Why Duncan had it in for Starr

Starr opposed Duncan testing madness

Here's more on Arne Duncan's direct interference in de Blasio's selection of a schools chancellor. Duncan and his assistant, Jim Shelton (the man from Gates), pressured BdB against the selection of Montgomery County Schools Superintendent Joshua Starr. WaPo education writer Valerie Strauss explains why Duncan felt so threatened by Starr.

Starr, who runs Maryland’s largest school district, just miles from the White House, became nationally known last year when he made a call for a three-year moratorium on high-stakes standardized testing, a central component of Duncan’s school reform policies. Starr said the country should “stop the insanity” of evaluating teachers according to student test scores, calling it a flawed method.

Let's Make a Deal
Having lost the battles, both to prevent de Blasio's election and then to get him to pick a Michelle Rhee-type schools chancellor, N.Y. corporate reformers are now calling for a "truce". Charles Sahm from the right-wing Manhattan Institute writing in the Daily News, calls on the de Blasio administration to "drop its anti-charter plans and rhetoric," make teachers work a longer day for less money and a cut in benefits, and avoid Fariña's "progressive" curricular leanings.
That's not a "truce". It's a surrender.

Outlaws in America

Edward Snowden "has done his country a great service," says yesterday's New York Times editorial."When someone reveals that government officials have routinely and deliberately broken the law, that person should not face life in prison at the hands of the same government." I agree.