Swift & Change Able

I realize i'm a little slower than you DC policy insiders, but are you suggesting that it is the freshmen who are being led around by corporate leaders? I've looked at Miller's contributions, and what strikes me are the number of out of state contributors who work for companies who make tests.

Be a big man and publish this comment won't you?

I'm suggesting that some members of Congress do as they're told and don't stray very far from what their funders tell them to do. I emphasize "some". Some do, some don't. Freshmen who won by small margins feel particularly vulnerable. The NEA has been bragging on Capitol Hill that they are responsible for helping the Dems take back the House and that in turn House Freshmen are indebted to them. One need only look at the NEA's site to see that Miller has not followed the urging of the NEA/AFT PAC, nor have many other members with more experience and safer seats. That's politics, dude. I'm not saying it's right or wrong. I just think that there's a way to listen to teachers AND parents AND students AND researchers etc. Fair and balanced, as they say.

Note that the Student and Parents for High Quality Public Education PAC has yet to be formed.

Take a look for yourself at the FEC filings and the public statements of key House members on the issue of education. There's a lot of gray. The world isn't as black and white as you seem to think.

Thanks for posting the comment. And I appreciate you "duding" me...we're fast becoming friends.

The NEA has been bragging? Really? About what? About being as useful as mud? About charging membership outrageous fees and using that money to perpetuate misery?

What, exactly, has the NEA done in the last 15 (20?) years that makes the organization particularly worthwhile?

What has the national union done for teachers? For children?

The NEA did nothing to help the dems take back the house.

And it's the NEA's willingness to roll over and expose its belly that is partly responsible for the mess we are in now. If the NEA was worth half of its dues we'd be much closer to a responsive, customized, integrative system of education that helps children maximize their individual strengths rather than a standardizing system that transforms children into numbers and "learning" into drudgery.

End of rant.

Thanks for the space, man...

I agree with Philip but I haven't gotten a "dude" or gotten a post published.

I wish the AFT could take the NEA approach, but I understand why it can't. I can't understand what is supposed to be the value of berating the NEA. Many of the schools served by the NEA get only one thing out of NCLB, some tools that allow them to better serve their poorer populations.

I'd like to move beyond a NEA/AFT merger. The best thing we could do for kids would be to merge the teachers unions with the principals unions. Give us all a little buffer, and we can move with the confidence needed to tackle the problem.