We need the Center for American Progress.
During my time in Congress, CAP provided the fuel that powered our hard-fought victories on issues like health care, the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, and women’s health. Their side had money, and our side fought back with facts—and those facts came from CAP. Progressive champions at the local, state, and federal levels rely on CAP’s expertise, analysis, and communications reach. Every single day.
We all need CAP. But right now, CAP urgently needs our support.
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We can’t do it without you.
Thanks for all your support.
Best,
Tom Perriello
Counselor for Policy, Center for American Progress
President and CEO, Center for American Progress Action Fund
Dear Tom:
I actually do give to several "progressive" causes. But as a working teacher, I will not give one damn dime to the Center for American Progress. Because you people are as responsible for pushing anti-union, anti-teacher, poorly-researched, reformy nonsense as any right-wing group in Washington.
Why would I, as a working public school teacher and union member, support an organization that:
- Wants to implement test-based teacher evaluations, even as they acknowledge that the statistical models those evaluations are built on have high rates of error?
- Engages, in the words of John Thompson, in the "'Sister Souljah' tactic of demonstrating its independence from Democratic constituencies by beating up on educators"?
- Issues reports with policy recommendations in which "Very little in the way of supporting data is presented to justify [the report’s] claims"?
- Downplays the serious problems with the between-district inequitable distribution of resources?
- Advocates for increased class sizes on the basis of cost without comparing it to the cost of other policies?
It's bad enough we have to deal with education reforminess on the right; we really don't need it from the left as well. If you need money, go ask for more from Bill Gates or Eli Broad; they love the sort of stuff you're selling.
Best,
JJ
CAP? Those are our kind of "progressives"!
Amen and WHY is Duncan still around?
ReplyDeleteJohn Podesta is one of the CAP founders and is extremely influential in the Obama WH. His DC lineage, like Rahm's, goes back to the Clinton years so he's deeply embedded in DC culture. CAP is the progressive PR veneer for Obama's right wing edu-policy.
ReplyDeleteCAP and the WH are intentionally tone deaf to the authentic needs of public education. CAP spit out tons of vile white papers supporting Duncan's RttT and Gates nonsense so I don't see any positive signals from the WH or DoEd rethinking current edu-policy.
Duncan said he plans to focus on higher education in O's second term. Given the speed in which he launched RttT, look for him to double down on selling teacher ed programs to his hedge fund buddies and Walton, Gates, Murdoch, etc.
Prepare to see teacher ed outsourced. CAP will be there doing PR, I mean propaganda, promoting dumbed down teacher ed requirements. I predict Walmart will be setting up teacher certification programs, local school systems will be paid to train Walmart 'teachers', and online coursework will be designed by the usual suspects.
Why the AFT and NEA didn't extract concessions from the D's before endorsing Obama is a mystery to me. Anyone with half a brain could see Duncan and Obama's long range strategy for dumbing down our profession.