What KIPP Told the Parents

This is an excerpt from a weekly newsletter sent home to KIPP parents (I obtained it from an anonymous source, but it's real). It's dated December 7th, 2008, just a few weeks before Duncan was named Secretary of Education:

In the next few days, President-elect Obama will announce his nominee for Secretary of Education. It’s an important decision because there are two education camps in Obama’s administration: a “reform” camp (which supports charter schools, TFA, higher standards and is embodied by Joel Klein and Michelle Rhee) and an “establishment” camp (which supports teachers unions, more funding and smaller class sizes and is embodied by Stanford professor and TFA-critic Linda Darling-Hammond). The first group believes in disruptive change whereas the second group believes in incremental change. It’s an interesting debate, one worth following. (As an aside, a friend of mine from college and the author of In the Deep Heart’s Core, Michael Johnston, is one of Obama’s leading education advisors)

Here are a few articles on Obama’s imminent Secretary of Ed selection:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/05/opinion/05brooks.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/04/AR2008120403655_pf.html

Seems like they do more than just brainwash kids - they brainwash the parents, too. Be sure to check out the two articles linked in the notice, an awful Brooks piece and the WaPo editorial blabbering, both of which could be considered part of the hatchet-job on Linda Darling-Hammond.