Tomorrow night, CTA President Dean Vogel will sit on a panel titled “How Do We Improve Education Achievement”, alongside education “reformers” Gloria Romero, Larry Sand and Terry Moe. The panel discussion is being sponsored by the Silicon Valley Conservative Forum.Larry Sand, of course, is the president of the California Teachers Empowerment Network. Gloria Romero is a former Democratic state senator. Terry Moe is a Stanford professor and member of the Koret Task Force on K-12 Education.
Nice swipe, CTA. I look forward to Vogel's looking like an idiot up against these people.
Update, 3/13/13: I received this email from Larry Sand along with his permission to post the contents here:
The video of the education reform event last week in Mountain View is now available. Terry Moe, Gloria Romero, CTA president Dean Vogel and I each gave a 10 minute opening talk. Then, before the Q&A, we each were given 5 minutes to expand on what we said in our opening or to rebut what another panelist had said their opening. Unfortunately, the format did not allow for any direct engagement. I say “unfortunately" because I had about 500 or so questions that I would have loved to pose to Mr. Vogel.
In any event, if you are interested in watching a part of this, I suggest going directly to the secondary comments which begin at 12:00 of the second tape. Thanks.
Larry
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4ARL1hESEE&list=PL0z6BttMYc9yMcV0tcrLegP0qE57xc8ow
What you see as a lack of class I see as comfortingly predictable as well as tacit evidence of concern on the part of the CTA.
ReplyDeleteWhat I'd expect from the CTA, were they unconcerned about the future, would be to ignore a panel discussion put on by the Silicon Valley Conservative Forum or, indeed, any group unlikely to be ideologically supportive.
But my guess is that the CTA's polling and such indicate a ever-rising tide of support for just the sorts of reforms favored by those scurrilous "reformers" and in politics if you can't dictate you negotiate.
The CTA is putting itself in a position to appear reasonable and flexible. When you're a rent-seeking organization like the CTA you do that because you know you don't, or won't, have the power to stop legislation you oppose. So you position yourself to try to negotiate away the worst elements of that legislation when it appears.