PA: Democrats MIA On Education

So, the Pennsylvania Democrats have a survey out, because they want to like listen and stuff, asking what folks think are the most important issues. If you take a look at it, you might notice that something didn't make the list-- not the "which issues are most important list" and not the "what issue do you wish Democrats talked more about" list. And that would be education.

Sigh.

"I'm sorry. What?"

Meanwhile, this morning Caitlin Emma reports that DFER (Democrats [sic] fort Education Reform) plans to pump $4 million dollars into races in support of Democrats who support education reform (or who support public school, but whose support is judged malleable enough to suit DFER). DFER, you may recall, is the ultimate "in name only" package of hedge funders who want to privatize education. Their resemblance to actual Democrats is suspect enough that Colorado Democrats asked DFER to get the D out of their name. Now DFER is planning to dump some money into the Colorado gubernatorial race to back the candidate that education supporters tried to beat in the primaries. They also plan to back NY's Andrew Cuomo and the supposed successor to Governor Malloy in Connecticut. And they want to push Marshall Tuck as state school superintendent in California; Tuck is an excellent example of how Democrats can end up as darlings of the right wing by supporting the privatization of public education.

If all of that seems to conflict with the agenda of education progressives, DFER has a solution-- just redefine what "education progressive" means. Charter schools are about civil rights, and if you strand in their way, you're just like George Wallace. DFER, on the other hand, sides with Obama and Duncan and King and Rosa Parks.

Meanwhile, later this week ALEC is getting together for one of its lobbyist, profiteer and legislator shmoozefests. Highlights will include a Thursday keynote by lawsuit façade Janus and a session on "Ed Choice In a Challenging Environment."(Part of the track "Restoring the Balance of Government") The session will be hosted by Romy Drucker, CEO of The 74 (just in case you still wondered whether they had picked a side or not) with EdChoice CEO Robert Enlow discussing how you can "deflect the mistruths and correct the myths" when this "awkward water cooler topic" comes up.

So lots of folks have their sights set on education. There are individual Democrats who are supporting public education, but the party itself seems MIA. Folks who prefer to defend and improve public education, folks who intend to demand that all public education be properly funded and supported-- those folks should make it a point to speak up.

Big Money Loses, But Doesn't Give Up

This story has been covered extensively, but it's one of those stories that needs to be covered extensively, so if this post seems a little redundant, that's okay. As teachers and marketers both learn, if you really wnat a message to get through, repetition is key.

In Tennessee, Stand for Children and other outside pro-reform charter-pushing groups sank about three quarters of a million dollars in attempts to buy themselves more compliant school boards, with the main push landing on the Nashville board race.

It was ugly. Mailers defaming candidates. A push poll insinuating that one candidate defended child molesters and pornographers. Newspapers throwing their weight behind the reformsters.

And standing against them, a completely disorganized array of moms and dads. No spokesperson, no point person, no strategy meetings-- just a whole bunch of people pissed off that outsiders were coming in to try to buy an election as a way to buy themselves a slice of the education biz, a sweet shot at charter money.

You can read newspaper accounts of the aftermath here and here. And for a local close up summary of the whole sorry mess, I recommend this account from Dad Gone Wild.

The events of Nashville are worth paying attention to because this is the way the game is now played. Reformsters sink big money into local races all across the country. Setting state and federal policy is hard and expensive, but making sure that you have board members or other officials in place who will see things your way-- that can be more cost-effective.

It's happening all across the country:

In Massachusetts, charter profiteers, frustrated at the cap on charter school proliferation, are mounting a huge PR offensive to convince the public that charter schools (always called "public" charter schools, mind you) should get more money and more space, including snappy ads from the same firm that brought you the Swiftboating of John Kerry.

In Connecticut, DFER and other privatizing reformster groups are dumping money into school board  and general assembly races. We are again talking about millions and millions of dollars for local or regional elections. But Gov. Malloy has had a hard time selling his pro-privatizing agenda, and he needs more people in office on his side, and if those folks can't sell themselves to local voters-- well, someone from outside will just have to finance the push.

In Washington State, charter boosters have been repeatedly frustrated in their attempts to sell a charter bill. When they finally succeeded, the bill was ruled unconstitutional. Solution? Not to come up with a bill or approach that would be legal, but to get a judge elected who would have a more favorable notion of what "legal" is.

Increasingly, public education supporters can not afford to think that they are too small to matter, that all the important battles will be fought at the state and federal level. Attacking on that level has brought reformsters some success in the past, with the successful suspension of democracy for education in cities like New Orleans, Detroit and Chicago. But big money is patient, and where it's necessary to chip away a few elected offices at a time, big money is willing to take that approach.

