Beyond bad ideas

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Beyond bad ideas
By Shea Howell
Special to Michigan Citizen

One of the many lessons Detroiters have learned is that a crisis produces a lot of bad ideas. This year’s Retreat of the Elite on Mackinac Island, sponsored by the Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce, launched a lot of them.

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Much of his (Newt Gingrich) talk was aimed at unions. “It’s simple,” he explained. “The teachers’ union has to make children the first priority and benefits and taking care of the least-skilled teachers its last priority.”

Also pursuing simplistic solutions, Mayor Bing used the occasion to announce his willingness to take over the Detroit Public School System. Displaying slightly more sensitivity than Gingrich, Bing said he would do so only if Detroiters endorsed his offer.

<snip>

Within the week, complaints surfaced about the tactics of Bing backers. At a news conference on Monday, Defend Public Education/Save our Students, AFSCME Local 207, a caucus of the Detroit Federation of Teachers, the Detroit Board of Education and BAMN (By Any Means Necessary) said, “The whole endeavor has been a fraud from start to finish.” It seems people are being told they are signing petitions to keep schools open or that the local school board endorses the effort.

The people of Detroit are fighting to save their schools. This is what grassroots looks like:



http://detroitteacher2.wordpress.com/2010/05/13/students-and-activists-arrested-at-governor-of-michigan-jennifer-granholm%E2%80%99s-office-over-the-decimation-of-public-education-in-detroit/#respond


This is what an astroturf salesman looks like:



http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2009/11/whitney-tilsons-school-reform.html

The slide below shows how groups like DFER champion test abuse and intend to bring corporate structures for reform (or turnarounds) to our public school system. Tilson claims you could fix "any broken system," with the logic and mentality, of course, of hedge fund managers and corporate hucksters (be sure to check out this video of Tilson claiming, "There's a very fine line between what all of us do, and fraud..."). Whitney has taken this strategy and applied it to public education.

[Hannah Bell]

1. "the neutrality of hedge fund managers..."