EEK! elections - emails - education
It's Halloween and the fate of the Republic is in our hands. A double whammy, if you dare.
There’s much talk about how little talk there has been about public education in the presidential election. I guess the Russians just aren’t interested enough in American education policy to dump emails on the topic. Quick, somebody call Finland and tell them to check their firewall!
One leaked email did have particular relevance to public education though. David Dayen in the New Republic calls it “the most important Wikileaks revelation.”
A month before the 2008 presidential election, a senior Citicorp executive sent his appointment picks to Obama advisor John Podesta. Those preferences included Arne Duncan as Education Secretary. So now we know for sure why schools started to feel like franchises. Duncan, who put the public-education-as-a-competitive-marketplace on steroids. So destructive was Duncan that his legacy turns out to be a backlash. The years-in-waiting revamp of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act removes most of the power from anyone who becomes the Secretary of Education.
Flash forward to 2016, when some education activists are crying foul that their union leaders might be, well, leading. Randi Weingarten and Lily Eskelson Garcia appear to be having discussions about education with Hillary Clinton. For shame!
While many education advocates are grateful that the frontrunner’s advisors this time around include actual educators, the more militant activists see something nefarious. They could be relieved, though, that leaked emails show that the Clinton campaign recognized Rahm Emanuel as a liability for the civil war he has stoked against Chicago public schools. These are indicators that we might be in for some change of thinking about public education policy.
You do not need WikiLeaks to see that education issues are out in the open in other elections.
Massachusetts is having a hu-u-u-ge public debate about lifting its charter cap, which even LAUSD ex-pat and Boston Supe Tommy Chang opposes. Edushyster tells us that elected officials in that state, from mayors to Senator Elizabeth Warren, oppose lifting the cap, and the massive out-of-state and decidedly right-wing money backing “Question 2” has raised eyebrows enough to show the charter agenda is about a lot more than charter schools.
In Oakland, the charter group deceptively named Parent Teacher Alliance (the same PAC that ran the disgusting campaign against L.A. school board veteran Bennett EEK! elections - emails - education — PS connect:
