WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Who's "credible?"

Not Andrew Rotherham. At least not after his puny defense of Arne Duncan's insipid statement that Hurricane Katrina was the "best thing that happened" to New Orleans schools. Says Andrew,

But to have a controversy don’t you have to have some credible people really upset?

Fred (PREAPrez) responds:

Did he ask anyone in the lower ninth. Are they credible?

What about the Dept. of Ed. itself? Not credible? After first confirming Duncan's quote, Lesli Maxwell writes, they called Edweek, "to air concerns about this post."

Oh, did I mention that Rotherham was contracted to help Gov. Bobby Jindal's people write Louisiana's Race-To-The-Top application? Only 28 of the state's 70 school districts wanted any part of RTTT. Jindal has opposed taking federal dollars for post-Katrina reconstruction. He is pushing vouchers for state schools.

Other "reformers" who liked Katrina

Heritage Foundation VP Michael Franc called Katrina "the dawn of a great era of conservative governance"

Milton Friedman, the father of disaster capitalism, called Katrina, "Not just a tragedy, "but an opportunity."

Paul Vallas said, after Katrina, "now no one can tell me what to do."

I have no “institutional obstacles” — no school board, no collective bargaining agreement, a teachers’ union with very little power. “No one tells me how long my school day should be or my school year should be,” he said. “Nobody tells me who to hire or who not to hire.

Remember, Duncan himself referred to this, possibly the worst global economic crisis ever, as "this magical opportunity."