CURMUDGUCATION: The Central Liberal Reformster Fallacy

CURMUDGUCATION: The Central Liberal Reformster Fallacy:

The Central Liberal Reformster Fallacy

It crops up many places, but today it was front and center in Michael Grunwald's piece for Politico. In "Obama vs. Teacher Union: It's Still On" Grunwald lays out the ongoing beef between teachers unions and the administration, which is first in his display of lesser fallacies. Framing the conflict as one between unions and the administration isn't quite right, as the unions have been largely friendly and compliant with the administration, and most of their official squawks of disagreement have come only after considerable prodding from membership (NEA and AFT still officially think Common Core is Just Fine, Thanks).

Grunwald then goes on to posit that John King on paper looks like a great choice to bind the wounds, resorting to the John King Story, which seems to be how we're going to sell this exemplar of upward failure as a serious faux secretary of ed. Grunwald gives  a quick gloss to King's "former teacher" credential; King taught a grand total of three years, including two in a charter. The King story always includes a chapter about how his public school teachers saved him, but it never includes a thoughtful consideration of whether his favored reforms would support those kind of teachers today, or force them to stop focusing on what children need and devote more time to test scores.

Grunwald includes the story of King's charter-founding awesomeness. He skips over the secret of King's charter success-- sky high suspension rates and the push-out of countless students. And he skips over the huge disconnect in King's story-- the man who talks about how school was a safe, nurturing CURMUDGUCATION: The Central Liberal Reformster Fallacy: