Peter Cunningham, former deputy to Arne Duncan, accused Carol Burris and me of “attacking” Campbell Brown. He says we “attack” anyone who disagrees with us. Peter now runs a website called Education Post, where he received $12 million from various billionaires (including Walton and Bloomberg) to defend the corporate reform movement of high stakes testing, VAM, and privatization of public schools.
Anyone who reads my post about Campbell will see that there was no attack. I was doing my best to educate her about what grade level means and why NAEP proficient is not and should not be used as a “passing mark.”
Carol tweeted with Campbell. So did Tom Loveless of Brookings, who told her that she was wrong and urged her to correct her error. For some reason, Peter did not include Tom in the list of people who were “attacking” Campbell.
Obviously, neither she nor Peter bothered to read the links to scholarly studies and government websites included in my post. They should. They might learn something and stop bashing American public schools and their teachers. I served seven years on the NAEP governing board. I could help them if they are willing to learn.
As for calling Campbell “telegenic,” that’s no insult, that’s a compliment. If you call me telegenic, I would say thank you.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It’s all about the diction. If he says “attack,” that’s what the lazy MSM will pick up. Truth and reality are irrelevant.
LikeLike
Well duh. Consider the source.
LikeLike
They are shills, obviously unwilling to learn or perhaps engaged in a studied campaign to ignore the facts. They are not alone.
It is a good sign that your expertise and that of Carol Burris threatens them. Very thin skins.
LikeLike
Should we assume that people you do not specifically describe as telegenic are un-telegenic? Or is Campbell Brown so unusually telegenic that it must be noted?
LikeLike
FLERP,
Campbell was an on-air TV person. She is very pretty.
LikeLike
I take no position on the issue, but perhaps others here would like to weigh in on whether they think Campbell Brown is pretty.
LikeLike
Being telegenic might be the only worthwhile accomplishment Campbell Brown has done in her life. She’s just another privileged person who seems to have gotten through most of her life on her looks and well-heeled connections through her politician daddy. She has absolutely no experience with education (nope, teaching English in Czechoslovakia doesn’t count!), and clearly, she can’t be bothered to actually educate herself on education. Why people even give her the time of day is beyond me. She’s not even particularly accomplished in her own field!
LikeLike
I think telegenic would describe the reason she is where she is today. If there is another credential or reason that you think she is in her position, I would be very interested to hear it.
LikeLike
FLERP!: alas, I am one of the many on whom the owner of this blog has not bestowed the label “telegenic.”
😳
So, in all honesty, I guess Mr. Cunningham couldn’t take me seriously one way or the other on the issue because maybe he would think me envious or jealous of the truly telegenic.
Rheeally! And he would proclaim me, in the most Johnsonally sort of ways too, to be just another bad actor in the ed debates…
😱
On the other hand, since the MSM is so openly fixated on the personal appearance of its spokesmen/women—e.g., news anchors, reporters, weather forecasters, etc.—I would be interested in what Non Sequitur or Non Sequitur Jr. or Virginia think of the issue. I eagerly await their probing observations.
I think you have displayed a very deft touch in bringing up a tricky and delicate but important point.
And best of all, with a dash of humor.
Thank you.
😎
P.S. You didn’t think I would leave this go without at least a stab at a relevant bit of wisdom from a very old and very dead and very Greek guy? Well, you would be right, so I’ll just let Dorothy Parker do all the heavy lifting:
“Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone.”
Of course, considering the obsession that leaders and enforcers of corporate education reform have with $tudent $ucce$$, perhaps I am not remiss in another reminder of her sharp wit:
“If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.”
Funny she should have written that, since the current lucrative position held by Mr. “Civil Conversation” His Own Bad Self comes to mind—
“The two most beautiful words in the English language are ‘cheque enclosed.”
But let’s be honest. Mr. Cunningham knows a mean-spirited hack when he reads one, or two, of them. So he surely would have excoriated her for such sexist gems as these:
“If you wear a short enough skirt, the party will come to you” and “Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses.”
After all, what did Dorothy Parker know about being a woman? C’mon already!
😏
Although, full disclosure, I think Dorothy Parker leaned towards his type:
“I require three things in a man: he must be handsome, ruthless, and stupid.”
