Who's Who in the Education Wars? - Badass Teachers Association

Badass Teachers Association:

Who's Who in the Education Wars?

by Mitchell Robinson, Member of the BAT Leadership Team

originally published on his blog: http://www.mitchellrobinson.net/2015/10/17/who-s-who-in-the-education-wars/

A recent blog post from Sam Chaltain suggested that what he terms "the battle of the edu-tribes" is finally nearing an end, and both sides of the reform debate (Mr. Chaltain calls them the "practitioners and the policy makers") have aligned around a particular vision of the future of schooling. Others, like my friend and fellow blogger, Nancy Flanagan, are not quite so sure that the conflict has been resolved, and question the perhaps "sanitized" version of events described by Mr. Chaltain. 

Whether the war is actually coming to an end or not, it's useful for those on the front lines to know who they are actually fighting, and who is standing beside them in their daily struggles. It's become clear to me through many recent engagements with those on "the other side" of these debates that the "combatants" on each side share certain important characteristics that inform their beliefs, ideologies and loyalties.

The Deformers and the Guardians

Mr. Chaltain's descriptors for the two sides in the war on education are revealing, in that he sees a clear distinction between those who actually teach (the "practitioners"), and those who establish and enforce the rules and policies that govern that practice (the "policy makers"). Perhaps unintentionally, his labels also highlight a major flaw in our current education enterprise: public education policy is being written and administrated largely by persons who have not themselves attended public schools, have no degrees or certification in education, have never taught, and have spent little time in public schools. Whatever meager educational background that the members of what I term the Deformer "edu-tribe" may have is often accrued through alternative routes to the classroom (i.e., Teach for America, The New Teacher Project, the Michigan Teacher Corps), and their educational credentials are often received via online programs that require little or no actual teaching experience, residencies or interactions with other teachers or professors with actual teaching experience. 


Many of the "foot soldiers" in the Deformer army wind up in high-level positions in state departments of education, policy think-tanks, on school boards and as leaders of high-profile charter school networks. They reach these positions of power and authority with shockingly little experience in classrooms, or working with children, but exert out-sized influence on the shape and nature of public education. These members of the Deformer "advance force" parrot a regressive agenda of union-busting, tenure-smashing, and teacher-demonizing, paired with an obsessive devotion to standardized testing, "data driven decision making", charter school expansion, and privatization as the "answers" to the "crisis in public education"--while remaining seemingly oblivious to the fact that it was their policies that manufactured the crisis they claim to be addressing, and which are paying off so handsomely for the investors who fund their charter schools and pay their generous salaries. 

Supporting the efforts of the Deformer army are legions of well-educated, poorly-paid "deputy directors," "social media managers," and "communications interns," all of whom have been tasked with patrolling the blogosphere for anything even remotely critical of the Deformer agenda. None of these staff support personnel ever taught or hold education degrees--their sole purpose is to vigorously refute any posts or articles that are deemed "negative" or contrary to the Deformers' mission--which is to destabilize schools, demonize teachers, and privatize public education.

Many of these support staff work for outfits like the Education Post, a billionaire-funded anti-education website created purely for Badass Teachers Association: