Saturday, June 28, 2008

Some stenography for anti-teacher union group

AP/MSNBC delivers Superintendent: Bad teachers hard to fire - Some say teacher tenure rules need to be overhauled to address problem yet I can't imagine for whom. In the piece The Foundation for Education Reform and Accountability is mentioned and I'll send you to how they describe their effort. Also covered is The Center for Union Facts and I'll send you to how they describe their work.

As for the Foundation they've been given Bradley money and there is a Heartland Institute connection to boot. Dig a little deeper and it seems clear these jokers are on the wingnut welfare. If you've got money you can do pretty much anything in America can't you? The Nation has called the CUF The Center for Selective Facts. Source Watch describes them as part of a larger set of front groups.

I'll admit that I've seen some dreadful teachers and yet most were more about getting along with the administration and then doing little for the students. I'll stack the evil done via Bu$hCo's NCLB and other "accountability" or "reform" via vouchers and the like against the teacher's unions any day of the week. I can accept that educators reaching "tenure" might still need to be put out to pasture. I can also imagine a world where patronage determines who gets and keep a job. In rural Alabama and Georgia I ask my thirty to sixty readers to imagine the need to please those in the central office.

AP/MSNBC could have surely covered the issue without the stenography or at least with some background on the groups that fed them this propaganda. Then again, that might have required some journalism. And that is increasingly in short supply. John Gunn

No comments: