Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: April's fools

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: April's fools

April's fools

by Mike Klonsky

Finn, far right.

No joke, Finn is stil a teacher basher

Always tops on my list of April fools is Checker Finn, wing-nut-in-chief at the Fordham Institute's stink tank. His April 1 riffs are never as clever as he and his mentee, Mike Petrilli, would like to think. This year's spoof features a faux Finn book cover with this description:

In this inspiring motivational book, patterned after some of the more celebrated works of Tony Robbins and Deepak Chopra, Fordham’s Chester E. Finn, Jr. walks hand-in-hand with America’s teachers down the path to self-discovery and self-actualization (reuniting with Diane Ravitch along the way). Through the book’s pages, emotionally-abused teachers will confront our nation’s long history of teacher bashing and overcome bullies who assert that collective-bargaining rights “should not be sacred” and that “ineffective teachers should be let go.” Come step wit