind considered a toxic brand, with Florida’s education “miracle” turned into a free-for-all for entrepreneurs, what will his program be? More charters, more vouchers, more virtual for-profit schools? More wars to prove our might in distant lands? More benefits for the 1%?
The GOP field is slim pickings. Jeb may be the one.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
As long as he can NEVER be elected, let him move to the front of the line. No Bull, No Bush!
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Good call! Yuck! No Bush! And his funded Foundation of Educational Excellence funded by Bill Gates!
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Diane, you must have received an advance copy of Jeb’s 1%ForProfitPlatform.
I heard that Barbara Bush thought there would be too many Bushes in the White House if Jebby ran. When his own mother reacts this way…watch out!
We are being Bush-Winked or Bush-Wacked?
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AGGGGGGH!!!! PUKE!
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President Bush #3 will attempt to kill off Social Security once and for all time. Shrub tried to privatize SS in 2005 but mercifully he failed. Bush #2 told so many lies about SS; he obviously wanted to hand SS over to those wonderful Wall Street banksters who precipitated the worst recession since the Great Depression. He implied that the SS trust fund was just so many pieces of paper. LIE. The trust find is worth $2.7 trillion and it earns interest. They are special issue securities, treasury bonds, just as valid as our currency, just as valid as treasury bonds owned by millions of Americans and by foreign countries like China and Japan. Treasury bonds are backed by the full faith and credit of the US government and they are one of the safest investments on the planet. In 1978, George W. Bush told the Texas Observer that SS would go bust, go bankrupt in 10 years. He lied then and he lied in 2005 in his quest to privatize SS. The SS trust fund is real, it is as valid as the dollar bills in your wallet.
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Even where I am in conservative north Florida near the military bases, most of the young people are opposed to Jeb Bush. There is a constant barrage of TV ads where Jeb Bush is a shill for tricky Rick Scott. Under the Bush influence, Scott has cut public education funding, expanded charters, vouchers and cyber education, in which Bush is heavily invested. Not only would he be a disaster for Medicare and Social Security, he would be a disaster for public education.
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May the FSM wrap his noodly appendages around the Jebster and immediately transport him to that great pasta place in the sky.
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As long as Democrats continue to accept and support the “lesser of two evils” public schools will suffer badly.
Hillary, Elizabeth, Bernie and ( mercy forbid) Andrew have no political reason to support public education and have millions of reasons to do as Obama had done.
I would hate to see it BUT, how much worse could Bush be than Obama has been.
Even W wasn’t as bad a Obama.
Dems will take no notice, unless….
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If we are talking education, then yes, Obama is just as bad as Bush but please, Bush is the worst president ever. He started two wars, he cut taxes during a time of war, he partially privatized Medicare, he tried to privatize Social Security but failed and he appointed two right wingers to the supreme court. Yes, I will damn well vote for the evil of the two lessers when there is no other viable candidate to vote for. Al Gore would have been a better president than Bush by a million miles; there is enough of a difference for me to vote for the lesser of the two evils. So shoot me, I voted for Gore instead of Nader. It didn’t help, the right wing supreme court picked Bushy.
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Then the cause is lost. Sometimes amputation is the best choice.
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Gag me with a silver spoon. We all knew this was coming, did we? Bush III would be worse for public education than Bush II, and even worse than Obama!
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Gag me with a silver spoon. We all knew this was coming, didn’t we? Bush III would be worse for public education than Bush II, and even worse than Obama!
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He’s one of the few politicians who still strongly supports Common Core. It’ll be interesting to see how his position changes when he runs.
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Barbara Bush said “we don’t need another Bush in the White House” and I couldn’t agree with her more. Thank you Barbara. Now please talk to your son about his ambition to be President.
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Well, Bush III will at least run on privatizing public schools, which will put him ahead of the Obama Administration AND the Bush II Administration as far as transparency.
Some of the speeches Jeb has given are really hostile to public schools. I read one given at some think-tank retreat for ed reformers in Michigan where he was spitting out “government schools” with real rancor. He sounds like a Right wing nut.
Hopefully he’ll see fit to reveal that to voters, so we can at least have a public debate before we privatize public schools. I think it’s a tragic mistake, epic, and one the country will really regret. We won’t get public schools back once they’re privatized. The best we’ll get is half-ass regulation and even that will have to be fought for tooth and nail to get it past lobbyists and captured regulators. It’ll be a disaster.
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Agreed – let him put the cards on the table. We’re playing them anyway.
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Chiara, this is a really good point. It will actually make privatization a campaign issue on the national stage. No more pretending. Maybe it will force a Democrat to actually stand up and articulate a clear and contrasting position!
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I am sick to think of that happening. Not again God please not again. And if Hillary runs it will be two dynasties going head to head. Sigh. Anyone out there for Elizabeth warren?
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When I hear Elizabeth Warren talk about student debt or the social contract, I think there is a chance that we could have a national leader really on our side. Has anybody reached out to her?
