We have noted here at Edwize how Ezra Klein, among others, has taken Slate’s Mickey Kaus to task for his obsessive antipathy toward teacher unions.
The problem is not just that teacher unions have become something of a ‘fatal attraction’ for Kaus: it’s that his blog stalking on the subject has all the subtlety of primal scream therapy.
Klein had argued that
[b]y repeatedly ascribing blame to the teacher’s unions, [Kaus] deflect[s] attention from the endemic, root problems, and refocus[es] on more discrete, and demonizable, culprits. This gives conservatives an easy way out of conversations on education reform, even as they lack an actual solution.
It seems to me the consensus “root cause,” if there is one, is the culture of fatherlessness and fecklessness that characterizes “ghetto poverty.”
Note how Klein’s point about “endemic, root problems” in inner city schools is translated by Kaus into a “root cause” that has nothing to do with schooling. Even if this talk about “fatherlessness and fecklessness” were something more than a poorly disguised, age old cultural prejudice of how poor people have only themselves to blame for their condition, it could not be addressed by any change in education. Where Klein is suggesting that public discourse should focus on educational challenges facing inner city schools [where the actual scholarly and policy consensus focuses on issues of underfunding and underresourcing; the disproportionate concentration of novice and inexperienced teachers; the high turnover rate of school leaders and staff; disorderly and unsafe school environments; and the anonymity of large factory model schools], Kaus is unable to even discuss these matters — he has to shift the discussion off the educational terrain altogether and appeal to thoughtless cultural stereotypes.
Note also that Kaus’ discourse begins and ends with ‘blame,’ whether the target be unions or poor people. There is no serious attempt to understand the problems at hand, and no meaningful solutions are proposed.
In the latest episode, Kaus has been reduced to quoting comments from Klein’s blog that differ with Klein’s perspective on teacher unions. Now Klein’s blog, like Edwize, actually enables comments, and Klein’s readers carry on an intelligent conversation with him. Kaus’ blog has no comments. One can only imagine what Kaus’ readers would say, if they had the opportunity.