Hey, don’t blame me! After all, she was a member of some ridiculous club called the “Algonquin Round Table” or “The Vicious Circle” or some silly name like that.
Have a heart…
LikeLike
KrazyTA,
Thank you!
LikeLike
Diane’s mentioning that Brown is telegenic is relevant, since it goes to the issue of how someone who 1) did not attend public schools, 2) has never taught a day in her life and 3) does not send her own children to public schools, is somehow able to get anointed as an education expert and advocate. That Cunningham, like all the other so-called reformers, is so thin-skinned and defensive shows that in some region of their reptilian brains they sense they’re doing something terribly wrong, and must over-compensate.
It’s all about branding so-called reform. Michelle Rhee, the first It Girl and brand representative for the hostile takeover of public education , was just too nasty and openly psychopathic to mainintain long-term sales, so Brown was brought in off the bench.
The point is that it’s fair to call Campbell Brown “telegenic” because that is literally all she brings to the table.
LikeLike
That’s one view of why it’s relevant, but it’s not Diane’s. Diane says she’s simply paying Brown a compliment.
LikeLike
Campbell Brown, the self-professed “post college ski bum” supposedly taught English for one year in Czechoslovakia.
Now that’s some serious Ed-Cred!
LikeLike
Gates looks scaly, like a reptile, shedding its skin.
LikeLike
FLERP! Thank you for posting.
You demonstrate exactly the kind of tactics that the Republicans have successfully used to distract people from the facts. You are one of the most outstanding practitioners I have ever witnessed! (You may take that as a compliment).
Let’s focus on the meaning of telegenic and not whether it is very concerning that a TELEGENIC woman is considered an expert. You (or Peter Cunningham) couldn’t actually offer any credentials for why we should take any of her comments any more seriously than Sarah Palin’s (who at least governed for a while). So you needed to attack and distract. Score! A+ for effort there.
It’s the same kind of successful tactics that have led to the rise of Donald Trump. Anyone who criticizes him is attacked not on the facts (since the criticisms are actually true and Trump supporters realize how bad it makes him look), but because they used the word “mean”. Or “telegenic”. Or any word his defenders could desperately grab to distract the debate from the real issues.
The right needs people like you who may not be true believers, but are happy to do the things that will let the true believers (that some kids should be left to rot if it means their pals get rich) flourish. I’d wish you good luck in that pursuit, but honestly, I hope it fails.
Honesty. That’s a value that the reformers despise. Anything to distract from an honest debate is a win for the people who hate public schools. Good job in helping them!
LikeLike
These days, “attacking” means “disagreeing.” See the entire Hillary Clinton primary campaign vis-a-vis criticism of her actual policies, statements, and political history by anyone, particularly Bernie Sanders and his supporters.
The same has long held true since the late ’80s, at least, in various education “wars.” The pseudo-liberal journalist, Jim Sleeper, wrote a book called “Liberal Racism” that helped lay out the blueprint for how conservatives could use verbal jiu-jitsu and pre-emptive strikes to try to reverse reality about which end of the political spectrum is racist. George Orwell would have been proud of his own predictive powers, but sickened by how things played out.
Thus, Cunningham, Brown and their entire ilk are members in good standing of this trend. It’s what allows deformers to try to call public education and its supporters “the status quo,” and a slew of other verbal inanities. It’s what lets the DNC try to sue Bernie Sanders and his supporters after the powers that be stole the entire Nevada primary process and used gestapo tactics in the process.
What a country.
LikeLiked by 1 person
This is so true.
It reminds me of one of the worst examples: the funeral of Sen. Paul Wellstone. The right wing Republicans who provided the model for Peter Cunningham and his ilk successfully turned criticism into the speakers at the funeral “being mean”. Despite those speakers expressing exactly what Sen . Wellstone stood for — especially his son. I mean, how dare his son honor his mother and father in the way he wanted to after his parents and his sister were killed. He should have been “nice”.
I can’t help thinking that Peter Cunningham would have Paul Wellstone’s contempt. Mr. Cunningham’s career and high salary is about pleasing billionaires, period. Just the opposite of what Sen. Wellstone stood for.
No doubt if Sen. Wellstone has opposed the privatizing of public education and the fawning of the billionaire “educators” who know what is best for public schools, Peter Cunningham would have been among the first to jump on the bandwagon to criticize his funeral.