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I remember studying Latin American oligarchies in “banana republics”. Is our destiny on that same course with Bush and Clinton? When will people get tired of voting for the “lesser of two evils”? Both the Democratic and Republican Parties have quit serving the people. They keep using fear to get us to vote for them. Aren’t we tired of being afraid all the time? All of the laws that benefited and protected workers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were initially proposed by third parties. It is way overdue to turn to the third parties again to help our nation’s citizens.
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AAAARRGH!!! Another Bush? Let is be noted that his signature issue, school vouchers, was soundly rejected by Florida voters in 2012 by 55% to 45%.
To paraphrase Cicero, “Arbutus delenda est!”.
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Last May after school was out for the summer, Scott and the crooked Republican legislature pushed through a voucher bill at night after the PTAs were disbanded for the summer. It is exactly the type cowardly action to be expected by Scott and Bush.
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Dear Diane, Have you read the most recent Time Magazine article on Teacher Tenure. I think his basic premise is wrong His premise is that bad teachers are the problem. And we know how lame that is. Bad budgets etc. But what I think is their real motive is the only thing really standing in there way of common core, control of the curriculum, economic benefits in the billions, and privatizing are the loud voices of teachers protecting and protesting for their students best interest. To get rid of tenure is to silence that voice once and for all. God help us if he succeeds. I do hope you write a response to the article. Sincerely Julie Dewey
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Julia, this theory that our schools are “failing” because of “bad” teachers is nonsense. Where there are low test scores, there is high poverty. Poverty is the surest predictor of poor academic performance. Pasi Sahlberg wrote an article for Valerie Strauss’s blog earlier this year (reposted here) in which he asserted that one could switch all the teachers in Finland with all the teachers in Indiana and the results would be no different. The Indiana teachers would be thrilled by their happy and supportive circumstances, and the Finnish teachers would be baffled about how to deal with kids who had been so scarred by poverty. Other nations look for ways to support their teachers; we are locked into the narrative of the corporate reformers, who think they can fix schools by firing teachers. Good teachers–great teachers–will materialize from somewhere. So they think.
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Thank you, Diane! I missed that article. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/05/15/what-if-finlands-great-teachers-taught-in-u-s-schools-not-what-you-think/
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TO ALL OF YOU WHO FEEL THIS WAY… Bernie Sanders is a wonderful human being, the kind of leader who possesses the quality of integrity. We who adore Bernie want to see him run…with LIZ WARREN as his running mate– CAN YOU IMAGINE SUCH A THING.
I GET THE BERNIE BUZZ,
http://www.sanders.senate.gov/buzz
his newsletter, and I am astonished at the things he accomplishes and the agenda he sets in all the area that are important.
Tell everyone to contact his people and get in on the grassroots where YOU live, because when I mention his name in my Rockland County neighborhood, inevitably the people say, “Bernie who?”
These are not ignorant people either… just busy, and their attention to their lives and their screens does not permit extraneous information about some Vermont independent.
If name recognition is the name of the game, then we will get another “shrub’ this one called Jeb.
Soooo, it THAT scares you, then get the word out about BERNIE SANDERS. ONLY GRASSROOTS EFFORTS WILL MAKE THE DIFFERENCE.
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I agree that Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren would be great! However, I’m afraid that the corporate run media would not support either of them.
How sad that our government is being bought by money from the wealthy and corporations who only want more $$$ for those who already have enough.
I agree, “Only grassroots efforts will make the difference!”
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Dream ticket… Warren and Sanders. Would be wonderful.
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I can’t even take this through my mind…How horrifying to think of a third Bush in the White House…16 total years of Bush and Obama combined (when his term finishes) has brought our country to its knees….
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Not again, never again. No more Bush presidencies!!
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I thought we already had/have the third Bush.
I think they are going to need another mountain: Bushmore.
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Mollie Ivins (dear and departed) referred to all of the Bush children as shrubs.
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As a Florida resident, the one time I saw Jeb Bush was at a national AP conference in Orlando. He was the opening speaker–this was in 2004 when he was still FL governor. He was around 30 minutes late. He walked out from behind a curtain very energetically only to be greeted with polite applause. I remember thinking ‘He’s expecting a standing ovation’–I could see the crestfallen look on his face. I was in the seventh row. What came next was flop sweat. He started sweating like a whore in church. His voice shook. His nervousness was painfully apparent. If he runs, teacher armies need to descend on every single public appearance he makes. And ask tough questions. And not let him off the hook.
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I can’t imagine anything worse than another Bush in the White House. NO, NO, NO, NO!!!
How long will it take to have the country return to ‘normal’ after Bush W’s feats. The Supreme Court was packed so we got Citizens United. The ‘war that never ends’ is still draining our coffers. Bush W’s No Child Left Behind is destroying public schools.
The GOP doesn’t understand the need for social programs and wants to cut Social Security and Medicare.
The GOP agenda is destructive to average and poor people.
NO MORE BUSHES!!
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Vandykel@michigan.gov
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I’m an atheist…have been for years and now for the first time in a while I feel the need to pray…Yahweh, Zeus, Odin, Ra, Indra anyone that’s real or listening PLEASE don’t let another one make it to the white house!!!
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