Joe Scarborough and the Rev. Al Sharpton shook up the education world on Friday during a segment of "Morning Joe", where they had a very direct exchange and agreed on key points in education reform. Topics included unions, merit pay and whether teachers should be fired (the new "f" word in education?).
Sharpton is a civil right activist and president of the National Action Network. Scarborough is a former conservative Republican Congressman who served on the Committee for Education and the Workforce and is author of the recent book, The Last Best Hope. He is host of MSNBC's "Morning Joe".
See and hear for yourself. Vid 3 min. clip below. Unofficial Transcript - 1/8/10:
JS: And you also are talking about it in a way that a lot of civil rights leaders haven't talked in some time about teachers unions about education reform.
You're ready to turn the tables over in the temple and say, hey schools are not about unions, schools are not about jobs, they're about kids.