It goes to teacher Dan Clawson commenting on the out-of-state-funded push to weaken teacher protections in Massachusetts (and here’s the reality in charter schools, by the way)–because Massachusetts only has one of the best educational systems in the world (boldface mine):

The Massachusetts ballot question sends the implicit message that billionaires know best, that they are more dedicated to public schools than the teachers who spend their lives there, at unimpressive salaries, working in under-resourced schools serving poor kids…

Stand for Children and its allies, like Teach for America, find seniority unimportant—they prefer graduates from elite institutions who parachute in to teach for a year or two, quit because the work is too demanding and doesn’t pay enough, and then spend the rest of their lives explaining that long-time teachers lack dedication.

What these groups recommend for the poor is the opposite of what prevails in the elite prep schools their own children attend. Prep schools have far less high-stakes testing, a shorter school year, and lots of enrichment and sports.

Read the whole post. All the ‘progessives’ who went along with this crap were nothing more than useful idiots.

While I’m working on a longer version of this, something to consider: rather than recognizing the remarkable progress over the last forty years, corporate and conservative Democrats and their financial backers, along with the useful idiots, have argued that the U.S. system is ‘failing.’ Did they not think that this would weaken teachers and their unions who are a reliable part of the Democratic base?