A Halftime Strategy for the Common Core Not Listening Tour

A Disturbing Glimpse into the Alleged Mind of The Minister of Ed Reform

WTF?

After being showered with invective, pelted verbally with rotten tomatoes and possibly a dead cat or two, reported to CPS for child abuse and told straight to their Ozymondian faces they are failures, Dowager Empress Tisch and her little cleaner John King were met by a camera crew. Lil John screwed his courage to the sticking point and declared "We are firmly committed to the Common Core," while Tisch mugged in the background contorting her visage in the manner of one seized by the grip of severe costiveness.  O.k. so it's pretty damned clear that this "tour" they are on is nothing but a farce. The alleged point of said tour is to get feedback from the community about the Common Core. No matter how hard people plead or how furiously they rant, these two are not listening and have nothing but contempt for the assembled souls in attendance. As one sage observer from facebook said of the Tisch : She's pissed that she has to be in the same room with the peasantry. And she's not trying to hide it. As my favorite literary heroine said: "The very rich can afford to give offense wherever they go." Exactly. 

As I see it this calls for some halftime adjustments a la Joe Gibbs as coach of the Washington Indigenous Persons -- I know they had a vote about the name of the team but I am not sure how it turned out. Either way, Gibbs the X's and O's guy, not Gibbs the "Nother left turn Ricky Rob" NASCAR guy was NFL famous for figuring out how to stop losing and win the game during the halftime break. We have heard articulate, passionate, experienced, visceral and damning words from a pantheon of bright, engaged speakers only to have these two shift from ham to ham, cover their faces with their hands, King guzzling bottled water and Tisch wringing the neck of her scarf. In short they are employing a rhetorical Rope a Dope a' la' Muhammed Ali.  They lean back against the ropes and tune out allowing their foes to pummel them with body shots until every last foot pound of energy is expended. The Greatest would then turn the tables and drop a Stage 5 ass whipping on the poor slob who'd burned himself out beating on Ali's ribs. In this scenario the gruesome twosome all ready have the death dealing mechanism in place so all they have to do it step back and allow it to roll into the crowd long after the last speaker has finished. 

So what to do ? Well, I have a humble suggestion as you might have guessed by now. Instead of addressing a pair of houseplants who have zero intentions of acting on anything we say, I propose we turn the tables on them. My remarks will be addressed to the assembled parents, teachers, administrators and  sentient members of the community. I will not tarry with horror stories of kids cutting and burning themselves from stress nor will I offer testimony of my own frustrations being burdened with an untested, invalid, boring stupid amalgam of David Coleman's best thinking and the excruciating ennui it imposes on students. I think we need to eschew anything Tisch can dismiss as rhetoric. In short, given a chance and a mic I would prefer to simply roast them and any unfortunate jackasses who dare mount the stage with them. Yes, I'm looking at you Bob Bennett. 

• I asked Regent Bennett what he planned to wear to the forum. Old Bob shrugged and said "Depends..."

• Ms. Tisch says she doesn't call the appliance warehouse when her refrigerator goes on the fritz. She calls the CEO of GE. Hey Meryl, when your face started to wrinkle did you call the plastic surgeon first or take it straight to God? 

• And there's  Lil John King. When they had the big Education Reform Summit in Aspen last summer John King got poison ivy... 

Thank You. I'll be here all night, drive safely...

You get the idea. And why not. If they are dumb enough to waltz into my town and arrogant enough to think we owe them any shred of respect it's the least of a teachable moment to show them how the rest of the world  treats arrogant, entitled gasbags. Let's start throwing some high and inside stuff and let's see if their listening skills improve any. After all, good listening skills are an integral part of being college and career ready.