Ain't it a Pity his Ditty is so...
By John Thompson.
Three cheers for Warren Buffett’s speech at the Democratic National Convention which borrowed from Joe Welch’s challenge to Joe McCarthy. Buffett said, “‘Have you no sense of decency, sir?’ I ask Donald Trump, have you no sense decency, sir?” After all, it is time for Democrats to subordinate our differences in order to unite and fend off the Trump threat.
So, why would a former Obama administration staffer, Peter Cunningham, shamelessly scrape the bottom of the barrel and equate Diane Ravitch with Trumpism?
It’s bad enough that Cunningham accepts the Walton Foundation’s and the Billionaires Boys Club’s money and consistently shares anti-union material with The 74. His “astroturf” outlet, the Education Post, pits liberals against liberals and civil rights advocates against civil rights advocates in order to promote test-driven, market driven reform. Their competition-driven charters increase segregation as a supposed tool policy for reversing the legacies of segregation.
It’s bad enough that the Ed Post recruits a handful of teachers to spread their corporate spin, emails them suggesting “What you can blog about this week in education,” (emphasis in the original) and offers to “Help spread the word with this [attached] social graphic!,” and then brazenly pretends that they represent the teaching profession. It’s worse that Cunningham and his funders push the Karl Rove tactic of crippling or killing teachers’ unions in order to kneecap one of the Democratic Party’s key sources of funding and of boots on the ground.
Cunningham has made himself clear, maintaining that schools can’t be improved without what he calls “oversight and accountability.” He seems to believe that teachers – and the voters who pay our salaries – are so craven that the edu-politics of destruction are essential. Public school educators must be beaten down (apparently so Democrats can look tough) and micromanaged, while charter management organizations run free. But his assumptions are even more indecent than that. Adopting the mentality of “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength,” he choreographs a nonstop tirade of untruths and misleading Ain't it a Pity his Ditty is so... - Living in Dialogue:
