The New, "Reasonable" Corporate Reformer
Something is happening here in Jersey that ought to give hope to teachers and parents around the rest of the country: the corporate reform movement is running out of gas. Suddenly, privatizers are running into real grass-roots opposition to charters schools; voucher rallies are exposed as Astroturf operations while opposition to giving taxpayer dollars to religious schools grows. Chris Christie, who seemed hell-bent on gutting tenure only a month ago, has suddenly shifted his focus to sick pay reform (yeah, that'll fix all of the state's fiscal problems, sure...).
The corporate reformers are watching their grandiose plans fall apart, and I suspect they are getting worried; their deep-pocketed backers wanted to see results by the end of the year, and it increasingly looks like that simply isn't going to happen. So they're shifting the goalposts and toning down their rhetoric. The preferred outcomes are now more modest, and the new tone is reasonable and conciliatory.
Witness today's op-ed from B4K's Derrell Bradford, featuring his new, wonky sales pitch:
The corporate reformers are watching their grandiose plans fall apart, and I suspect they are getting worried; their deep-pocketed backers wanted to see results by the end of the year, and it increasingly looks like that simply isn't going to happen. So they're shifting the goalposts and toning down their rhetoric. The preferred outcomes are now more modest, and the new tone is reasonable and conciliatory.
Witness today's op-ed from B4K's Derrell Bradford, featuring his new, wonky sales pitch:
The state Department of Education currently is piloting an overhaul of teacher evaluation in New Jersey consistent with the guidance of President Barack Obama and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. The pilot makes student learning,
