David Gregory’s right wing nosedive, part 2: unions, unions everywhere
It’s as if he was reading his talking points off the RNC website (what up!) … David Gregory was even more tooly than usual this week, as he interviewed Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who has created a $4 billion, results-oriented, competitive incentive program for states, school systems and non-profits called “Race to the Top,” and the new education twosome, Rev. Al Sharpton and Newt Gingrich, who are touring the country as part of President Obama’s education initiatives. The panel did their best, but when Newt Gingrich comes off like a reasonable centrist compared to the host, we’re nearing Fox News territory.
During the segment, Gregory mentioned “unions,” “teachers” or “teachers unions” 15 times, and seemed unwilling to allow the discussion to veer off the topic of what role teachers unions are playing in the demise of American education. By contrast, Gingrich, purportedly the conservative on the panel, mentioned unions exactly once, and teachers 5 times (compared to Gregory’s 6 union mentions and 9 teacher references.) Gingrich, Sharpton and Duncan kept trying to bring up the elephant in the room — parents, and their responsibility for demanding accountability at school, but were batted down each time, until finally, at the Gregory conceded, on the way out to break, that “Parents matter. Parents have to say, ‘We have expectations for you.’” Well thanks for that. A typical exchange follows after the jump. Here’s the whole, tiresome segment, in which Gregory also shows how out of touch he is, by focusing mostly on D.C., rather than the nation’s, schools:
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In the transcript clip below, note how Rev. Sharpton tries in vain to bring up parent involvement, only to get shot down by the union-hunting Gregory:
GREGORY: So here’s my question, Secretary Duncan. Why should anybody believe that a Democratic president, who relies on interests like the unions who are out there organizing and who vote, why should somebody believe that he’s really going to take them on, that you are really going to take them on to force accountability?
SEC’Y DUNCAN: We all have to move–at the end of the day, we have to have dramatically better results for children. What makes great education is the adults. Talent matters tremendously. In every high performing school in this country, you have great principals and you have great teachers. Student achievement is the purpose of education. We need to evaluate whether students are learning or not. We need to start to focus on outcomes, not inputs. And as both these two gentlemen said, we all have to move outside our comfort zones. Those old, tired fights of the past just don’t get us where we need to go. Everybody’s moving, everybody’s willing to move. At the end of the day, we want dramatically better outcomes for students. That’s the only reason we all work every single day.
GREGORY: OK. But so how you–how do you hold teachers accountable, and while at the same time hold the unions’ feet to the fire?
SEC’Y DUNCAN: What we have said, which is a fundamental breakthrough, is we will only invest in those states and districts where student achievement is part of the evaluation.
GREGORY: Right.
SEC’Y DUNCAN: We’ve drawn, we have drawn a line in the sand.
GREGORY: But what, but what if, but what if states lie to you? Because I’ve talked to educators who say…
SEC’Y DUNCAN: We…
GREGORY: …wait a minute, they can, they can just say, “Oh, yeah, well, we’re, we’re gathering the data.”
SEC’Y DUNCAN: Right.
GREGORY: But not really gather the data on student performance based on test results and still get the money.
SEC’Y DUNCAN: David, it’s very simple, we simply won’t fund them. This is–we’re talking about everyone moving outside their comfort zone. Department of Education has been part of the problem. Let me be very, very clear. We have been this big, historical, compliance-driven bureaucracy. We are trying to move from that to being this engine of innovation and in–to invest it and scale up what works. We are only going to invest in those places that are doing the right thing by children. If they’re not, we simply will not fund them.
REP. GINGRICH: Look, let me just say this is the heart of the matter. We are all three going around the country on what is essentially a hope. I, I have no idea, in the end, whether the president or the secretary will be as tough as they need to be. But I can tell you, we have been in rooms together now in Baltimore and in Philadelphia, Al and I have been in rooms in Tucson and in Montgomery, Alabama. And I have seen Reverend Sharpton, in the middle of the Philadelphia power structure, be amazingly blunt about the fact that, you know, Randi Weingarten talked about humane. There’s nothing humane about a school which destroys children. There’s humane about a school that has kids going to prison instead of college. And there’s nothing humane about protecting somebody who can’t teach so that they have a job for next year; but by the way, every child that sits in that room is going to have a terrible future. We had one young man on, on–in Baltimore who walked out, who said to us, the difference between the school he was now in–which I think was a KIPP school, if I remember–and the, and the school that he had left was in the first school, the, the one that was failing, the teacher would give them a reading assignment and she would either put her head on the table and sleep or she would end up doing e-mail while–without teaching.
REV. SHARPTON: During class.
GREGORY: Mm-hmm.
REP. GINGRICH: During class.
REV. SHARPTON: No, but it was–the other part is that’s why I think why I think what the president’s proposed as a collective works, because we need parent involvement.
GREGORY: Right.
REV. SHARPTON: I wish you had talked to Assemblywoman Inez Barron in New York. We need to have parents more involved. If parents are involved, they also hold the teachers accountable.
GREGORY: But wait a minute, Reverend. Now wait a minute. I totally–that’s an important point.
REV. SHARPTON: Well, just let me finish.
GREGORY: But wait a minute. But hold on. On this union question, you have fights going on in school districts in this country.
Now, I agree as much as anyone that teachers unions need not stand in the way of progress. But perhaps David should take a trip down to Liberty City, where a school I went to last week held a parent workshop for the families of that school’s 360 elementary school children. Even with a Target gift card as an incentive, one mom showed up. One. Parents aren’t doing their share, and while the government can’t make them do it, it would be nice to hear more than the typical right wing talking points blaming unions for the problems in inner city schools. There is, as Mr. Gingrich, Rev. Sharpton and Secretary Duncan tried in vain to explore on “Meet the Press” this week, a lot more to it.
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