NEW YEAR QUOTABLES

Tilson on Meier--'She should visit a charter school'

In his latest diatribe, hedge-fund billionaire and educational no-nothing, Whitney Tilson goes off on Deborah Meier, Diane Ravitch, and, Jonathan Kozol, calling their writings, "idiotic" and "moronic." Lines like the one below would be mildly amusing were it not for Tilson's influence in the Bloomberg administration and in Arne Duncan's DOE:

In short, Meier is so ignorant about charters that it boggles my mind. Has she ever visited a high-performing charter school?! I can only assume not.

What Tom VanderArk liked most about the Bush years

1. NCLB--"...marked a consensus that 1) measurement matters, 2) all students deserve good life options, 3) we should rely on average achievement to measure a schools success..." 2. Private control of public schools--"There was a massive increase in education entrepreneurship—school developers, human capital initiatives, and learning platforms—funded by massive new money foundations...Democrats for Education Reform and Education Equality Project joined the fray" 3. The Recession--"brought a new wave of talent into the sector that will make a difference for a generation."

Me: He left out the tsunami, which taught people how to run for higher ground.


What Chicago machine politician, Dan Burke, likes most about the Daley machine

"Yeah, there is a machine. A machine is created to do a job more efficiently."

His opponent, community activist, Rudy Lozano, Jr.

"It's like therapy," he said. "It's the closest true way for me to understand what my father was doing 26 years ago. I missed most of that. This experience has given me the opportunity to walk in those footsteps."

Putting down the insurrection

Rotherham and the boys at Eduwonk worry about the growing resistance movement:

In both counterinsurgency and education reform don’t assume that because the statues in the capital come down the resistance is over.

Me: I think Andrew is badly needed in Kabul.