union busting.

This is BULLS**T!!!!!!!

How can you campaign for the "common worker" and then throw out the large body of the "common worker!"

Teachers should have seen the writing on the wall when Arne was named to the post - should have known from that point that this administration was not going to make "education" an issue for the common folk.

and keeping quiet about things. The reforms were beginning in FL before I retired and when Jeb became governor. Our new principal made life unpleasant for anyone who questioned.

to bust some union butt - especially school teachers I am sure.

What made Campbell Brown such a shithead? She pretty much has it all doesn't she?

couldn't disappoint me no matter what she did. The fact that I am still capable of being disappointed in this administration is shocking to me at this point. Soon I will be shocked no longer, and simply view them as I do the corporate media "personalities" of this world.

Isn't Campbell Brown married to Dan Senor of the Bush Administration?

Media Madness married to former Bush Employee now in cahoots with former Obama Campaign Op and Press Secretary to destroy Teachers?

This is like living in crazy land. Put that with the 150,000 Detroit Residents having their Water Cut Off and having to appeal to United Nations and the Children being deported from the USA with no place to go.....and the rest.

It's just too much. Every day another assault on our sensibilities.

up front helping them?

That is so tragic.

Another attack on organized labor.

They are so anti-teacher.

It well could be part of the Rhee's Student First movement. There are several groups now working against teachers' right.

from former WH press secretary Robert Gibbs. Thanks a lot Democrats!

Then we are no better than Republicans. NO BETTER.

This makes me so damn angry!

still lag behind international norms?

Because that is where they are going.

They are destroying the teaching profession and teachers as individuals. Children in America's classrooms are suffering as a result.

But it won't improve anything because the problem with America's students is in America's homes and in the poor social and material infrastructure in our communities.

Parents rightfully don't want and are not allowed to use excessive corporal punishment to discipline their children. But we have not held a national discussion or training for parents and grandparents on how to discipline children without corporal punishment. As a result, our children go to school and can't pay attention, think they don't have to do things they don't like and treat teachers and other students with disrespect.

We need parent education. We don't need to destroy public schools, teachers or teachers' unions.

unfortunately. From the dumbed down "entertainment" to the high cost of college, to the offshoring of any decent paying jobs, the children pay the price. The corporate media is complicit in keeping the average person ignorant of who the real enemy is. I appreciate your sentiments, but parents are doing the best they can these days without the societal or governmental support they had even a few years ago. The corporations want a dumbed down labor force and a desperate labor pool. They've achieved their goal. But let's not blame parents.

If our party doesn't stop this bullshit kicking teachers around and trying to privatize education, I will not vote for the candidates.

The Daily Beast published a piece by former CNN host Campbell Brown on a controversial California education trial without disclosing Brown's ties to anti-teachers union groups.

What Brown doesn't bother to mention and what The Daily Beast neglects to include in the post is that Brown has multiple conflicts of interest when it comes to matters of education, especially teachers. Brown's husband Dan Senor sits on the board of StudentsFirstNY, a group that actively opposes teachers unions and tenure. In addition, Brown launched a venture last year called the Parents' Transparency Project (PTP), a purported "watchdog group" that Mother Jones' Andy Kroll took a closer look at in October 2013:

Shortly after it was launched in June, PTP trained its sights on the New York mayoral race, asking the candidates to pledge to change the firing process for school employees accused of sexual misconduct. When several Democratic candidates declined, perhaps fearing they'd upset organized labor, PTP spent $100,000 on a television attack ad questioning whether six candidates, including Republican Joe Lhota and Democrats Bill de Blasio and Anthony Weiner, had "the guts to stand up to the teachers' unions."

[...]

Another consulting firm working with Brown's group is Tusk Strategies, which helped launch Rhee's StudentsFirst. Advertising disclosure forms filed by PTP list Tusk's phone number, and a copy of PTP's sexual-misconduct pledge--since scrubbed from its website--identified its author as a Tusk employee. (Tusk and Revolution declined to comment. Brown referred all questions to her PR firm--the same one used by StudentsFirst.)

I probably missed in your earlier reports who the biggest funders are of Michelle Rhee's group. But, would one of the Bush Brothers be connected to her backers. The one that was selling bogus computer equipment to schools when Bush II was in office?

Is there Koch money there or some other group?

And really just thought about it. Really good question.

I did find some of the funders of Students First, but she is very secretive about it....I would need to do a search through my files.

a Democrat/Republican effort. And, Axelrod in on this. I guess that's very telling about where his political loyalties lie...or not...considering he probably is just a "gun for hire."

But recent lobbying filings in Pennsylvania name New Jersey hedge funder and Romney backer David Tepper and the Texas-based Laura and John Arnold Foundation as among the largest donors to StudentsFirst, Rhee's national lobbying and advocacy group that pushes for rigorous teacher evaluations and school choice. And though the filings don't give dollar amounts, a source close to the donor community said the Arnold grant amounted to tens of millions of dollars.

...Billionaire John Arnold, a former Enron trader and his wife Laura, were slated to host in their Houston home a $10,000-ticket Obama fundraiser to feature Michelle Obama last October (the event was postponed). Arnold describes himself as a libertarian, and his wife Laura identifies as a Democrat. Still, Arnold was one of Obama's top 2008 donors, a bundler who gave the campaign between $50,000 and $100,000. According to Huffington Post's FundRace, he has given $35,800 to the Obama Victory Fund 2012.

....An additional donor to StudentsFirst is The Broad Foundation, the philanthropy run by Eli and Edythe Broad that puts billions into education reform causes such as charter schools and parent unions. Erica Lepping, a Broad spokesperson, confirmed that one year ago, the foundation contributed $500,000 in startup costs to StudentsFirst. "We've been in discussions with them since, regarding how we may be further able to support their work," Lepping added in an email.

so it's what it is.

David Tepper is an interesting name. I think he's one of those Wall St. Hedge Funders...or maybe Silicon Valley.

I'll check him out...but not tonight.

Good ones to add to to the Koch Brothers as ones to keep an eye on going forward.

He and his secret donors are trying to gut the Dallas School system. They paid people to go out and get enough signatures to get it on the ballot, not sure if it will be ready by November. So are the only name known about the people behind the money is John Arnold, the other organizations and people that are funding this movement are keeping their names secret. Going after the teachers here in Dallas, too, replacing the school board with appointed people and probably all charter school system. It is all about hedge fund mangers squeezing taxpayers' money out of the public school system and lining their fat cat pockets. Screw the kids! Just show them the money!

Send them to the white house. He was gonna support unions back when he was campaigning. Once in office. Unions can just get screwed with WH approval.

It would be bad enough if the third way types just ignored workers' rights. But they can't wait to do the bidding of their corporate elite masters.

To hell with any politician that doesn't support workers. republican or Democrat.

According to wiki... this is as close as she comes:


>>>Brown grew up in Ferriday, Louisiana, and she attended the Trinity Episcopal Day School. She was expelled from the Madeira School for sneaking off campus to go to a party.[9] Brown attended Louisiana State University for two years before graduating from Regis University. After graduation, she spent a year teaching English in Czechoslovakia.[10]>>>>>

So basically... she's a tabula rasa as far as US public schools are concerned.... not unlike a certain POTUS who shall remain nameless for fear of incurring the wrath of Khan.

It mystifies me how these people manage to convince themselves that they have some kind of mystically-bestowed special insight into a phenomenon ( i.e. public ed) that they have spent their entire lives avoiding.