The Gild Is Already Off the Lily, But She is Golden for Gates

No sooner was the NEA president's office cleared of the sickly sweet stench of corrupt corporate lackey, Dennis Van Roekel, than a new CorpEd chief enabler was enthroned as head of the nation's largest dress-up-and-go-to-lunch teachers' professional organization.

Enter Stage Right, Lily Eskelson Garcia, with her guitar and plenty of cute protest songs to titillate teachers who prefer to dance to their deaths, rather than fight for their lives.  Why is Lily the Oligarchs' choice for NEA chief, besides the fact that she thinks "tenure" is a dirty word?  Here's why:

. . . . Eskelsen García is likely to come under pressure from some members, including the Badass Teachers Association, to renounce the Common Core.

But there’s no chance of García backing off completely. She even has a favorite Common Core standard.

Van Roekel famously said earlier this year that Common Core implementation is “botched” and requires a “course correction.” Eskelsen García said there’s nothing wrong with hitting the “pause button” to make sure states and districts are getting it right.

The Gates Foundation recently proposed temporarily suspending high-stakes accountability measures based on Common Core-aligned tests for that reason — which was an important announcement, Eskelsen García noted.

But NEA’s new leader realizes that Gates, which has donated to the NEA Foundation for the Improvement of Education, isn’t so popular with the union’s members.

“They funded the Common Core,” Eskelsen García said. “And for some of our folks, it’s like, ‘But the Gates Foundation funded the Common Core, so we must be suspect. It’s corporate. It’s Bill Gates — the mega billionaire!’ But I don’t see it that way. I see the Gates Foundation as funding ideas.”

If she had to grade the Gates Foundation, Eskelsen García said she’d give it a B+. . . .

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/lily-eskelsen-garcia-national-education-association-president-108596_Page2.html#ixzz36vKtQsjR

If you are still paying dues to NEA and wishing for someone there to shout from the rooftop to stop the education genocide, then you truly are a fool.  Sorry.