LikeLike
They need to generate some controversy to show their corporate masters that they are doing something to earn their high salaries from their respective nonprofits. I would not be surprised to learn that they are subject to their own VAM like “media mentions per quarter” or some other meaningless statistic.
LikeLike
A failure in education is when we fail to humanize. Diane, thank you despite the attacks, the hollow rhetoric and abuse of data for being self-aware (with dignity) and compassionate (in education.) That we may teach vulnerability and have the courage to learn. Linda Noble (educator)
Sent from my iPhone
>
LikeLike
For the record Diane and Carol are neither pathetic, shameful and deceitful, nor do they hide behind “bureaucratic jargon.” Perhaps as a non educator he cannot distinguish between scholarly, evidence based terminology and bureaucratic jargon.
LikeLike
What bothers me the most is that Peter Cunningham’s words are right out of the Republican playbook.
It’s fine to say whatever misleading nonsense you want to say to get people to believe something that isn’t true, but if anyone calls you out on it, they are being “mean” and are attacked. The goal is to get them to shut up because it’s important to keep the truth hidden as it might actually convince Americans of something other than what the people who pay you lots of money want them to believe.
I guess Peter Cunningham prefers that than arguing the substance of the issues under discussion. Donald Trump, Lee Atwater and company would be proud of Mr. Cunningham. So would the people who no doubt pay his very nice salary.
LikeLike
I think you are telegenic and inTELEgent too.
LikeLike
First line of the article: “Recently, a prominent American citizen released . . . ” (a video)
Souper Brown is a “prominent American citizen”???
My oh my where have our standards gone???
LikeLike
Or how about this one to start the third paragraph: “Sadly, two self-described “protectors” of public education. . . ”
Hmmmm!
Why is it sad that Diane and Carol see themselves as protecting public education? Isn’t that what Souper Brown and her sycophantic cheerleader Peter C. purport that they are doing?
Sitting here literally shaking my head at the wanton stupidity of those two lead in sentences.
LikeLike
They prolly meant “Prom inent” like a “Prom queen”.
Campbell has Prom queen written all over her.
LikeLike
I posted your comment on that huffingtonpost .
LikeLike
Curiously, in Harvard Graduate School of Education press release on Paul Reville’s all day conference Campbell Brown is not mentioned once although she was to play a prominent role. I did receive a letter today from Dean about how he got a big chunk of money, The press release is at: http://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/16/05/making-case-system-overhaul
LikeLike
Where was the money from and how much?
LikeLike
They are talking about educating the whole child edging toward admitting that schools are only part of the solution. Pretty soon they will be talking about community schools with wrap around services. I nearly choked when Reville mentioned moving away from one-size fits all as if that isn’t what the reformsters have been pushing with standardized testing and no excuses charters.
LikeLike
2old2teach: I would like to believe that as occupant of the Francis C. Keppel chair, Reville might be influenced by the work of Keppel, creator of ESEA of 1964 and even NAEP, a remarkable man, concerned about how to educate the poor and racial equality.
Linda: still kicking myself for deleting it and nowhere to be found on the HGSE site. Will keep looking.
LikeLike
I so hope you are right, Barbara, because that might mean I have reason to hope that there really is beginning to be a change in the rhetoric.
LikeLike
The rhetoric about moving away from one size fits all, describes interchangeable modules, for the schools-in-a-box that Gates sells, retail and wholesale.
LikeLike
You ARE telegenic, Diane, & photogenic as well! It’s just, well, why mention it, you have so many other qualities which are actually germaine to ed discussions.
LikeLike
Peter Cunningham complaining about attacks is like Donald Trump complaining about insults. The only purpose for Ed Post to exist is to attack public education–ostensibly with a smile.
I’m not buying Pete’s faux outrage and indignation. Buck up, Mr. Cunningham–if you dish it out, learn how to take it.
LikeLike
Cunningham embarrasses himself. He blathers words, as though they would stop the American people from fighting for democracy. Yammering about niceties, in an undeclared war against kids, communities and taxpayers takes gall. Where is his condemnation for, “….reformers….declare ‘We’ve got to blow up the ed schools’ ” (Philanthropy Roundtable)? Where was Cunningham’s plea for courtesy, when Duncan insulted parents?
Dr. Ravitch- attack enemies of the state. You are the champion for those in the trenches.
The Walton’s Gen Next website, with its link to the “74”, shows contempt for American democracy. Julian Assange exposed the organization. The enacted policies, of the Gates-funded, Aspen, “Senior Congressional Education Staff Network”, demonstrates oligarchy.
Ask Cunningham where the names of the Network staffers can be found?
There wouldn’t be any reason for Aspen’s Education and Society to drag its feet, in releasing the names? It wouldn’t be similar to the redacted, slow-mo, midnight Friday, release of information from the Ed. Dept., to PR Watch, would it?
LikeLike
Next time, don’t trouble yourself with an explanation for the gallant Mr. Cunningham.
Just tell him you don’t speak Whinese and move on.
LikeLike
Yeah, it’s an elite club, ed reform.
Kind of bizarre the US Department of Education is a member, though.
Aren’t they paid to work for everyone? Why are the current and former employees always promoting these same 15 high profile DC ed reformers?
LikeLike
Ach, Chiara!
Always going on about who the Department of Ed is suppossed to represent! Next you’ll want them to support the 94% of kids who go to public schools. Get over it!
LikeLike
Amazing…quite the ruckus over a news anchor? LMAO
LikeLike
This is what’s important in ed reform. Meanwhile the entire city of Erie public school system is collapsing because their ridiculous politicians can’t seem to figure out a basic budget and instead fighting over tenure rules.
There are 100,000 people in Erie. I guess it’s unfashionable, like Flint.
LikeLiked by 1 person
😔
LikeLike
Ironic that Whitney Tilson worked out of the same playbook in part 3 of your back & forth.
It’s classic bullying in negotiating – avoid talking about the issue but accuse the other party of something. Best negotiating book I’ve read classified negotiating techniques by how kids use them. Toddlers negotiate this way. Pre-teens this way. etc.
At what age level is the reformer negotiating style stuck since they all seem to like to use it?
(Also, this approach usually reflects people who know they’re losing the argument – there’s a kind of desperation about it.)
LikeLike
Doug Garnett: I was thinking something along those lines too.
But you expressed it better than I could have.
Thank you for your comments.
😎
LikeLike
When you defend yourself against manipulation or attack by sociopaths, they invariably try to cast you as the aggressor, and themselves as the victims. That’s what occurs when so-called reformers whine about “civility” and “haters.”
Somehow their actions – school closings, scapegoating teachers and destroying their careers, attacking their profession and their pensions, etc. – are never portrayed as “uncivil.” That’s because the smash and grab behavior of the Overclass is the Lust That Can Never Speak It’s Name.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I noticed that, too.
That’s right out of the Karl Rove playbook. It’s not surprising that faux Democrats like Tilson and Cunningham are using it so well.
It takes a certain chutzpah to not care at all about honesty and happily spout whatever the people who pay your very large salary want you to spout. Mr. Cunningham is an embarrassment. If he had an honest disagreement with the facts of Campbell Brown’s credentials, he should have said so.
But by his standards, Trump has every right to opine on whatever he wants to opine on and we should treat every utterance as if it were true because Mr. Cunningham believes that calling out the misleading statements is being mean.
And when Trump wins, it will be because people like Mr. Cunningham worked so very hard to teach the American people what “truth” really is. Expendable.
LikeLiked by 1 person
One of the worst things that happens to a writer is when no one pays attention to what you have to say. You take the time to pen your thoughts in the hopes of making an impact but no one bothers to respond to what you have to say. Ouch.
That’s my advice with Cunningham and the rest of the corporate whores shilling for dollars and fame. Don’t waste your time responding. The deafening silence will speak volumes. They aren’t listening to what you have to say anyway. Return the favor on Huff Post and other media…
LikeLike
Not if they are thin-skinned like Tilson, of the GDP-dragging hedge funds.
LikeLike
Be careful, I posted to Peter Cunningham’s sight and he got my ability to post on his sight through Facebook blocked. I guess free speech doesn’t exist in the reform world.
LikeLike
Free speech nor, democracy, work against the D.C. exploiters, concentrating wealth for men like Gates, the Waltons and Eli Broad.
