Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: The voice of corporate-style school reform

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: The voice of corporate-style school reform:

The voice of corporate-style school reform

Peter Cunningham (right) flack for corporate reformers like Arne Duncan & Eli Broad

Last week, I got into a twitter spat with former Asst. Sec. of Education Peter Cunningham over the issue of school desegregation. He claims that in his heart he's for it, but that it's a lost cause. Better to stop wasting money and energy on fighting segregation and poverty and just focus on creating new "good schools", argues Cunningham.

He accuses me of fighting "yesterday's battles". I'll cop to that, I suppose. Then claims that I'm an agent of the status quo. That's funny.

Forever fighting yesterday's battles @mikeklonsky. You want integration? improve schools. You want segregation? Keep protecting status quo.

— Peter Cunningham (@PCunningham57) August 16, 2016

He's a teachers union basher and part of the "no excuses" crowd who claims we're just using issues of racism and poverty as excuses to keep from working hard on school reform.

@NickKilstein My point: some folks use poverty as an excuse to avoid hard work of improving schools. Some now using segregation.

— Peter Cunningham (@PCunningham57) August 18, 2016

He even wrote a major piece on the topic, "Is School Integration Necessary?, published in U.S. News & World Report.

I maintain that concentrated poverty and racial segregation are at the very root of our country's school problems and that it's impossible to build "good schools", charter or public, apart from Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: The voice of corporate-style school reform: