Campbell Brown, journalist caterpillar transformed into reformster butterfly, has been snubbed again.
When Brown set up her website, one of her stated goals was to help drive the political discussion of education. With an eye toward the 2016 Presidential race, she had set up two educati0n discussions for candidates-- one in New Hampshire for the GOP, and one in Iowa for the Dems.
But this morning Politico announced that the Iowa beauty pageant has been snubbed. None of the five candidates (come on-- did you even know there were five of them) have RSVP-ed. In fact, most have not even called to say "Nothankyouverymuch."
Writer Michael Grunwald is assisting Brown in painting the snub as the result of pressure from those pernicious unions, and while it's certainly true that Brown, in her new role of Rhee Lite, has not won any union love, I'd like to offer another explanation.
The NH beauty pageant happened, but it was not exactly a rousing success. Of the something-teen GOP candidates alive and kicking at the time, Brown scored just six-- Bush, Kasich, Fiorina, Christie, Jindal, and Walker. Millions of viewers did not tune in or log on, and no news was made. And yet then-- and now-- Brown did not offer any explanation for why ten-or-more GOP candidates did not come out to play with her. But Iowa is simply not the first and only time she's been snubbed playing this Presidential job interviewer game.
I admire Brown's guts-- she has tried to make herself into a major campaign player just by insisting that she is. But her attempt failed.
Sure, "Those unions are out to get me because I'm so big and scary, so I must be really important" makes a good narrative for keeping her brand alive. It's certainly more energizing than, "No Presidential candidates want to come talk to me because I'm nobody important and they have better things to do than talk to me and help me strengthen my brand."
Brown and some other reformster pilot fish will gladly claim they've been put upon by the union, because that makes them important. It's an old and venerable trick-- hell, if I could get Campbell Brown to attack me in print, my bloggy street cred would go way up-- but it doesn't always work. And to pretend that the Democratic party, which just fell all over itself lionizing the departing and union un-loved Arne Duncan-- well, that party hasn't shown all that much concern about upsetting the teachers unions.
At best, Brown is just a victim of the old internet adage "Don't Feed the Trolls." But it's just as likely that her Iowa shindig failed because she's just not that important or relevant.
Peter,
ReplyDeleteDidn't you mean, "She Who Also Shall Never Be Named Again"?
Maybe, hopefully, Brown's not important enough to merit that. : )
DeleteBrown said, "...the candidate no-shows suggest that there’s no one in the current Democratic field who intends to carry on Obama’s education reform legacy" and “With this crop of candidates, it looks like the progress made by the president will stop at a dead halt if one of his Democratic colleagues replaces him in the White House.” God, we can only hope she's right.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad none of the candidates wants to give legitimacy to the "reform" movement by showing up at Brown's thing, but I would like to see a debate among them about the issue.
There's also the fact that the DNC has prohibited the Democratic candidates from attending any "unauthorized" debates if they want to be on stage for the "official" ones. I don't know how "beauty pageants" fit into that.
ReplyDeleteAs a retired educator (7th through 12th grade English), I certainly have a dog in this fight. My hope is that someone--anyone--will notice that most students no longer care about what's going on in the classroom. Students show up because the room has places to charge their cell phones. I quickly stopped allowing students to recharge their phones in my classroom. No matter how exciting my lesson plan for the day--wishful thinking on my part--if the phone vibrates, the phone's owner is lost to me for the duration. Wherever the school's administration declares that phones are permitted on campus, the individual teacher cannot set workable rules about their use. If you disagree and think I'm being weak, consider how little control a business leader has in a meeting. Aren't most employees glued to the screen of their phone or laptop, pretending to pay attention only when they perceive the leader is about to ask them a question? Parents, of course, have no idea of the problem, but they aren't any help when they learn their child's phone is interfering with the educational process. Parents demand their child's right to have a phone in the classroom in order to be "safe," whatever that means. Often, parents will text a child in the middle of class! The consequences of the cell phone in today's classroom are an undiscovered mother lode of what's wrong with public education today. The private schools that I know about, by the way, do not tolerate student phones in the classroom.
ReplyDeleteAs a retired educator (7th through 12th grade English), I certainly have a dog in this fight. My hope is that someone--anyone--will notice that most students no longer care about what's going on in the classroom. Students show up because the room has places to charge their cell phones. I quickly stopped allowing students to recharge their phones in my classroom. No matter how exciting my lesson plan for the day--wishful thinking on my part--if the phone vibrates, the phone's owner is lost to me for the duration. Wherever the school's administration declares that phones are permitted on campus, the individual teacher cannot set workable rules about their use. If you disagree and think I'm being weak, consider how little control a business leader has in a meeting. Aren't most employees glued to the screen of their phone or laptop, pretending to pay attention only when they perceive the leader is about to ask them a question? Parents, of course, have no idea of the problem, but they aren't any help when they learn their child's phone is interfering with the educational process. Parents demand their child's right to have a phone in the classroom in order to be "safe," whatever that means. Often, parents will text a child in the middle of class! The consequences of the cell phone in today's classroom are an undiscovered mother lode of what's wrong with public education today. The private schools that I know about, by the way, do not tolerate student phones in the classroom.
ReplyDelete