Jay P. Greene's Blog


Home | About | Archives


Forget “Who’s Fickle?” Who’s Paranoid?

July 26, 2010 1:24 pm

(Guest post by Greg Forster)

Earlier this year, Checker Finn went through a brief period where he was tying himself in knots, sounding a whole lot like he was both for national standards and against them. Mike Petrilli chose that moment to take potshots at Arne Duncan for being “Fickle on Federalism.” I had a little fun asking “Who’s Fickle?

Since then, Checker has finally decided where he stands (at least for now). He’s accused those of us who ask embarrassing questions about whether national standards will be hijacked by the blog blob of “paranoia.”

[Update: Hijacked by the “blob,” of course. This was totally not a Freudian slip. The blog doesn’t hijack anything – as far as you know. Nothing to see here, folks…]

Well, the game just changed. Neal McCluskey has dug up a 1997 Weekly Standard article in which Checker makes the same arguments against national standards we are now making. None of the relevant facts on the ground has changed. So today I get to ask, “Who’s Paranoid?”

Posted by Greg Forster

Categories: instructional reform, school accountability

Tags: , , , ,

2 Responses to “Forget “Who’s Fickle?” Who’s Paranoid?”

  1. Some may be paranoid, but there are definitely many very healthy skeptics.

    http://concernedabouteducation.posterous.com/proposed-math-standards-unteachable

    By concerned on July 26, 2010 at 4:31 pm

  2. “Neal McCluskey has dug up a 1997 Weekly Standard article in which Checker makes the same arguments against national standards we are now making. None of the relevant facts on the ground has changed.”

    Now we legitimately get to speculate about motives.

    By Malcolm Kirkpatrick on July 26, 2010 at 9:55 pm

Leave a Reply



Mobile Site | Full Site


Get a free blog at WordPress.com Theme: WordPress Mobile Edition by Alex King.