Practical Theory

[I apologize for not having the exact wording of how the exchange happened, but MSNBC doesn't have it up yet.]

Tonight on MSNBC, as part of the Education Nation event, there was a panel discussion around (because it wasn't about) Waiting for Superman. The panel included Randi Weingarten, Michelle Rhee, Geoffrey Canada, John Legend and Davis Guggenheim, and at one point, Randi Weingarten said that the AFT was willing to work with Rhee in DC, and Rhee interrupted her (interestingly, it did seem like everyone was allowed to interrupt her) and said, "I find it disingenuous that you say you wanted to work with me, but the AFT spent $1,000,000 in the DC Election on the Gray campaign."

And for some reason, Weingarten tried to say that education wasn't the only reason they supported Gray. She was - rightly - pounced on, and she did sound completely foolish. Of course, the AFT gave money to Gray because of education policies. Of course they did.

And the thing is... just say it.

Say, "Yes, Michelle. We went after you because saying after we want to work with you, after signing an historic contract with you, it was clear that wasn't enough for you. You had to have absolute control. For you, 'working together' meant doing whatever you wanted. We realized that no matter what we did, no matter how much we gave, it would never be enough for you until there was no union left to protect teachers. And we couldn't stand for that. So yes, we gave $1,000,000 to stop you. Because we care about teachers. And because we believe you can't truly care about kids unless you care about teachers. Meanwhile, let's talk about how much the billionaires like Ron Perelman and the hedge fund managers gave to Fenty's campaign and ask why they seemed to care so much."

I respect Weingarten for being on the panel, but I don't think she needs to apologize or obfuscate about why she has a different vision for education reform than Michelle Rhee. She made some incredible statements for a union leader - she said that the tenure process is broken, she said that the union has focused for too long on protecting the bad teachers through due process and not enough on supporting the best teachers, and there was no recognition of that by anyone on the panel. Sooner or later, collaboration cannot be one-sided. It has to be a recognition of what both sides of a debate bring to the table. Without that, it's appeasement, and that doesn't last.

Randi Weingarten should not apologize for wanting to work with administrators whose rhetoric is less inflamatory than Rhee's. She should not apologize for believing that teachers must be part of the dialogue of education reform. And she should never apologize for supporting candidates that she believes will work to create a more inclusive vision of education reform.

The message that teachers -- and their leaders -- should be saying over and over again is this -- "We are thrilled that the nation is focusing on education. We welcome so many leaders from such a wide array of professions are now making education a focus. We look forward to working with anyone who is willing to come to the conversation with humility and a willingness to listen, question and change. The task in front of us is so hard, and we understand that teachers and schools must change with the changing times. All that we ask is that you understand that school reform is not something you do to students and teachers and parents, it is something to undertake with students and teachers and parents. That is how we will build the schools we need."

That's what I want to hear from someone - anyone - involved in this week's Education Nation.

Sadly, I'm not hopeful that I will.