New pro-public-school group. Democrats for Public Education.

Is it real? Is it in name only? Who really knows.

DFER gives Donna Brazile smart-ass answer.

Please note in this post in GD someone posts unclear criticism, and just walks away without explaining. One way to try to discredit a post. There are lots of others, and I am learning just about all of them.

That response?

Joe Williams on announcement of AFT's launch of Democrats for Public Education:

"Welcome to the Jungle, baby."

Democrats for Education Reform

It's a big game to them. The DFER group looks down on public schools and the public school teachers, yet it is impossible to find a list of Democrats at their site.

Here is more about the new group being formed to supposedly fight back against education "reformers". I say supposedly because right now trust is hard to come by for me. Two national unions have now called for the head of Arne Duncan. Maybe some Democrats are getting the message.

From the Salon article about the new group.

Michelle Rhee’s minions meet their match: New anti-charter group declares war

For many years now, Democrats at the highest levels — including President Obama and his Education Secretary Arne Duncan — have pursued a series of so-called reform policies, which include charter schools, test-based teacher evaluations and eliminations of tenure. The Race to the Top program, where the Education Department forced school policy changes as a condition for competing for additional funding support, engendered a quiet revolution in the classroom. Duncan famously called Hurricane Katrina “the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans,” an example of his desire to overhaul school districts and break union power.

Teacher’s unions typically resisted the reformers, but in the end would come back into the Democrats’ fold, perceiving Republicans as worse. Both the AFT and the National Education Association (NEA) endorsed President Obama in 2012. With teachers a substantial part of the Democratic activist base, unions had reasons to downplay the disagreements.

But a ruling out of California became a touchstone, bringing this simmering debate further into the open. In the Vergara case, bankrolled by Silicon Valley elites, a state judge effectively invalidated California’s teacher tenure rule as violating the civil rights of poor students, who cannot have bad teachers jettisoned from their classrooms. The ruling earned praise from Arne Duncan, and Obama Administration alums formed a public relations group to support future copycat lawsuits in other states. Vergara threatens perhaps the core position of teacher’s unions – job security for their members.

.....While Democrats for Public Education may not have the funds of DFER (as Brazile told Salon, “We don’t have their money and we don’t want their money”), there are plenty of races that could use a counterweight to education reform groups. Perhaps the biggest is in Chicago, where Rahm Emanuel earned the enmity of teachers for school closures and a bitter strike (during which DFER spent $1 million on pro-Emanuel ads). Emanuel faces re-election next February, and a new poll out this weekend shows that Karen Lewis, head of the Chicago Teachers Union, leads him by 9 points. That comes before one dollar has been spent on the race, of course, and Emanuel will have millions at his disposal. So Democrats for Public Education’s role just in Chicago would be critical, if they decide to back candidates.

I hope this is a sincere move, because teachers right now could see false hope a mile away.

Perhaps some are noticing that November is not that far off, and that it is not just the teachers who are angry. Parents are organizing as well.

An apt description of Arne Duncan by an advocate for public education

Duncan is without question the most anti-teacher,anti-public school Secretary of Education in our history, and I say that advisedly. Both Bill Bennett Reagan’s second term Secretary) and Rod Paige (George W. Bush’s first term Secretary) had their faults, but they did nothing more than talk. Paige, remember, called the NEA a “terrorist” organization. But neither had the ability to open thousands of privately managed schools, neither persuaded states to judge teachers by the test scores of their students. Besides, both served Republican presidents so their antipathy to unions was not surprising. Duncan works in a Democratic administration. What is his excuse for applauding the mass firing of the staff in Central Falls, Rhode Island? The destruction of public education in New Orleans? The release of teacher names with student scores in Los Angeles? The Vergara decision, attacking due process rights? His close alliance with anti-public school groups like Democrats for Education Reform?

Since Arne will most likely never retire on his own...it is now up to the president to listen to the teachers of two national unions who want him gone. Fire him.