Katrina envy.
In 2010 Secretary of Education Arne Duncan was famously quoted as saying that Hurricane Katrina was “the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans.”
It was a thoughtless, stupid thing to say considering the devastation Katrina brought to one of the world’s great cities and its people ten years ago.
But Duncan is a stupid man prone to saying stupid things. His approach to school reform is to blow everything up, blame teacher unions, promote charters and exclude parents. Hurricane Katrina was a perfect metaphor for him.
And now you have the Chicago Tribune’s Kristen McQueary dredging up the Katrina metaphor again.
“Hurricane Katrina gave a great American city a rebirth,” McQueary wrote the other day in her sad excuse for a newspaper.
She wished for Chicago what happened in New Orleans.
After McQueary caught some hell for the Katrina metaphor she was forced to tweet,“If you read the piece, it’s about finances and government. I would never diminish the tragedy of a thousands of lives lost.”
That is good to hear. Be clear. Kristen McQueary is against thousands of people getting killed by one of the most destructive disasters in U.S. history.
On the other hand it is a bad sign when you have to make that clear. Who would be for that?
It doesn’t change the fact that the Chicago Tribune, Kristen McQueary and Arne Duncan all display Katrina Envy.
Following Katrina New Orleans fired all the union teachers, closed all the public Katrina envy. | Fred Klonsky:
