Why We Call it the BLOB ... The term "Blob" cropped up years ago when reformers began trying to work with the education establishment and ran smack into the more than 200 groups, associations, federations, alliances, departments, offices, administrations, councils, boards, commissions, panels, organizations, herds, flocks and coveys, that make up the education industrial complex. Taken individually they were frustrating enough, with their own agendas, bureaucracies, and power over education. But taken as a whole they were (and are) maddening in their resistance to change. Not really a wall -- they always talk about change -- but rather more like quicksand, or a tar pit where ideas slowly sink out of sight leaving everything just as it had been. Now, I suppose they could have been called any number of things: a puddle, a maze, a swamp, a big fat fluffy feather pillow, but BLOB is what stuck. It's really nothing personal, just descriptive shorthand, like calling accountants "bean counters" and pentagon officials "brass hats," and my friends in the blob (yes, I have blob friends) all seem to accept it with good humor. Still, to avoid hard feelings, from now on when I describe the groups that make up the education establishment, I'll call them the Big Learning Organization Bureaucracies, or... BLOB. There. That's much better.


Jeanne Allen
CER President

For the complete rundown on who the BLOB is and how it works, check out Who's In Charge: The Education Establishment, from The School Reform Handbook: How to Improve Your Schools.

BLOB Watch

HAIR-RAISING: The largest labor union in America, the National Education Association (NEA), convenes for its annual meeting in New Orleans this week, and many are wondering why the organization is seeking to loosen new accountability requirements on schools rather than work to strengthen them. While the NEA is often viewed by lay people as a force for good education, union watchers report that the 9,000 delegates sent each year to the convention have other agendas, ranging from taking positions on Nuclear War to sexual preferences. The Education Intelligence Agency reports live each year from the convention. Check out the inside scoop of what really happens when the NEA lets its hair down at http://www.eiaonline.com. (From CER Newswire July 1, 2003.)

Parent Power! March 2003: For many years teacher unions have been identified as perhaps THE greatest impediments to implementing real reform in our schools. But what can be done about them, and where else can teachers go to address common problems? Find out in the newest issue of Parent Power!

UP A POLL: The Public Education Network/Education Week just-released poll, engineered as always to pressure policy makers into lavishing ever-increasing amounts of money on public education, did not disappoint.... The Blob will continue to crank out "scientific" polls producing exactly the results they want. Knowing this, education reformers must redouble their efforts to inform the public about what really counts -- not money and the politicians who seek it, but choice and accountability. More details in CER Newswire February 25, 2003.

REFORMERS HAVE A LONG, PROUD HISTORY: "Jeanne Allen of the Center for Education Reform offers an important insight for would-be government reformers in any realm, not just education: 'We’ve learned ... that the Establishment want you to believe you ... don’t understand what’s really happening in schools and are wed to the wrong organizations. They also talk about how reformers are dividing rather than uniting, and that if we all just came together, we could make beautiful music. What they would really like is not consensus, but that we all go away. It’s convenient and easy never to have detractors.'" Link to text of full article, which has appeared in various newspapers in February, 2003.

UNIONS and HYPOCRISY: The nation's largest union of school employees – the National Education Association – is now clearly on record against accountability and options for parents. In a radio advertisement in dozens of markets, the union's president whacked the federal No Child Left Behind act on the grounds that it (quote) TELLS SCHOOLS WHAT TO DO, HOW TO DO IT AND WHEN IT HAS TO BE DONE…(AND) ACTUALLY REDUCE STANDARDS AND EXPECTATIONS THAT SCHOOLS HAVE SET FOR THEMSELVES. (Unquote). The hypocrisy of this statement is almost too much for us. More... from CER Newswire February 18, 2003.

IT DOESN'T ADD UP: Recently it was revealed that the Washington (D.C.) Teachers' Union overcharged the district's teachers by more than $700,000 this year, taking $160 per-teacher in "back" dues -- instead of the $16 it was allowed to deduct -- from a retroactive pay raise it helped secure. In reporting the story, the Washington Post published interesting information showing just how much incompetence costs these days. Every two weeks union members have $24.75 taken from their paychecks to support the union. Worse yet, non-union teachers have to contribute 85% of that, or $21.04, supposedly to cover collective bargaining costs. That means every year each non-union teacher is being forced to give $547.04 to a union that the teacher not only does not want to join, but that at best seems to need remedial courses in both math and bookkeeping. From CER Newswire December 3, 2002.

CER Newswire October 8, 2002: NEA's Spin on Choice ... FL Union's Candidate Control

TEACHING ABOUT 9/11: Letter to the Editor, New York Times, September 6, 2002, Re "Rightists, Teachers Unions and a Poisoned Debate," by Richard Rothstein (Education page, Sept. 4):

The National Education Association's wishy-washy approach to teaching about 9/11 is the latest evidence that the N.E.A. has taken a back seat in the increasing demand for higher standards and real accountability in schools. The N.E.A. has ceased being an organization concerned with education and now operates only as a labor union. When a group that claims to lead teachers does not provide an accurate, clear picture of who is responsible for 9/11, it demonstrates bad judgment and reinforces the fact that it is more concerned with political correctness than what is right. 

-- Jeanne Allen, President, The Center for Education Reform

WHAT OHIO'S COALITION FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION ISN'T TELLING YOU ABOUT CHARTER SCHOOLS: This new coalition and its school-establishment members are infinitely more interested in preserving those features of the current public-education system that are most beneficial to teacher unions and other opponents of an open, accountable education system. They are scuttling those elements that benefit parents and students. While disappointed in the coalition's position, we're not surprised; Ohio's public education establishment has long opposed charter schools. By Jeanne Allen, president, Center for Education Reform; Chester E. Finn Jr., president, Thomas B. Fordham Foundation; and Lisa Graham Keegan, CEO, Education Leaders Council.

TEACHERS UNION DELIBERATELY SKEWS DATA AGAINST CHARTERS: Leaders of six leading national education organizations that support charter schools dismissed a new American Federation of Teachers report for tired and dated misrepresentation of charter school performance. "An AFT study on charter schools has about as much credibility as a Philip Morris study on smoking," says Lawrence Patrick, president of the Black Alliance for Educational Options. Details.

GET A FIX ON THE BLOB: 

OTHER BLOB WATCHERS:

TEACHER UNIONS: For the latest on recent teacher union antics, including outrageous but telling quotes, check out the Education Intelligence Agency's Website.

THEY REALLY SAID THAT: Check out the Education Leaders Council Website's Status Quote Weekly, "Bringing you the choicest weekly quote from the education status quo."

For more Views from the Blob, link to BLOB Watch Archives and visit our Monthly Letter Archives. Also check out The Education Forum for additional perspectives on Blob activity.

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