I'm Defending Teach for America
I'm about a week behind on this, mostly because I don't usually pay any attention to conservative rantist Michelle Malkin. Yes, she often rants against Common Core and corporate commandeering of public education, but when I first started picking apart the odd alliances, congruence, and alignments of the education debates, one thing became clear to me-- in these debates, as in other aspects of life, the enemy of my enemy might well be my enemy. Or at the very least, a trellis asshat.
Malkin made her recent stink in the New York Post, where she accused Teach for America of harboring dangerous radicals.
But those concerns pale in comparison to the divisive, grievance-mongering activities of the group’s increasingly radicalized officials and alumni.
TFA’s most infamous public faces don’t even pretend to be interested in students’ academic achievement. It’s all about race, tweets and marching on the streets.
She goes on to give accounts of recent civil rights activism by TFA members and alums, including popularizing and promoting the #BlackLivesMatter movement. She links this to TFA's recent initiative to include more men and women of color. She stops just short of saying that TFA has been taken over by a bunch of uppity black folks who don't know how to stay in place-- but only just short of that.
Look-- nobody is ever going to mistake me for a TFA supporter. I've explained numerous times why the organization, which has morphed into one more corporate-stoogery corporation, is bad for CURMUDGUCATION: I'm Defending Teach for America:
Malkin made her recent stink in the New York Post, where she accused Teach for America of harboring dangerous radicals.
But those concerns pale in comparison to the divisive, grievance-mongering activities of the group’s increasingly radicalized officials and alumni.
TFA’s most infamous public faces don’t even pretend to be interested in students’ academic achievement. It’s all about race, tweets and marching on the streets.
She goes on to give accounts of recent civil rights activism by TFA members and alums, including popularizing and promoting the #BlackLivesMatter movement. She links this to TFA's recent initiative to include more men and women of color. She stops just short of saying that TFA has been taken over by a bunch of uppity black folks who don't know how to stay in place-- but only just short of that.
Look-- nobody is ever going to mistake me for a TFA supporter. I've explained numerous times why the organization, which has morphed into one more corporate-stoogery corporation, is bad for CURMUDGUCATION: I'm Defending Teach for America:
Flying First Class
Traveling always gives me time to think, and I spent yesterday making my way to the West Coast, where my wife and I are spending some time in LA hanging out with my son and daughter, their partners, and my grandson (my in-laws are tending to the house and the dog, who cannot even successfully manage a car trip across town).
On one leg of the journey yesterday, we ended up sitting just behind the bulkhead that separated we Mere Mortals from the folks in First Class.
I've never traveled first class, in fact have never traveled sitting far enough forward to see the wonders that occur there.
I marveled at how those twenty-four travelers, of all of us cattle-jammed into the plane, had essentially their own personal staff of attendants to provide them with a steady stream of amenities, from taking their lunch orders to delivering via tongs some nicely warmed towels. One business traveler's seat would not recline, and after contortions worthy of Godzilla's chiropractor, the flight attendant promised a financial compensation for the travelers emotional pain and suffering from being forced to do without his six degrees of inclination.
I reflected that it made a certain amount of sense-- those folks had likely forked over (sans tongs) a ton of money to sit in airplane nirvana, and so had personally generated a great deal of the plane's
On one leg of the journey yesterday, we ended up sitting just behind the bulkhead that separated we Mere Mortals from the folks in First Class.
I've never traveled first class, in fact have never traveled sitting far enough forward to see the wonders that occur there.
I marveled at how those twenty-four travelers, of all of us cattle-jammed into the plane, had essentially their own personal staff of attendants to provide them with a steady stream of amenities, from taking their lunch orders to delivering via tongs some nicely warmed towels. One business traveler's seat would not recline, and after contortions worthy of Godzilla's chiropractor, the flight attendant promised a financial compensation for the travelers emotional pain and suffering from being forced to do without his six degrees of inclination.
I reflected that it made a certain amount of sense-- those folks had likely forked over (sans tongs) a ton of money to sit in airplane nirvana, and so had personally generated a great deal of the plane's