LikeLike
“Poor Poor Pitiful me” (after the song by the late great Warren Zevon)
Well, I gave my bucks to the charter schools
Countin’ on the rent for free
But the town don’t give ’em that no more
Poor, poor pitiful me
Poor, poor pitiful me
Poor, poor pitiful me
Teacher unions won’t let me be
Lord, have mercy on me
Woe, woe is me
Well, I met a gal in the blogosphere
Now I ain’t naming names
Well she really jerked me over there
Just like Hunger Games
Yes, she really irked me over here
She was a credit to the teachers
Cost me PARCC and Common Common Core
And a lot a charter leeches
Poor, poor pitiful me
Poor, poor pitiful me
Diane R. won’t let me be
Lord, have mercy on me
Woe woe is me
Poor, poor pitiful me
Poor, poor pitiful me
Teacher unions won’t let me be
Lord, have mercy on me
Woe woe is me
Poor, poor, poor me
Poor, poor pitiful me
Poor, poor, poor me
Poor, poor pitiful me
Poor, poor, poor me
Poor, poor pitiful me
Reply
Beth
LikeLike
Funny, I don’t see Diane and Carol as ruthless, sexist attackers of good, philanthropicky people. I perceived this article as a “pathetic, shameful, and deceitful” attack on Diane and Carol, filled with reformy untruisms. The second recent, ridiculous accusation of sexism is paltry compared to the claim that corporate reformy stuff is not destroying public education one bite at a time. Diane’s rebuttal in the Huffpost is obligatory.
LikeLike
When politicians push positive, pro-public ed/respect the teacher/support the student measures that are other than test/label/privatize: that would be called “backsliding”. When teachers speak out, they are merely ineffective and afraid of being held accountable. When parents speak out and/or resist the misguided, narrow, and special interest funded attacks on their children’s schools, THEY have been brainwashed by teacher unions, special interests, or are suffering from the ignorance of their marginally middle class and semi-suburban white privilege (AND their kids aren’t that bright on top of that). When students themselves get active and involved, they are simply the puppets of unions.
It would seem that the most unquestionably pure, unassailable of motives, righteous protectors of the children are the wealthy T.V personalities, billionaire thinkers about what the poor need…
Naaahhh. It’s all word games. Just silly.
LikeLike
Fairy dust covers the rephormies. The rest of us have to pull our own weight.
LikeLike
He didn’t go after the men, because he felt the women were an easy target. He underestimated you and Carol. You know how someone can be really good looking, but a total douche, and that makes them unattractive? Well, personally, I find Campbell Brown to be plain looking, and the fact that she is such a douche makes her unattractive. There is a reason she is by and large OFF television.
Meanwhile, Peter Cunningham doesn’t know what he is up against.
LikeLike
“he felt the women were an easy target.”
I think you are right Donna. It’s the same reason that Arne Duncan went after “suburban moms” rather than “suburban dads” (as if dads somehow have no say in the matter?)
And the same reason Bill Gates, David Coleman and the rest think they can run roughshod over teachers with Common Core, VAM and all their other crap — because most teachers are women and they thought they could therefore get away with it.
I’ve worked with enough nerds to know that sexism is a fairly common character trait. I have a feeling that with people like Gates it is somehow a way (perhaps subconscious) of “getting back at” women for what he perceives as sleights to him by women when he was younger.
LikeLike
From Mr. Peter Cunningham’s own hand, a shameless lie, utterly without foundation, repeated twice so we know it is not a careless slip of the pen:
[start first]
Education historian Diane Ravitch and retired educator and full-time advocate Dr. Carol Burris want us all to believe there is nothing wrong with public education in America and therefore, there is no real need for improvement.
[end first]
And—
[start second]
Professor Ravitch, Dr. Burris and others who share their beliefs that everything is fine in public education often insist that only teachers have the right to shape education policy.
[end second]
Nothing wrong?!?!?!
This is not hyperbole or not quite understanding the other person’s POV. This is calculated lying in order to publicly bully and silence people.
On a purely factual level, just a quick perusal of Diane Ravitch’s REIGN OF ERROR (2014) and THE DEATH AND LIFE OF THE GREAT AMERICAN SCHOOL SYSTEM (2011, revised edition coming out at end of June 2016) eviscerate his baseless assertion.
The grave miscalculation on his part is summed up by Donna’s observation just above: “He underestimated you and Carol.”
Just as the predecessors of corporate education reform underestimated the abolitionists.
IMHO, I sometimes feel when reading this blog that the owner keeps in mind these two statements of principle by William Lloyd Garrison:
1), “With reasonable men, I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter, nor waste arguments where they will certainly be lost.”
That doesn’t mean she is weak. When necessary:
2), “I will be as harsh as truth, and uncompromising as justice… I am in earnest, I will not equivocate, I will not excuse, I will not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard.”
Mr. Peter Cunningham, she won’t be shut up. She won’t be shut down.
She will be heard.
And so will everyone else that is for a better education for all.
😎
LikeLike
I noticed that, too.
“There is no real need for improvement” – that’s exactly what Diane Ravitch believes, says Peter Cunningham.
That’s such an out and out lie I can’t believe no one has called him on it.
LikeLike
One big improvement would be to stop doing everything that Peter and Arne imposed
LikeLike
“only teachers have the right to shape policy”. Is that why “…reformers… declare ‘We’ve got to blow up the ed schools.” (Philanthropy Roundtable)
LikeLike
I think what he meant was that only billionaires should shape Ed policy, not teachers.
LikeLike
I think what he meant is “Only Haaawvid men should shape education policy — or any other kind of policy, for that matter”.
LikeLike
That’s harvard with a small “d”.
LikeLike
BIA is a big box retailer, with (I surmise) price breaks for wholesale orders like Liberia’s. The product is schools-in-a-box, with modules hawked, (I surmise) as though they are individualized. His scheme is proof of every negative judgment ever made about him.
LikeLike
As to telegenic:
“If a person has ugly thoughts, it begins to show on the face. And when that person has ugly thoughts every day, every week, every year, the face gets uglier and uglier until you can hardly bear to look at it.
A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts it will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.”
“The Twitts” by Roald Dahl with excellent illustrations of the above in the original.
Which explains why the folks in attendance at NPE 2016 were all so telegenic.
LikeLike
I love it.
LikeLike
I am second to your motion, Dr. Langhoff. That is absolutely true in each word, each sense and each sentence. Yes, i agree with you that “folks in attendance at NPE 2016 were all so telegenic.” May
LikeLike
Isn’t Betsy DeVos on their board? Doesn’t that say enough in itself?
LikeLike
Once again the long streak of anti-intellectualism in our nation’s history rears its head. So the rant goes (again): don’t trust those dreaded “experts”, those “doctors”, those people who have gone to college….blah, blah, blah…. And, we’re to believe that Campbell Brown is some sort of everyday citizen….a female version of “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” wearing pearls?
What a bunch of crapola.
One of the things I find to be fascinating about the reformer set is their relentless sense of victimization. They can hammer anyone they want, they can rip apart our public schools and hurt our children. But, God forbid, anyone goes after them. “Ooh” and “ouch”, whine, whine, whine….
What a bunch of hypocrites. Peter Cunningham writes, “Public education belongs to the public…” So why is his ilk handing it over to big corporations?
Hey, Peter Cunningham, maybe you and Campbell Brown should take a dose of your own medicine: go get some grit.
LikeLike
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
LikeLike
I read a lot on the ed reform side and I honestly believe national ed reform punditry is a waste of time for the reader. It’s meaningless to public school parents because education is still primarily a state/llocal issue and many of their sweeping proclamations on “public schools” don’t hold up lower than 30,000 feet.
Charter schools are a good example. If I were reading exclusively national charter school advocates I wouldn’t know a thing about the reality of Ohio charter schools because all they talk about are the high spots- Boston or NYC (or their personal favorite, New Orleans). The reverse is true for public schools- all they talk about are the low spots.
Campbell Brown isn’t so much objectionable as she is irrelevant- I have plenty of problems in my local public school but none of these people have anything worthwhile to offer me. I’m literally better off listening to local people who are actually engaged with a real public school system.
We have about 50% lower and low income at our school. Campbell Brown and Peter Cunningham have nothing useful to offer me other than “narrative”.
LikeLike
The Dayton Daily News, on Thursday, devoted almost a quarter of a page to an “aren’t the poor, precious” message, about a charter school “2nd chance prom”, in Orange County, CALIFORNIA.
