Fred,
As an unapologetic “education reformer,” I’m enjoying watching this meltdown. Edelman is clearly guilty of a “Kinsey gaffe,” where someone in politics accidentally tells the truth.
Fact is, America’s education system is in shambles. With 50+ years of “reform” having been either written, or subverted, by the education bureaucracy, it is now clear that it is beyond “reform.” It must be dismantled.
Those of you here lament SB7 as some horrific attack on teachers, and I see it as a reform so tepid that it is union supported. You folks spout this as evidence that there is a conspiracy to dismantle education. I’m disappointed that these philanthropists aren’t being more aggressive, de-unionizing the public sector and getting rid of the needless entity called a “school district.”
(Note: It is impossible to dismantle “education.” It is possible to dismantle a failed system. Education will do just fine with out the system.)
I find it deliciously ironic that everyone is lambasting Edelman for simply telling the truth. He simply did what unions and administrators have done for ages, which was to purchase political power.
Even more ironic, is that (from my perspective) he’s probably truly interested in “saving” public education, perhaps to turn it over to “professionals” or consultants. Real “reformers,” OTOH, are fighting for much more aggressive changes that will truly “transform” education from a failed “government education complex” to an open sourced learning network.
Whether unionization survives the creation of such a network is a null issue.
…still laughing that Edelman called SB7 “bold.” Scott Walker, Indiana, vouchers, and parent triggers….that’s bold. SB7 was all you could get in IL, and reading this blog, you’d think the world just ended.
-Bruno Behrend
Hey Bruno,
Wrong blog, pal.
As the blogger who was among those who first posted both the video and the first to post the apology, I didn’t criticize Edelman.
I thanked him.
What shines through your comments is what is true about all you wing-nuts. You yourself even put quotation marks around calling yourself an education reformer.
You don’t give a rat’s butt about schools or kids.
Unions and working folks are your target.
50 years of reform, huh? I’m guessing your going back to Brown v. Board of Education.
Thanks for saying so.
-Fred
Fred Klonsky 
I feel like I need a shower.
Not you. HIm.
It’s always nice when a lawyer tells educators what we’re doing wrong. Maybe there’s a forum where everybody else can tell lawyers how we think they’re doing! Not being as politically in the know as Fred, I also checked the Heartland Institute where Bruno works. Here’s the Wikipedia description of what they do: “In the 1990s, the group worked with the tobacco company Philip Morris to question the science linking secondhand smoke to health risks, and to lobby against government public health reforms. More recently, the Institute has focused on questioning the scientific consensus on climate change, and has sponsored meetings of climate change skeptics.” Clearly Bruno works for a group where facts take a backseat to beliefs.
Good research, Ed. But you could tell from his comment that he has no interest in schools or how to make them better. Your are, as alway, absolutely correct. Bruno doesn’t seek truth from facts. He starts from his book of quotations and works form there. Stir in a little racism (“fifty years of reform,” clearly is code for when the Supreme Court outlawed segregation in schools) and you have the Heartland Institute, or the Education Action Group, or the Mackinaw Center for Policy, or the Koch brothers. I featured his comments just to remind us who we’re dealing with. They’re not reformers. They’re destroyers. And they admit it.
Yeah right, this guy is an education “reformer”, and to whom would he be so unapologetic to? Well congrats on your lack of empathy Bruno. As teacher going into his 16 year in the classroom and the husband of a cps principal, I am well aware, perhaps even more so than most, that there needs to be major changes in the ways we educate, hire, fire, reward teachers. There are so many poor ones out there, but no more than any other field. That being said, without a doubt, the major issue in education is poverty. Not saying poor kids can’t learn or that underfunded schools can’t occasionally show improvement, but if we solve poverty, we solve most of our problems in every corner of this country for real. That would be real reform. Not these stupid games with corporations & their politicians.