Who could possibly be big enough to bully both Republicans and Democrats in Lansing when it comes to education reform?
Amber Arellano, former Detroit News reporter rewarded for her solid work "reporting" education "reform" with the job of Director of the Education Trust-Midwest, an organization funded by the Broad Foundation, the Gates Foundation, the Waltons, and solidly backed by The White House.
Apparently, she sent an email insisting that the state had to decide "today" (well, yesterday now) about teacher effectiveness bills or lose their waiver from President Obama on education reform.
Both party reps balked and actually stood up to Amber -- at least in their remarks to reporter Brian Smith.
http://www.mlive.com/lansing-news/index.ssf/2014/04/michigan_teacher_evaluation_bi.html
Given Amber's heavy weight backers, however, it is difficult to see how either party can stand firm very long.
Arellano's threats and bullying came following last week's move by President Obama to pull a Race to the Top waiver from the state of Washington and return them to the bizarro standards of No Child Left Behind.
According to those 2001 laws, all schools must be "proficient" by 2014.
They aren't. Some of the children are still, as always, average, below average, and above average.
Correspondingly, then, President Obama's gesture labelled all schools in Washington "unperforming" and Michigan is next on the chopping block. The state stands to lose fed money if it doesn't institute teacher effectiveness laws and guarantee a Common Core test (the Smarter Balance test) be put in place for all schools.
It is entirely possible, I think, that Amber Arellano, a political operative paid only to say schools are failing to realize the Common Core dream of Bill Gates and Barack Obama, actually may unify Michigan legislative reps on education issues.
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