(originally posted on Politico’s The Arena blog)

Unpopular positions? Tough love? The teachers unions want you to believe they are being punished by the president’s policies. It makes for great copy and provides cover for both the unions and the Education Department as they manipulate Capitol Hill for a second multi-billion dollar bailout. But the truth is, it’s all in the family.

The administration’s education policy, including the “Race to the Top” initiative, has been easy on unions and their members. States have received money for saying they are going to factor performance into evaluations, when in reality to make meaningful performance pay work, you must either require performance to trump local union contract provisions or change the contract itself. Additionally, districts have been paid money for saying they will turn around failing schools. No one in the status quo is hurting or being forced to change very much because of what the president is saying. The talk is good and strengthens reformers’ hands, but the teachers unions won’t feel any discomfort until someone or something cuts into the lock they have on how schools operate and how policy is crafted.

Read the entire post over at The Arena…

(Overheard at a recent New Orleans confab…)*

- Hey. Have you heard about all those new films talking about about what’s wrong with schools? They’re all failure, and teachers asleep at their desks, and dropping out, and bleak futures and kids who can’t read at 16. I mean, I haven’t seen any of them, but, seriously, I am sick of all of this “schools are broken” crap. It’s gotten to the point where I can’t even take my kids to the movies anymore.

- Yeah. Where do these “reformers” come up with this stuff? Do they just go out and take pictures and whatnot of the same school for all these sob stories. Really! Must they put that filth on the screen? Anybody could just walk into that theater and see it and think it was true. Schools aren’t like that where I’m from. No sir.

- It’s downright offensive. And what’s with all the charter stuff? It’s like those schools are the holy grail or something. What have they got that’s so special? Long hours and constant evaluations, that’s what. And cherry picking kids in their “lotteries”. I wish we could do that.

- True. The union should totally go after those liars. We have enough muscle to make sure people don’t get exposed to their evil brainwashing. They’ve even gotten to the President. He was our best friend in ‘08. Where is he now? And Duncan with his “we need to identify bad teachers”? Whatever.

- I’m definitely in favor of nipping those films in the bud. I wonder if everyone here knows about all this craziness.

- Haven’t you seen the guys from California passing out those flyers about us blowing these things out of the water?

- I’m all for that.

- Hey, maybe we should make our own movie…

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*(Not really.)