Lunch With Max and Warwick

February 15, 2010

I had lunch today with Max Brantley of the Arkansas Times and Warwick Sabin of the Oxford American (and formerly of the Arkansas Times) as well as my colleague, Josh McGee.  I have to say that I really enjoyed it. 

Max can be harsh and opinionated but I have a soft spot for harsh and opinionated folks, sometimes being one myself.  And at least with Max you always know where he stands. 

I also think all four of us agreed much more than we disagreed.  We agreed in deploring the lack of quality opportunities in education, particularly for disadvantaged students.  We agreed that some people working in our schools need to find a different profession.  We agreed that we should figure out ways to get rock star teachers with high pay.  We agreed that schools ought to have high standards and offer rewards to students for meeting those standards. 

We disagreed about expanding choice and competition in education.  Max and Warwick seem to view education as a zero-sum game where some schools can do better only by taking away kids from other schools, which are made worse as a result.  I think there’s a good amount of evidence to support the view that schools rise to the challenge and improve when they are faced with greater competition from an expanded set of choices.

I also agreed with them in admitting that I have lost my enthusiasm for merit pay.  I still think there are some positive effects from merit pay, or as I put it in a report that Max links to on his blog: “The evidence that is available, however, provides some grounds for moderate optimism about merit pay.”  I just don’t think the moderate benefits are worth the enormous energy that the policy consumes as well as the potential for cheating or other undesired effects.  As, I told Max, Warwick, and Josh at lunch, the most effective form of merit pay is getting rid of bad teachers.  That would make a much bigger difference than the potential to earn a 1% or 2%  bonus.

I don’t know why I’ve been so slow to learn this lesson, but it is generally a good idea to sit down with people with whom you’ve had public disagreements because you may discover that your disagreements are less than everyone thought.  Yes, they are still there and still important, but we can also make progress by focusing on the ideas we share.

1 Comment | charter schools, teacher pay | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene

When All Politics is Personal

November 12, 2008

Max Brantley, Arkansas blogger and the editor of the free-weekly Arkansas Times, seems like a fun guy.  While I’ve never met him, I can tell from reading his blog that he enjoys good food and drinks.  He enjoys travel.  He’s devoted to family and friends.  He seems like the kind of guy that you might want to have some beers with as he recounted old stories.

Brantley is also a breath of fresh air in a state that is remarkably averse to open debate of controversial issues.  He’s fearless — a giant-slayer.  He’s willing to take-on powerful interests and actors in a Southern culture that leans heavily toward deference.  These qualities make him quite admirable and at times fun to read.

But Brantley has another, all-too-common, Southern trait that makes him much less than admirable and sometimes awful to read.  For Brantley it is clear that all politics is personal.  He doesn’t seem primarily interested in ideas or principles.  He’s interested in promoting his friends and punishing his enemies — mostly punishing his enemies.  Despite being strikingly and openly leftist in his thinking, Brantley is really not much of an ideologue. He’s a personal networker.

He’ll attack efforts that he might otherwise support if those efforts would help people he’s deemed to be enemies.  See, for example, his recent denunciation of state Rep. Dan Greenberg’s efforts to produce ethics reform in the Arkansas legislature.  If Brantley really cared about the idea of ethics reform, he’d probably back proposals to move things in the right direction.  But personal vendettas matter more to him than principles.

You see, Dan Greenberg is the son of Paul Greenberg, the editorial writer for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.  The Dem-Gaz is owned by Walter Hussman, who bought and basically closed the old Gazette newspaper for whom Brantley used to work in 1991.  After being let go by Hussman, Brantley has been reduced to running a free-weekly that occassionally has great investigative reporting but mostly lives off of gossip, show-listings, and naughty personal ads. 

For nearly two decades Brantley has seethed about this injury, lashing out at anyone connected to Hussman — even when connected with several degrees of separation.  So Brantley hectors Dan Greenberg because he’s connected to Paul Greenberg, who’s connected to Hussman.  I’m sure that Brantley and the younger Greenberg truly disagree on many issues.  But my point is that even when they agree, Brantley’s personal rage and relative disinterest in ideas prevent him from embracing that agreement.

I’ve also been a frequent target of Brantley’s bile.   My sin?  I’m connected to the Waltons, although more loosely than Brantley will admit or understands.  And the Waltons are allies with Hussman on school reform in Arkansas.  So when my department hosted a lecture by Democratic U.S. Senator Blanche Lincoln, Brantley posted this:

Coming to Waltonville

We notice that Sen. Blanche Lincoln(D-Waltonsas) is speaking Thursday at Walton University in a program sponsored by the Walton School of Education Reform.It’s a good forum for a senator who carries so much water for Wal-Mart and the Walton heirs on other matters — estate tax abolition, etc.. No Child Left Behind, “teacher quality” and other education topics will be discussed at this week’s event. Jay P. Greene, head Walton shill and professor of teacher derision at Waltonville, surely will be on hand, perhaps with a script for the senator.

Never mind that Sen. Lincoln agrees with Brantley on most issues.  And never mind that much of what Sen. Lincoln had to say in her lecture was consistent with what Brantley normally supports.  You can watch the lecture here to see for yourself if she was reading from a script that I or someone else wrote.  Brantley nevertheless had to find a way to denounce an event that was connected to people who were connected to other people who were connected to his enemies.  This kind of anger management problem is normally treated with medication and therapy, but Brantley finds blogging to be cheaper and easier.

Brantley may hate me (and a long list of other people) but I don’t feel the same about him.  He can be dangerous and spiteful, but Brantley is also entertaining and informative.  I’m OK with agreeing with him on some things and disagreeing on others.  I don’t feel the need to join his personal grudge-match and extend hatred to everyone with whom he is connected.  I only wish Max Brantley would do the same.

2 Comments | politics | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene