Quotables

The feng shui people...

DFER's Joe Williams brings his penetrating wisdom and deep knowledge of Eastern philosophy, combined with his sensibilities about product labeling, to the issue of NCLB re-authorization.

"It's like the new Coke. This is a rebranding effort," said Joe Williams, executive director of Democrats for Education Reform. "The feng shui people believe you need to take the roof off buildings to allow bad chi to escape. Let's hope this helps."

What does he mean by "many"?

Education Secretary Arne Duncan made a point of talking about unions in a speech Monday in Washington to a national charter school conference."Charters are not inherently anti-union," Duncan said. "Many charters today are unionized." That is true, but unions are rare in the nation's 4,600 charter schools, which make up about 3 percent of the nation's 132,000 public schools. (AP Wire)

Randi Weingarten...

"The promise of charter schools is that they are small incubators of experimentation, both in terms of instruction and labor relations," she said. "They shouldn't be separate systems." (AP Wire)

Steve Barr...

"I think it's the only way we're going to improve public education," Barr said. "I don't think you're going to change a public education system that's 100 percent unionized with nonunion labor."(AP Wire)

Huh!...

"There clearly are conflicts between some of the things teachers' unions do and some of the things we know make charter schools effective," said Andrew Rotherham, co-founder and publisher of the Washington-based Education Sector think tank. (AP Wire)