Like clockwork, Campbell Brown poked her little head out from under a rock to slam teachers, just like she did last year. Not only that, but she didn't even have the decency to find a new angle. It's the same old "teachers unions protect teachers who sexually assault students" whine, but this time she's angry because teachers won't reopen negotiations to firm up language concerning this particular issue.
Because Brown is on a mission to "Willie Horton-ize" teachers, she absolutely must also have a very scary ad to put up. Last year she did it for Mitt. This year it's focused on the mayoral candidates running in New York.
Her organization, The Parents Transparency Project, isn't really very transparent. It took the better part of an hour to discover there weren't any disclosures about who paid for these ads. Trying to discover the full board of the organization and relationships between her group and StudentsFirstNY, where her husband is a board member, remains on my to-do list after even more time spent looking. Their "About" page only features Brown, but Gotham Schools blog reports that DFER Executive Director Joe Williams is also on the board. DFER is the stealth conservative group branding themselves as "Democrats for education reform." I prefer to call them "Democrats for union-busting."
Brown and her cronies would like to force unions to re-open their contract negotiations in order to change how teachers accused of sexual misconduct are treated. She'd also like to crack open those contracts early so they can be broken. That's how these things work. Reopening negotiations puts everything on the table, not just a single provision.
Consider this a stealth attack on New York teachers' job security and professionalism, which isn't so much about sexual misconduct as it is about breaking teachers' unions and demonizing teachers.
At some point, it's time to stop allowing this kind of nasty and unproductive sleazy PR campaign on the air, MSNBC. Now would be good.