What the outcome in Nashville reminds us is that big money doesn't automatically win just because it can commandeer the media and the mail slots. Nashville also reminds us that citizens, taxpayers, voters and parents don't have to be highly trained perfectly co-ordinated political activists to be effective. Money is powerful, but it is not the only source of power that exists, and sometimes, it's not even the greatest source of power.

Don't forget. Stand up. Make a difference.

CCSS & Charters: The Love Story Ends

The Ed Reform movement has always been a marriage of different groups whose interests and goals sometimes aligned, and sometimes did not. The Systems Guys, the Data Overlords, the Common Core Corporate Hustlers, the Charter Privateers, the Social Engineers-- they agree on some things (we need to replace variable costly teachers with low-cost uniform widgets), but there are cracks in the alliance, and one seems to be turning into a fissure.

The Common Core Hustlers are being dumped by the Charter Privateers. It's not an obvious break-up-- the privateers haven't texted the Core backers to say, "Hey, we need to talk." It's the slow, soft drop. The unreturned phone calls. The unwillingness to even say the name. Not even making eye contact when they show up at the same party. It's awkward. It's painful.

It wasn't always like this. Charters and the Core were a match made in heaven. To spur financing and enrollment, the Charter forces needed a way to "prove" that public schools suck, and that meant finding a yardstick with which public schools could be measured and found failing. That meant some sort of standardized test, and that meant something to test them on. So, Common Core. The Core and the Tests (from which it could not, must not, be separated) would be the smoking gun, the proof that public schools were failing and that only privatizing schools would save Our Nation's Youth.

The corporate folks liked it because it was another opportunity for market growth. The fake liberals liked it because it could be packaged as a way to bring equity to the poor. The fake conservatives liked it because it could be packaged as a way to use market forces to get those slacker poor folks into line.The Core and Charter really got each other. They wanted all the same things.

But soon, the love affair between charters and the Core started to show strain. The Core would show up late at night, smelling like Big Government. And while everybody's friends liked the Core when it first started coming around, as they got to know it, they started whispering behind its back that it was kind of an asshole. Pretty soon, old friends like Bobby Jindal were calling the Core out in public. And when election season came, they weren't invited to the same parties together any more. Jeb Bush had been the Core's oldest and best friend, and even he had a huge party where Charters were held up for praise and applause and the Core wasn't even mentioned.

There was no longer any denying it. When Charter walked into the cafeteria, instead of sitting down with the Core and telling friends, "You should come sit with the Core. It's cool" instead Charter would sit on the other side of the room and say, "You don't want to sit at that table with that thing."

Once the Core had been a marketing point. Public schools were bad news because they couldn't do Common Core well enough. Now public schools are bad news because they are trying to do Common Core well enough. We used to market charters as a way to run toward the Core; now we market them as a way to run away from it.

None of the reformsters who now disown Common Core are dropping any other part of the reformster agenda, especially not privatization.

And so in Connecticut, we have Dannel Malloy who started running away from the Core way back in April, follows up re-election by jumping right back on the charter train. Next stop-- Fully Privatized School Systemville. Andrew Cuomo's stated position on the public school system and the teachers who work there can now be summarized as "Burn them. Burn them all with fire." But he's expressed a desire to toss Common Core on there as well. From Memphis to Cleveland to Minneapolis, it's full speed ahead on privatizing school systems, but Common Core has vanished from the vocabulary, becoming the Chuck Cunningham of the reform movement.

In any divorce, it's a challenge to see who gets custody of which friends. This has proven awkward for fake liberals, who thought they had latched onto a pan-partisan initiative and now find themselves alone at Common Core parties. This is partly their own fault for trying to take credit for CCSS; now the fake conservatives have let them have it.It is only going to get worse. Ted Cruz is an opportunistic putz, but not since Joe McCarthy told the Wheeling Republican Women's Club that he had there in his pocket a paper with a list of prominent state department commies has a politician displayed such a keen sense of the direction of the wind. His intent to "repeal" Common Core is a joke, but it is also writing on the wall. The Core is no longer a bipartisan drive for high standards, but one of those Big Gummint programs.

Meanwhile, in the more rational corner of the GOP, newly minted Senator Lamar Alexander is ready to tackle the long-overdue reauthorization of ESEA (No Child Left Behind). That would be the simplest, most direct pin with which to pop the Race to the Top bubble, and while states can go ahead with charter privatization whether there's RttT or not, it's the Obama administrations waiver-based extortion that has propped up CCSS all along. In the meantime, when even Arne Duncan has shown the sense to let go at least the name of Common Core, national teachers unions still grapple that radioactive mess to heart with hoops of steel.

For people in the Resistance, working to preserve and protect the promise of public education in this country, what this divorce means is that if you like battle metaphors, this battle will henceforth be fought on multiple fronts. Cry out "Common Core is destroying public education" and you may find a charter privateer standing next to you hollering, "Yeah, it sure is!!" The Core and Charters may nod politely to each other when they pass on the street, but the love is gone.

CT's Choice of Evils

Connecticut teacher-voters are facing the Choice Between Evils for the gubernatorial race, and the AFT isn't making things any easier.

ICYMI, Connecticut voters face a choice between current Democratic Governor Dannel Malloy and GOP challenger Tom Foley. This problematic because Malloy is co-president with NY Governor Andrew Cuomo of the So What If I'm a Democrat; Public Schools and Their Stupid Teachers Can Smooch My Tuchus Club. Put another way, if being a Democratic supporter of public education were a crime, it would be impossible to convict Malloy.

As it turns out, Connecticut voters actually have a third choice. Jonathan Pelto, whose blog Wait! What? has long served as an encyclopedic chronicle of Malloy's misbehavior, has mounted a third party challenge. And union leaders would rather you didn't hear about it.

At the AFL-CIO gathering, it qualified as news that Randi Weingarten actually mentioned Pelto's name. Barred from speaking and blown off by CT teacher union leaders, Pelto has not exactly been welcomed as a voice in the political conversation. Said the head of Connecticut's AFL-CIO, "Third party candidates don't win. They spoil."

The spoiler label always strikes me as an admission that the political system is seriously messed up. After all, we're not arguing that a spoiler's platform is too ridiculous to be taken seriously. The spoiler label is a tacit admission that the candidate will be taken seriously, that in fact the spoiler candidate is speaking to real concerns that the "real" candidate is not.

Put another way, labeling someone a spoiler is an admission that your "real" candidate cannot win on his own merit. And if that's your problem, maybe you'd better address it. If Malloy can only win the election by sweeping up the "Well, he's better than voting for my dog" vote, then here's a hot flash for you-- he sucks.

The proper response to a credible threat from a third party "spoiler" candidate is to say, "Damn-- this guys speaks to some concerns that a lot of people apparently share. Maybe we should address those concerns." The proper response is not, "Somebody shut that sumbitch up!"

I get the concerns here. Dems are claiming that Foley would Wisconsinize Connecticut and crush labor laws left and right. But, again, if your candidate can only beat him if you basically force a bunch of people to vote against him, you have problems, serious problems, huge problems that cannot be papered over with a highly manufactured election win.

The AFL-CIO did not even wring any concessions from Malloy in exchange for their fealty. At least Working Families in NY got a promise from Cuomo to act as if he's sort of a Democrat, a pledge that he honored for almost a full 24 hours after commandeering their endorsement.

Sooner or later this kind of political charade needs to end. Believe it or not, I am not actually a hard-core die-hard union guy, but doggone it-- if unions want to address their ever-dwindling membership and support, perhaps it might help to present themselves as something other than an extension of the political establishment, with no apparent function except to dole out endorsements and photo ops in exchange for, well, a sort of promise from politicians to consider punching union workers in the face instead of in the throat (and the chance for union leaders to be Really Important People).

Look, I'm not in Connecticut. I don't know the territory. Maybe votes for Pelto will make Foley governor and bring on the apocalypse. But I've read more than enough to know that when it comes to education, Malloy sucks, sucks like an industrial shop-vac powered by a hundred black holes. Pro-VAM, pro-CCSS, pro-charters, anti-teacher, anti-tenure, pro-testing-- is there anything about public education that he's not dead wrong about?

I just dream of the day when a candidate waves his Democratic Party badge at teachers, followed by a song and dance entitled "Watch Out For the Scary Republican Over There- Booga Booga" and teachers reply, "No, sorry. That's not enough."

So, good luck to Jonathan Pelto. May he be a huge pain in the ass throughout this campaign.

Democrats: "We Suck Less Than That Other Guy"

Every election and primary cycle brings the same question back around-- do we support the lesser of two evils, or throw support to a non-viable third party candidate?

This used to qualify as not-really-a-question. In 2012, lots of Democrats were super-unhappy with Obama's first term. Teachers were already being pretty open about feeling that Obama had implemented education policies that George Bush would have been proud to call his own ( I was one of those vocalizers). But the Democratic party responded with a fairly clear policy of, "Screw 'em. They're never going to vote for Mitt Romney, so we'll do exactly what we have to do to keep their votes, which is jack squat." And they weren't wrong; I, too, held my nose and voted for Obama.

I'm pretty sure that I'd like to have that vote back.

Democrats have gotten lazy and abusive. Every election we trot out scary pictures of reactionary right-wingers (and a handful of GOP candidates always oblige by acting like cartoons). "You know you're going to vote for us," they barely bother to say. "We're not as bad as those other guys."

If we make noises about voting for an RC Cola candidate (someone not from the two major marketeers), we get a guilt trip about how that will spoil the election for somebody, and we won't end up with our preferred lesser of two evils. Don't throw your vote away on a non-viable candidate.

And then they go back to sucking up to Hoi Polloi Posteriors.

But every cycle, the challenge to the status quo gets a bit more real.

For a while this week, it looked like Working Families Party might actually back somebody other than Andy Cuomo. It looked enough like it that the establishment Dems were required to go cut a deal, and even then the vote came in at 58.66% to 41.34%, which is not exactly a nailbiter, but it's not nothing, either. Meanwhile, de Blasio fished the Cuomo knife out of his own back, cleaned it, and knelt before Cuomo to present it hilt first while saying, "My liege." The result of all this is not good news-- Cuomo is no more a liberal Democrat than a Twinkie is a great source of protein-- but it is certainly one more clear sign of how completely the Democratic establishment has abandoned anything remotely its principles.

Up in Connecticut, Jonathan Pelto is mounting a third-party challenge to pretend-Democrat governor Dannel Malloy, which will inevitably be dismissed in language suggesting a vote for Pelto is just a wasted vote. And hey-- third party challenges work out almost never

And so Democratic voters in those states and in other locations around the country face the same question again-- do we vote for someone who is arguably the lesser of two evils? If you're facing the question, here's a couple of questions to ask yourself.

1) If you are always going to vote Democratic no matter what, what reason does the party have to ever listen to you ever? If you cannot imagine circumstances under which you would deny the Democratic party your vote, then you also cannot imagine circumstances under which the party would listen to you. (Unless you're really rich, in which case they will totally listen to you.)

2) How much worse would the other guy be, really? Yes, he's probably some GOP tool that you don't like, but really honestly truly, how much worse would he be?

Because this is going to be a marathon, not a sprint. The Democratic party will not turn on a dime, and it will not turn at all until it perceives that Democrats in general and teachers in particular have really had enough, enough to actually change election results. A third party candidate who loses, but who steals a sizeable chunk of the vote, sends a message. It may well take a bit for the message to sink in, but no message will even be sent if teachers keep going back to the Democratic party, nursing our black eyes and saying, "Well, it was my fault he got upset and punched me, and besides, he's so much better than anyone else who would have me."

Important political pro tip: It does not matter how upset people are with you. As long as it doesn't interfere with your ability to win elections, you don't have to pay it the slightest bit of attention.

The lesser of two evils is still an evil. For Democrat teachers (particularly the ones in NY) it might be time to stop voting for an evil and to start using the vote to make a statement about what is good.

Malloy: I Didn't Bring That Ugly Girl to the Prom

Connecticut Governor Dannel P. Malloy has joined the parade of politicians working to backpedal like a boss away from the Common Core.

On the CTMonitor site, Jacqueline Rabe Thomas recaps Malloy's Monday interview on NPR.

Malloy does his best to create fear and trepidation for anybody considering an opt-out for testing, and his best includes raising the specter of the feds cracking down. "If too many students opt out," he says in what I imagine to be his spooky voice, "the federal government will take our money and find us in violation of No Child Left Behind. I hear that Washington State is going to lose $40 million for losing their waiver, and we don't want to do that!"

This is, at best, a fuzzy version of the truth, but it is actually an interesting invitation to a cost/benefits analysis. Will it cost Connecticut more to continue complying with the Duncan Waiver Edict than it would cost them to stay in compliance? Because "Spend fifty dollars or else I will fine you ten" is not all that compelling an argument.

But Malloy seems to know he's on shaky ground because instead of doubling down on his federal oogie-boogerie, he throws DWE under the bus.

I didn't adopt Common Core. My predecessor did. Like handling the deficit, I was also handed the problem of seeing this implemented.

Well, that certainly speaks to Malloy's great confidence in the value of the CCSS. "The Common Core: As Appealing As Massive Budget Deficits" would make an awesome slogan for the standards, though I'm guessing we won't be seeing it a lot, and Malloy will probably not get his invitation to the next CCSS Boosters Ball.

Thomas wraps the piece up with appropriate journalistic dryness:

While former Gov. M. Jodi Rell entered the state into an agreement with other states to implement Common Core, the Malloy administration signed an agreement in 2012 with the federal government to implement the new standards and tests in order to receive a federal waiver to the No Child Left Behind law.

While we're rejecting slogans, we can probably throw out "Dannel Malloy: Because Courage and Truth-telling Are Overrated" as a campaign slogan.