Finding this site broke me today: http://www.federationforchildren.org/

There is nothing new there. Same pro-voucher, anti-public education stuff that we’ve seen in two dozen places.

But the name… The American Federation for Children.

Enough.

I’ve had it with hearing teachers who dare to be in a union be called "thugs" by the governor directly to the east of me. I’ve had it with facing down massive cuts in education that are decimating schools across my state and across the country.

I’m tired of reading that people making $45,000 a year and working 60 hours a week are "the problem."

And if someone thinks it is cute or funny or poignant to name a national organization in a way that mocks the organization that has worked to support teachers in some of the most challenging situations for decades? And does so in a way that suggests that they speak for the kids in ways that those who have taught the kids cannot? Do not?

It’s the same mindset that would let Davis Guggenheim claim that Michelle Rhee has "suffered" for her stance on education.

Please.

Enough already.

You know what… we need to have some really profound conversations about pedagogy on a national scale…. about how our teaching profession must change and grow to meet the needs of a changing nation. But it must be a dialogue, not diatribe and not mockery.

I’ll give you an example – and it might surprise you.

Chris Christie’s educational plans aren’t all wrong.

There. I said it.

I agree – LIFO is destructive.

And seniority-based hiring in our big systems does no one any favors.

And while I think his tenure reform plans have way too much emphasis on standardized testing, for any number of reasons, I think looking at a new way to evaluate teachers is important… and I think teachers have to understand that tenure the way it has traditionally been defined is going away. And I even think that his four tiered rating system that would not focus on immediate removal but merely create a structure by which it would create the classifications of who would be eligible to be removed might be a good place to start that conversation.

But how do you sit at the table and feel like you’re going to have an honest dialogue with Chris Christie given his rhetoric?

How do you sit down and have a dialogue when Michelle Rhee and others claim that they speak for the kids, and the people who spend every day with kids don’t? When the rhetoric is "We love teachers… the good ones…"

Pedro Noguera and Michelle Fine have an amazing piece in the Nation today about how teachers aren’t the enemy. And in it, they argue that, yes, we need to reform many aspects of labor relations in education. I’ll go one step further. We need to put the way we teach and learn on the table. But we’re not going to get there this way. We aren’t going to get there when those arguing for a market driven educational system in this country demonize those who are arguing for a public educational system as "anti-reform" or "anti-student."

It is insulting. It is demeaning. And it is destructive.

No one group – no one side – speaks for children.

No one group – no one side – has it 100% right.

So let’s talk.

But leave the overheated, insulting rhetoric that would demean the other side, rather than support your ideas, at home.

Please.

Enough already.