Glen Ford of Black Agenda Report is one of my favorite analysts and journalists, a man whose reportage has been compared to the work of Frederick Douglass by Prof. Tony Monteiro. His mind is sharp and brilliant in ways that make me honored to have corresponded with him. Here, Ford explains the way that the Democratic Party has been infiltrated by the neoliberal anti-teacher union charter school lobby and what to expect from hucksters like Sen. Cory Booker, a right wing Republican in Democratic Party clothing. As the neoliberal agenda continues to be made manifest in our communities, be mindful of the patterns Ford discusses here and which were discussed in the previous post on this topic in Chicago.
State education Commissioner Deborah Gist is leaving Rhode Island for Tulsa, Oklahoma and former Woonsocket state Rep. Jon Brien, my latest NBC 10 Wingmen adversary, says her departure is the fault of the teachers’ unions.
Blaming organized labor for getting rid of Gist is like blaming vaccines for getting rid of the measles. There’s always a few that think the solution to a problem is a bigger problem than the problem.
As Brien, a Woonsocket native, a lawyer and a parent, blames teachers and their unions, his hometown school district sued Gist and the state for not ensuring an adequate education. Meanwhile, during Gist’s tenure in Rhode Island, the graduation rate in Woonsocket dropped 6 percent – from 64 percent of high school seniors in 2009 to 58 percent of high school seniors in 2013.
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