Here are three good reads to help fill the enormous gap between the surface hullaballoo about the nation's education crisis generated by WFS and Education Nation and the angry mob of teachers and educators who are seething against what some are calling the "war on teachers," (and their unions) -- Dana Goldstein's piece in The Nation about the successes of union-management collaboration (here), Jonathan Gyurko's piece on what Guggenheim left out of his piece (here), and Nick Lemann's New Yorker commentary about the overheated crisis rhetoric surrounding so-called reform (here). I'm hoping that there will be more about this in the mainstream sometime soon -- sketching out not only the controversies surrounding Guggenheim's proposed solutions but also the practical and political limits of going to war against traditional schools as we now now them. You'd think that the resounding defeat of Fenty and Rhee would have made this clear, but perhaps there wasn't enough time for it to sink into the journalistic consciousness enough before the WFS media juggernaut came through. Thank you. Alexander Russo July 19, 2010 Education Week.

I've really got to stop plag... recycling these articles.