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Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Events of past two weeks gives us hope

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Events of past two weeks gives us hope:



Events of past two weeks gives us hope

Donna Brazile
“The very premise of ‘market-driven education reform’ rests on the fallacy that the public school system is in crisis, and that the only solution is to let the market pick winners and losers.” -- Donna Brazile
Wow! What an amazing couple of weeks this has been.

It started with the NEA, the nation's largest union, condemning current testing lunacy and calling for Arne Duncan to resign. The AFT delegates (when allowed to speak) essentially followed suit except for leaders Randi Weingarten and Michael Mulgrew desperately trying to hang on to a failed Common Core and hoping to pull Duncan's chestnuts out of the fire with a wimpy call for his remediation rather than firing. UFT Pres. Mulgrew even threatened to punch anyone in the face who tried to, "take away my Common Core.” Time for him to go, along with Duncan.

Alex Caputo-Pearl
But the very fact that a real debate broke out at an AFT convention and that rank-and-file voices were heard (especially from Chicago), offers a ray of hope that union democracy will somehow triumph. I was especially impressed with the Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Events of past two weeks gives us hope: