Editorials

Some right-winger she is

Shields up, phasers on stun, Miss Campbell

Some of us have been watching Campbell Brown's reporting for decades now, and figured she'd be back in the news soon enough. Anybody who can work her way up from little Ferriday, Louisiana, to top billing in American journalism has to have something.

It didn't hurt that, while Campbell Brown was growing up, her father was a mainstay of the Democratic Party in Louisiana, having served as secretary of state and, later, insurance commissioner. Before he went to prison, of course, completing the classic cycle for prominent pols down Louisiana way. It's almost a tradition in the Bayou State.

So lessee . . . . After working in local television for a few years at the beginning of her career, some time in the 1990s Campbell Brown showed up at the top of NBC News. She worked as a White House correspondent for the mainstreamest of the mainstream media, and even did a stint as substitute anchor on NBC Nightly News when she was called on.

Then she moved to CNN, which might or might not have been a promotion. During the 2012 presidential campaign, her interviews of John McCain's people had folks in the GOP screaming bloody bias. Which is par for the course in the news business.

But to hear her critics on the left these days, Campbell Brown is a stark-raving, right-wing, mean-spirited Republican nut job. Which is also par for the course when you displease the other side. To be badmouthed by both sides is almost proof of a reporter's objectivity.

So despite her background--nearly all of it--Campbell Brown is now being called an agent of, yes, the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy, to borrow a phrase from Hillary Clinton when she was trying to explain why her ever-faithful husband and all-around Great Man was being so maligned back in the '90s. Now it's Campbell Brown's critics who are out in the streets with signs declaring her "an out-of-touch Right-Winger!" and warning: "Brown speaks for her rich friends."

Goodness gracious. How does a good ol' Looziana girl with her raisin' and résumé get thrown in with the likes of (shudder) Republicans?

Simple. Because she seems to want what's best for the kids in America's schools. And thinks automatic teacher tenure isn't what's best for them. In short, she's committed the Unforgivable Sin.

Campbell Brown, that busybody, has put together an outfit that's out to improve schools in New York City by getting rid of its worst teachers, who seem to be Legion in those parts. She's guilty of being on a charter school's board of directors (Heresy!), and is leading an effort to get the state of New York to change its teacher-tenure laws by bringing suit in its courts. A court in California ruled against the way that state is discriminating against its poorest and most discriminated-against students by guaranteeing they'll have the most incompetent teachers thanks to an antiquated, unfair and generally awful teacher-tenure system. Campbell Brown would like New York to follow suit.

Or as she put it in the Washington Post last week: "The idea of connecting quality on the job to whether teachers essentially get to keep their jobs indefinitely is hardly radical. Most professions consistently demand quality in return for employment. Why would we not expect that for our children?"

Uh oh. As you well know, that kind of direct talk about education and the need to improve it means war.

Teachers' unions, and the union bosses who run them, plus all the stooges who echo their line, are up in arms. After all, bad teachers pay union dues, too.

Some union-backed outfit that styles itself the Alliance for Quality Education (talk about misleading labels) has put together an online campaign directed at Campbell Brown, complete with a fake Twitter account that posts awful comments--and attributes them to Ms. Brown. Whereupon the Twitter network proceeds to blow up and hurl profanities at her. Nice.

Another such effort goes by the name of the Real Campbell Brown Campaign, and the people behind that effort claim Ms. Brown, gasp, may at some point even have registered as . . . a Republican! Talk about grounds for condemnation, excommunication, and general disgrace. (To reword an old line from the days when McCarthyism was riding high: "Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Republican Party?")

Our completely unsolicited editorial advice for Campbell Brown and anybody else who dares take on the educantist lobby: Shields up, y'all! The teachers' unions can't have high-profile people--or even low-profile people--disagreeing with automatic tenure for even the most incompetent of teachers. So be prepared when its legions come after you.

But don't let 'em bully you. Carry on with your worthy work. Yes, tenure can be a wonderful protection for teachers but like many other wonderful things--football, politics, whiskey on the rocks--it can be abused. Any effort to improve classroom teaching in this country, and thereby improve the lives of America's kids, deserves all the support it can from those of us not beholden to the teachers' unions. So please keep it up.

Stalwart souls like Campbell Brown, bless her, are leading the way. May their tribe increase.

Editorial on 08/18/2014

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