Campbell's Soup: Canned Attacks

The vitriol that Campbell Brown has stirred within New York's educratic community is striking.  It's well established that if you don't have a good argument, then just attack your opponent on a personal level and hope for the best.  Let's deconstruct some basic recurring themes I've seen in social media this week:

"You're not a teacher, you don't know what you're talking about.  You just hate teachers and want to tear down teaching.  You're a troll."

It is possible to respect teachers without being one, and I do know what I'm talking about.  The things that PEJ and others are fighting for affect me personally, my family and my friends.  I know people working multiple jobs to keep their kids out of public schools, some amassing personal debt.  I personally blew a lifetime of savings to get my kids over to a public school that is safe and high functioning.  This troll started a public charter school so other kids could have a chance to achieve.

"Those privatizers and profiteers just want to eliminate due process."

Wright v New York isn't going to reverse 100 years of labor law, but it might just right-size the cost of removing folks who really don't belong in front of children.  The process is totally broken, and due for an update.  The school board I served on for five years could not afford the luxury of a rubber room to warehouse teachers for months and years on end while lawyers bill their way through the 3020-A process.  You know where most teachers are while due process is happening?  They are in classrooms, in front of kids.   

"You're not fighting the real enemy, <fill in the blank with anything bad>."

This is a diversion tactic.  There is an endless list of reasons public education is in a pickle.  When I was on the board of ed in Mount Vernon, NY, a parent once made an appointment to see me.  She spoke without interruption for one hour and fifteen minutes and placed at my feet responsibility for everything that has gone wrong in America since the Civil War.  Finally, I said, "What can I do for you in the next three weeks?"  Let's make a dent on that which is within our control.

The scripted attacks against PEJ and the lawsuit, Wright v New York, are a narrative developed to bolster public support for teachers' unions.  In an odd way, I hope they work, because if the reality of public education's material weaknesses seep into the mainstream, support for public employees' unions of all kinds will suffer horribly.  Dear teacher, be careful where you throw those verbal grenades.