BY DAN
KENNEDY
Serving the reality-based community since 2002.
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Saturday, January 08, 2005
ATTACK POODLE. The
Department of Education wants us to believe that Armstrong
Williams was the only
journalist who was bribed
with taxpayer dollars to
talk up No Child Left Behind. Perhaps that is technically accurate;
but as Josh Marshall notes, in general terms that's not even remotely
true. The Bush administration has been paying off commentators from
Day One. It's time to find out who else is on the take.
How pernicious is this? Remember
last spring, when Secretary of Education Rod Paige called the
National Education Association a "terrorist
organization"? Look at what
Williams wrote in his syndicated column, headlined "The
Education Cosa Nostra":
[T]he remark was
right (even if it wasn't politically correct).
The two largest unions, the AFT
[American Federation of Teachers] and NEA [National
Education Association], hold public education system hostage.
They are fundamentally opposed to any education reform-like
vouchers or the No Child Left Behind Act - that seeks to hold
public schools accountable for their failures. They attack such
reforms because they know that these plans would mean the likely
defections of public school personnel to privatized systems and
the birth of competing collective bargaining entities. For the
teacher's unions, the idea of competition can only mean giving up
leverage and money.
Think about what is going on here.
Williams was taking secret payments of a quarter-million dollars of
our money in order to defend publicly the very public official
who was paying him off. And we were supposed to think Williams was on
the level.
Last June, Williams
attacked John Kerry on
behalf of his secret benefactors at the Education Department - sleaze
defined. And here's another Williams attack on the NEA, in which he
once again invokes the oh-so-lucrative No Child Left Behind law. I'm
going to copy and paste the whole thing, not because it's worth
reading in full but because I can: I don't think anyone is going to
claim copyright violation for my reproducing a column that you and I
helped pay for. Please note the wonderful headline that someone slapped on it - perhaps Williams himself!
The
Big Education Sell Out
May 24, 2004
The National Education
Association is the nation's largest professional employee
organization, representing 2.7 million elementary and secondary
teachers. Their professed goal is to make public schools great for
every child. The real goal is to increase their own bargaining
power by ripping to shreds any education reform that seeks to hold
public schools accountable to their failures.
I don't think there is any doubt
about this. For example, their most recent anti-voucher edict,
it's called "Strategic Plan and Budget, Fiscal Years: 2002-2004,
starts out by saying, the NEA's goal is to "focus the energy and
resources of our 2.7 million members toward the promotion of
public confidence in public education." So, in other words, their
top priority is not the oft professed goal of "making public
schools great for every child," but rather massaging the
perception of public education. It goes on to say, "the success of
students is inextricably tied to the success of teachers ... who
serve them...." In other words, protecting the perception of
public education is inextricably linked to keeping the teachers
from being perceived as failing. This is important because it
reminds us that the organization exists to advocate for the
teachers who pay their dues, not the children. At least one way
that the NEA has accomplish this is by sparing public teachers any
close scrutiny. They are fundamentally opposed to any education
reform-like vouchers or the No Child Left Behind Act - that seeks
to hold public schools accountable for their
failures.
Of course there is no academic
reason why this should necessarily be so. Private school students
routinely test better than their public school counterparts. At
least part of the success of private school students should be
attributed to the fact that private school educators are held
highly accountable for their job performance. They have no
long-term job security, work only on year-to-year contracts and
are held accountable by annual job evaluations. In public schools,
by contrast, powerful teachers unions have secured long term
tenure for the teachers, thus removing a powerful mechanism for
immediate accountability.
Sparing public schools teachers
the rigors of accountability only makes sense from a business
perspective. The two largest unions, the AFT and NEA, realize that
vouchers would mean fewer teachers, fewer membership dues, the
likely defections by public school personnel to privatized systems
that have traditionally resisted centralized unionization, and the
birth of competing collective bargaining entities. For the
teacher's unions, the idea of competition can only mean giving up
leverage. Since the job of unions is to accumulate leverage and
membership dues, the teacher's unions have declared war not just
on vouchers, but any meaningful education reform that seeks to
hold public school teachers accountable for failing to properly
educate our children.
For example, the unions have
attacked President Bush's No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB)with the
kind of ferocity that only a genuine threat (to the perception of
public education) could pose. The NCLB initiative holds entire
schools accountable when subsets of students - defined by income,
race, etc. - lag behind in test scores. The act would withhold
large amounts of federal funding to those educational institutions
that are failing to properly educate their students.
Not surprisingly, the NEA's
108th Congress Legislative Program formally announced that they
"oppose federally mandated parental option or choice in education
programs." In case anyone missed the point, during the 2003 NEA
convention delegates approved business item 11, which directs NEA
officials not to use the title "No Child Left Behind" Act. In
other words the level of opposition is so great that union
representatives are barred from even raising the words "No Child
Left Behind" to consciousness for examination.
