Carmel Martin’s TeachStrong: An Offering for Hillary?
On November 10, 2015, the Center for American Progress (CAP) issued this press release promoting what it calls a “campaign… to modernize and elevate teaching,” TeachStrong.
Allow me to offer some observations on this TeachStrong press release, particularly as concerns CAP VP Carmel Martin’s background and words.
Martin was once with the Obama administration. She left in 2013 to join CAP. Here is how reported Andrew Ujifusa of Ed Week described Martin and her USDOE role upon her USDOE exit:
Carmel Martin, who has been one of U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s right-hand people, will be leaving the U.S. Department of Education to oversee policy development at the Center for American Progress, a Washington think tank closely aligned with the Obama administration.This is a potentially ground-shifting development at the Education Department. As assistant secretary for planning, evaluation, and policy development, Martin has overseen the creation of the department’s blueprint for revising the No Child Left Behind Act, and the waivers from the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
Martin is into test-score-driven reform. And she is all in for Common Core and its ability “to close our nation’s gaping achievement gaps or prepare future generations to compete with China.”
In leading this TeachStrong effort, it seems that Martin is hoping to provide an education platform to a 2016 presidential hopeful– a Democratic presidential hopeful– say, uhh, the one that both teachers unions already endorsed– Hillary Clinton.
Indeed, in the opener of the Teach Strong press release, the unions are listed first:
The TeachStrong campaign brings together teachers unions, teacher voiceCarmel Martin’s TeachStrong: An Offering for Hillary? | deutsch29:
