Synthesis
On EduWonk, Andy Rotherham wonders why so many top flight folks are leaving education to careers in the education reform sector. One could note that the examples he gives are mostly journalists, so it's hard to argue they've left education, but so be it. One could also note that Michelle Rhee left "reform" to be the head beurocrat in a bad district.
A possible answer is just a few posts below that one, though, when EduWonk chides NYC Educator for a post he wrote about KIPP teachers taking a vacation to the Bahamas that may have been financed with public money. Destructive pathology or not, it shows you where the money is.
Yes, that's my strawman--if you're an education talking head, or if you run a cluster of charter schools, you're going to be living a better life than those who remain behind in the classroom with the kids. Get on the talk circuit, like Ron Clark. Get school district to fly you around the country and talk about Teach for America, like one-L will soon be doing. Hop aboard the charter school money train; everyone else is.
Those valiant reformers, those knights of the New Way. They may look across the table and sneer at the empty union suit looking back, but they are at heart the same damn person. It's the final piece of Animal Farm; just substitute the men and pigs with reformers and hacks. Trickle down doesn't work in the education sector, and that's why everyone wants to move up. Period.
A possible answer is just a few posts below that one, though, when EduWonk chides NYC Educator for a post he wrote about KIPP teachers taking a vacation to the Bahamas that may have been financed with public money. Destructive pathology or not, it shows you where the money is.
Yes, that's my strawman--if you're an education talking head, or if you run a cluster of charter schools, you're going to be living a better life than those who remain behind in the classroom with the kids. Get on the talk circuit, like Ron Clark. Get school district to fly you around the country and talk about Teach for America, like one-L will soon be doing. Hop aboard the charter school money train; everyone else is.
Those valiant reformers, those knights of the New Way. They may look across the table and sneer at the empty union suit looking back, but they are at heart the same damn person. It's the final piece of Animal Farm; just substitute the men and pigs with reformers and hacks. Trickle down doesn't work in the education sector, and that's why everyone wants to move up. Period.
Labels: spite
posted by Ryan at 9:25 PM
1 Comments:
I can't argue with a word you've written, but I have to point out something the reformers routinely obscure---those KIPP teachers work longer days, weeks, and years, and get paid less than public school teachers. A few days on an island, particularly when much of them are devoted to work-related discussions, are hardly compensation.
And with all due respect, Mr. Rotherham's name-calling hardly disputes that.
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