By deciding that the very words
"No Child Left Behind" do not deserve to be heard, the NEA goes
beyond regulating education reform, and seeks to regulate the
dialogue itself. Of course, genuine reform is never accomplished
this way. More not less discussion facilitates learning. The best
way to discredit bad ideas and combat distortions about education
reform is to raise them to consciousness for public examination.
By restricting the dialogue on this important issues, the NEA
attacks a symptom, rather than the problem of underachieving
public schools.
Of course this should not come
as a surprise to anyone who has read their literature. Remember,
their stated goal is to protect the "perception" of public
education. The NEA's budget is constructed accordingly. Far and
away, the majority of their money is funneled into improving
government relations and corralling new members. According to
their 2002-2004 budget summary, the NEA dedicated $13,532 million
to "governance and policy," $19,582 million to "government
relations," and $14,114 million to "state affiliate relations." By
contrast, they spent $2,699 million on "Student achievement." Get
it? The NEA isn't using their money to help our kids, or to make
our schools better. They're using it to increase their own
collective bargaining strength-that's their real mission-by doing
everything they can to prevent public schools from being held
accountable.
On a political front, the NEA
is engaged in a full court legislative press. Last year, they
lined the Democrats coffers with $20 million in donations, second
only to the American Federation of State/City/municipal employees.
Receiving a large part of your campaign money directly from the
teacher's unions means the Democrats are obliged to repay the debt
in some form. Maybe that's why the same Democratic
representatives who send their own children to private school, are
up in arms each session crying about how extending that same right
to the poor would destroy the public education system.
Meanwhile our public schools are
deteriorating, our children are being demoralized before they even
have a chance, and our supposed leaders are refusing to even
discuss the real problem. This is a crime. This is a shame. This
needs to change now.
Try to wrap your mind around the
hypocrisy of that next-to-last paragraph, in which Williams ripped
the Democrats for accepting publicly reported campaign donations from
the NEA while at the same time he was furtively stuffing his pockets
with cash from the DOE.
posted at 2:38 PM |
7 comments
|
link
7 Comments:
You mention Gawker; also hosted on Gawker.com, Wonkette's take on Armstrong Williams No Armstrong Williams Left Behind is priceless. Short and well written; "political payola" is almost as funny as the punch line, which I won't spoil since it relies on the flow. Includes links to USA-Today and CNN coverage too.
- Bill R
You don't need to take a payoff from the Bush administration to make the obvious comment that America's public schools truly and profoundly suck. In fact, I just did.
Maybe if the alleged "educators" spent more time figuring out how to make young people semi-literate and less time scheming how to maximize their own grant dollars, we would have a chance of rescuing public education in this country. Don't hold your breath.
The Question here isn't Williams' views on public education. He can be as negetive as he wants. He shouldn't be paid in Tax dollars [or any kind of loot]to give his dubious opinions.
I'm sure Charles Krauthammer thinks the Army is in great shape in Iraq. But how would you feel about him if he was taking a stipend to say so,by the Defense Dept?
I'm reminded of the old legal maxim that "if the law is on your side, pound on it; if the facts are on your side, pound on them; if neither are on your side, pound on the table". Crossfire and Begala did a pretty good job showing that Williams used lousy judgement accepting the ads and that he should provide context for them-fair enough. Left unsaid however is the fundamental validity of his NEA criticisms. Does this mean we should not give credence to an excellent journalist/pundit who happens to work for a publication advertising thinly-veiled prostitution? Let's get back to the core issue, people- Johnny can't read!
Aw poor widdle rightwingers can't stand when one of their own is uncovered.
But yeah, good point about not forgetting the real issue. Do schools suck? Perhaps. So, yeah, let's not let Armstrong's indiscretion get in the way of discussing that. Did George Bush really evade National Guard service? Perhaps. So let's not let Dan Rather's indiscretion get in the way of discussing that.
Yes - let's not forget what the real issue is here. I am absolutely no fan of the teachers' unions. The most dangerous place to stand in our town is in the exit from the teachers' parking lot at 2:05 p.m. Gee, why can't I get hours like that?
But come on, folks. The issue here is bribery.
Whoring for DollarsThere is an inverse relationship between the shrillness of right-wing propagandists and their own personal moral hypocrisy, whether it's Bill "Loofah" O'Reilly, Bill "Bellagio" Bennett or Andrew "Bareback" Sullivan.
When their deviant behavior is exposed, they have more excuses than Rush Limbaugh has pills.
Armstrong Williams payola scandal shouldn't surprise anyone; it's widely recognized as the world's oldest profession.
~Anthony G.
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Dan Kennedy is senior writer and media critic for the Boston Phoenix.
