“Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.”
-Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals
After reading the latest diatribe, One Size Fits Most, Even in the Suburbs, from Michael Petrilli, I have a feeling the quote above is on a plaque on his desk. In a nutshell, he now has pulled ‘liberal’ and ‘likely atheist’ suburban moms into the insult fold.
Following Alinsky still, in that article Petrilli is trying to “pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it”. Well, he’s doing it wrong.
Your target has to be specific. Mr. Petrilli is just flailing wildly at any parent he can hit with his mud. In most cases, Alinsky is right and ridicule is a potent weapon.
Moms are not ‘most cases’.
Attempts to marginalize, smear, belittle, label or intimidate us are futile. You’re actually motivating us, not silencing us.
Moms take a lot of crap (sometimes literally) on a regular basis. We do research better than the FBI. You are messing with our kids. When you mess with our kids, we don’t give up until it stops.
Figure it out. Do the math.
I can lay it out as bluntly as possible and the wonks still don’t really get it. Likely they never will. Why? Because they are the “experts”. We are just the “moms”. We can’t possibly know what is best for our own kids.
Missouri Education Watchdog took Mr. Petrilli to task quite eloquently. Here’s a quick sample, but do read the whole thing:
So now the narrative is changing from anti-CCSSI suburban (and mostly white) moms being confused, frustrated, Tea Partying Republicans to now moms being labeled liberal atheists who can be satisfied with enrolling their children in charter schools. Here is my response to Fordham and its solution:
You write:We will never convince them of Common Core’s value, nor should we expect to. Instead, we should allow them to opt their kids out of traditional public schools and into schools (including charters) that are proudly progressive.”
Question: who are the ‘we’ you refer to? And the ‘we’ should ‘allow them to opt their kids out’? Does the ‘we’ include The Fordham Institute? Last time I looked, Fordham is a NGO and has no legal authority in states/school districts. Education reformers seem to have a magnified and delusional role in their minds that they can run roughshod over state constitutions and schools to set their own policies.
I was not as eloquent and I decided just call it like I saw it:
Could you be more arrogant, assuming & insulting? MT @MichaelPetrilli: One size fits most, even in the suburbs http://t.co/BT6KxNDi9B
— LL1885 – A.P. Dillon (@LadyLiberty1885) February 16, 2015
RELATED: Parents Against The Common Core: Moms are wiping the floor with Policy Wonks
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