Why didn’t the “newspaper” feature the guy in Africa who said to retailer, Bridge International Academies, “Don’t make money on my poor back”, as he struggles to pay 30% of his family’s income to Gates, Z-berg, Pearson…?
LikeLike
” If I were reading exclusively national charter school advocates I wouldn’t know a thing about the reality of Ohio charter schools because all they talk about are the high spots- Boston or NYC (or their personal favorite, New Orleans).”
And the people on the ground in those communities definitely are not universal fans of the charter proclamations about their communities.
LikeLike
I’m just a lowly classroom teacher, and all of my mental stamina (particularly at this time of year) goes into finding new ways to aid the struggling students in my purview. So I don’t follow these issues with the acuity that I might–or perhaps should.
That said, I have to ask: why does Campbell Brown enjoy even a scintilla of credibility in this nation’s discussion of educational policy? And hasn’t Peter Cunningham anything better to do than defend her? I wish I had time to bloviate freely when I wasn’t cashing my foundation grant checks (my reward for shilling for school privatization).
Sheesh!
LikeLike
Markstestterminal, don’t feel the need to kick yourself for being less than an expert on education policy. Many of us remember the days of hunkering down in our classrooms just trying to do the best we could for our kids. Anyone who really understands K-12 teaching knows the time and energy it takes. In the few hours that are left, education policy discussions should not be at the top of your list. Now come the summer… 🙂
I suspect that teachers as a whole become quite a subversive group as the years pass. There is absolutely no way to serve your kids well and listen to every ill thought out directive that comes down either from or through administration. There is real survival value in admitting that “you” just close the door and do your job according to your professional judgement. Surprise walkthroughs and all the other accountability measures are really just an attempt to control what goes on in a classroom. They have nothing to do with helping a teacher improve performance. They are meant to constantly keep teachers on edge.
So do the best you can for your kids. Someone has to.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks!
LikeLike
Yes, you make exactly the right point. Brown has hired public relations professionals to advance an agenda. Cunningham is a PR guy. There’s no reason to respond to them, let alone try to convince them of anything. They are professionals paid to push a set of talking points.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Cunningham protects east and west coast thieves. Wall Street makes 10-18% return on charter school debt. That’s taxpayer money intended for the kids of the 99%. It’s economic multiplier money that enables communities to survive. The reformers will be incredibly lucky, if the response to their war against the American people remains, solely
words.
LikeLike
His Bio
Peter Cunningham is the Executive Director of Education Post, a Chicago-based non-profit communications organization supporting efforts to improve public education. He recently served as Assistant Secretary for Communications and Outreach in the U.S. Department of Education during the Obama Administration’s first term. Prior to that he worked with Arne Duncan when he was CEO of the Chicago Public Schools.
He is affiliated with Whiteboard Advisors, a DC-based education policy and research firm and serves on several non-profit board, including Great Schools, The Montessori School of Englewood, Manufacturing Renaissance, and Foolproofme.com.
Peter founded Cunningham Communications, serving public, private and non-profit clients, worked for political consultant David Axelrod, and was a senior advisor and speechwriter for Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley.
A native New Yorker, Peter began his career as a journalist with small weekly newspapers in New York. He earned an M.S. in Journalism from Columbia University and a B.A. in Philosophy from Duke University. He is married to an artist, Jackie Kazarian, and they have two adult children who are proud graduates of Chicago Public Schools.
AND LIKE JUST ABOUT EVERY OTHER REFORM ADVOCATE, HE KEPT HIS OWN CHILDREN AS FAR AWAY FROM THE POLICIES, PROGRAMS, AND PRODUCTS THAT HE SHAMELESSLY SCHILLS FOR.
JUST ANOTHER HYPOCRITE WITH A SOAPBOX HE NEVER EARNED.
LikeLike
Of course, Axelrod. In a CBS feature (CBS news is now run by a former Fox executive), Axelrod and his wife almost brought themselves to tears, over their delusion about what they did for America. Too bad, they don’t read statistics about median family income.
LikeLike
I just read an article which talks about his Education Post salary:
“And, of course, there is Peter Cunningham, president, $190,700”
LikeLike
yes, indeed. It’s all about the kids.
LikeLike