Polarization & Charter/TFA Discussions
Here’s why I think “civility” is a poor frame for discussions about public policy:
Michael Petrilli, of the conservative Hoover Institution, has a point that TFA discussions are now very polar. But he remains naive/turns a blind eye to how a flood of venture capital and hedge fund money, newly allied with religious right funders, has made it lucrative for former TFA alums (like Rhee) to push the agendas — deliberately far removed from classroom practice and realities — that they do. Clueless/careless about classes and students? That’s a feature, not a bug.
From the NYT piece:
Michael Petrilli, of the conservative Hoover Institution, has a point that TFA discussions are now very polar. But he remains naive/turns a blind eye to how a flood of venture capital and hedge fund money, newly allied with religious right funders, has made it lucrative for former TFA alums (like Rhee) to push the agendas — deliberately far removed from classroom practice and realities — that they do. Clueless/careless about classes and students? That’s a feature, not a bug.
From the NYT piece:
Michael Petrilli, a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and a pro-charter education analyst with the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, worries about this lack of exchange. He recently conducted an analysis of Twitter and the tens of thousands of followers of Ms. Rhee, who is pro-charter, and Ms. Ravitch, who is anti-charter, and discovered that only 10 percent overlapped. Just as conservatives gravitate to Fox News and liberals to MSNBC to hear their