Mercedes Schneider is a brilliant blogger. She is unpaid. So is Anthony Cody, Peter Greene, Steven Singer, Tom Ultican, and many more. Bloggers speak truth to power.
But then there is Peter Cunningham. Once upon a time, he worked at the U.S. Department of Education and was known as Arne Duncan’s “brain.”
Now Peter has a blog called Education Post, and unlike the rest of us, he speaks for the billionaires who feel misunderstood and wounded. Hurt, actually, because no one loves them.
As Mercedes explains, he is funded by a bevy of billionaires. Gates recently threw in more than his two cents. The billionaires love him. And well they should. So sad to have all that money without anyone listening to you. He provides them a voice on social media.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Was “Ane Duncan’s brain” supposed to be a compliment?
Talk about morons, oxy and otherewise…
“Arne Duncan’s Brain”
Putting words in Arne’s mouth
That’s my job, and man I’m proud
Speech about “surburban mom”
Man, that really was ‘da bomb’
In case anyone does not recall, that refers to Duncan’s claim that the opposition to Common Core came from “white suburban moms who — all of a sudden — their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were, and their school isn’t quite as good as they thought they were.”
If public school teachers cannot be trusted on ed reform because they are paid and are therefore beholden to the status quo, then why aren’t ed reform lobbyists untrustworthy because they are paid and beholden to privatization interests?
How is this not a double standard?
Is Peter Cunningham just somehow a better human being so not subject to the self-interest that sometimes trips up ordinary mortals?
Why is lobbying on behalf of public schools somehow dirty and icky and frowned upon by elites but lobbying on behalf of charters and vouchers is pure and self-sacrificing and approved of by elites?
I enjoyed the sarcasm in this post. Who said the left and right are polarized? The billionaires can overcome their differences to agree that democratic, transparent public education must be stamped out by a ton of cash. Billionaires can find common ground attacking a public institution and those pesky unions. Cunningham will take up the cause of the battered billionaires for the right price. This is a wonderful piece!
In Ohio ed reformers just drip with contempt for teachers union lobbyists, but I can go to the statehouse today and find a whole group of charter lobbyists and every one will insist they’re there “for the children”.
It’s just nonsense. They’ve set up this exalted moral position for themselves and all they’re doing is strong arming lawmakers for a bigger and bigger slice of the public pie, which is exactly what labor union lobbyists do.
Chiara, this shouldn’t be allowed to be treated as parallel, ever: “If public school teachers cannot be trusted on ed reform because they are paid and are therefore beholden to the status quo, then why aren’t ed reform lobbyists untrustworthy because they are paid and beholden to privatization interests?” Teachers are paid to teach. Any advocacy they do is extracurricular. Lobbyists are paid to lobby. It’s what they’re paid for.
Perhaps this old observation would help put things in better perspective: “teachers’ working conditions are students’ learning conditions.”
So, for example, spending the necessary resources to hire qualified TAs to assist teachers & students can [in my opinion, almost always] have a large and immediate impact on the quality of instruction and learning.
Huge amounts of resources [financial, political, moral] can be spent on the lobbyists for privatization in all its forms without there being any discernible benefit for the vast majority of actual teachers and students.
Or so I see it…
😎
And you see it quite clearly!
Pretty pathetic that a lone ed-reform blog needs millions to fend off all those unpaid bloggers.
It’s kind of embarrassing for Bill Gates. Doesn’t he know that setting up a blog costs next to nothing? Why would he pay a million dollars?
Buying souls is expensive. Just ask the devil.
I would not doubt that Bill pays his wife to brush his teeth every day.
I’m pretty sure there aren’t any pro-so-called-“reform” bloggers, or advocates or spokespeople of any kind, who are volunteers doing it from the heart. Can anyone think of even one? Many years ago, a local media site assigned a “pro-con” debate on charter schools, in writing. I was asked to do the con (as an unpaid volunteer, as with all the advocacy I ever did). I agreed on one condition — that the editor find an unpaid volunteer do to the pro side. She had a really hard time finding one! Finally she got a local mom (a well-meaning liberal and dedicated school volunteer) who knew very little about charters and had the vague notion that our local fake-“progressive” charter was a good thing. Of course she still got talking points from the billionaire-funded resources, though.
That is probably why the billionaires lost in Massachusetts. The pro-public education message seemed authentic while the public caught on to the ruse of the billionaires eager to grab public funds.
I followed the ed reform lobbying to jam vouchers into Illinois- public school kids REALLY got screwed on that deal- anyway, ed reformers portrayed public school supporters as greedy and self-interested because many of them work in public education.
But all the voucher lobbyists work in private education. Why aren’t they also “self interested”?
If the analysis for public school advocates is “self interest = discredited” then charter and voucher supporters have to be discredited too because they are just as self interested as public employee employees.
Ed reform needs to decide. Either ditch the “self interested” smear or apply it to ed reformers too. It doesn’t make any sense if they only apply it to the public schools they disfavor.
Because if you follow the ed reform “logic” out to the end we end up with “anyone who is paid to work in education is therefore discredited because they’re self interested”
Schools must be run and staffed by volunteers.
Which is ludicrous. And won’t work out very well for all the thousands of people who are paid to lobby for ed reform, incidentally.
You’re assuming there’s some sincerity. It’s pure “whatever works” strategy.
“The Bank of Deform”
If funds dried up today
Deform would move along
It takes a bank to play
The School Defomer song
I encourage all public school parents to read ed reformers. It’s instructive.
Here’s Fordham listing John Kasich’s reforms:
https://edexcellence.net/articles/john-kasich%E2%80%99s-education-legacy
It is literally 100% tests and measuring schemes for public school families. That was the ed reform contribution to the 90% of Ohio kids who attend public schools over 4 years- they tested them.
Wow. Thanks ed reform! 8 years, billions of dollars and hundreds of ed reformers making 3 figure salaries and what did public school students get? An A-F school rating scheme and a new test in third grade.
Taxpayers should ask for their money back. We wuz robbed.
Little doubt that Ohio ed reform campaign contributions are part of the story.
Ah, Arne’s “brain!” & we all know that Arne is now working strictly for the good of children–in his office on the toniest of Chicago streets, Michigan Ave. (He does work with young people in our prison system although, part of the reason they’re there {school-to-prison-pipeline} would have to do w/what he did to CPS {& then to our nation’s public schools}.
Would you bet me that he works for free or for AZ, OK or WVA teacher wages? No, not taking that bet? Smart of you: his employer is the Emerson Collective (Laurene Jobs’ organization). He now, also, is involved in something called “WE” in ILL-Annoy; in a nice “Special Advertising Section” in the Saturday, 4/21 Chicago Tribune, there’s a nice smiley picture of him, listing him as “WE Day Illinois Co-Chair.”
But–for the killer–you all MUST read the puff piece (& hunky picture of him on the cover) in the Oct. or Nov. 2016 Chicago Magazine, “Can Arne Duncan Save Chicago?”
(At the end of the article, he is described as putting his head in his hands & crying.)
The making of a politician???
To be a successful politician, you need good looks or brains — or both.
And Arne has neither.
Even “Arne’ s brain” would not meet the requirement.
Methinks (& more than just me)–exactly. He’s going to be running for some office sooner or later. (That question is covered in the Chicago Magazine article, too–you know you want to read it!!)
And weep. (Albeit, not as dramatically/for P.R. purposes, as Arne.)
Basketball paid off.
Basketball with Obomber paid off.
All of you are just mean for piling on poor Cunningham. This Schnieder woman is obviously very rich, driving a Mercedes and all that. Arnie’s speech writer has to eat too, especially since his diet, along with other paragons of reform virtue are being reduced to a diet of Crow. At least Luther got to have a diet of Worms.
On a less sarcastic and more serious note, it strikes me that the insistence on using labels like greedy on teachers is a kind of projection worthy of the Nazi party or Stalin. The big lie is in operation so much these days that little of the news can be believed. Characterization of the failure of reforms urged by the likes of the foundations listed above as victims of unions and incompetent school boards is without a doubt the most disengenuous crap I ever heard.
“Driving a Mercedes”
Ha ha ha!
“What drives Mercedes Schneider?”
To find what drives Mercedes
Just look in her garage
It’s cars and dollars, mateys
The rest is a mirage
posted at Oped https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/How-the-billionaire-s-Cash-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Education_Education-Costs_Education-Funding_Educational-Crisis-180424-428.html
with this comment which has embedded links at the address above.
THE EDUCATIONAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX OWNS THE MEDIA” they are not going to tell our people how they are destroying our democracy –even as they demolish the only road to income equality! Schools fail when y the professionals are removed. By replacing competetent professionals with trained civil servants,the charlatans who run the show into the ground, are ending democracy, which depends on shared knowledge!
BTW… The Ravitch blog is a treasure. Everyone should read at least follow her posts.
The posts are to articles by educators across America. It is where I get the latest on the war on Public Education, that began with an assault on teachers, that took out tens of thousands of our most experienced, dedicated professional practitioners..i.e teachers. See my series at Oped.
The NPE, which she founded is the other reliable place for FACTS about the war on public schools, and the plot to end an educated citizenry.Newsletters – Network For Public Education,. OUR CITIZENS need a reliable place for news about EDUCATION & PUBLIC SCHOOLS.