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You are here: Home / Politics / Politicans / David Brooks Giving A Seminar At The Aspen Institute / Cooperation is overrated

Cooperation is overrated

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I really recommend you read the Forbes blog piece ED wrote and linked to earlier. I don’t know enough to say much, pro or con, about Michelle Rhee or Joel Klein but I was struck by how much this quote from Rhee is just the kind of thing elites like to say to plebes:

“Cooperation, collaboration, and consensus-building are way overrated.”

Of course, when the consensus-building is taking place among powerful elites, it’s David Broder’s wet dream. But if the consensus-building involves any input from middle-class people — other than requests for more Jeebus and “belt-tightening” and the like — then it’s a bad idea. No one below the 90th percentile in income should ever be consulted about anything important. “School choice” will work brilliantly anyway, though, because the free market is so magical that it can overcome even the profound stupidity of middle-class Americans.

If we could only be more like China, where all the non-elites know their place.

Reader Interactions

46Comments

  4. 4.

    Corner Stone

    It’s not enough for you to pimp LooG posts by this talentless hack?
    Now you have to be TNC-lite and suck his wang at Forbes?

  5. 5.

    Corner Stone

    I really recommend

    You know what I really recommend? You stop being a little bitch.

  9. 9.

    Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)

    I don’t know enough about any of this to comment usefully. But I would like to throw a brick.

    Hey! aguingwithsignposts! Apostate! False consciousness!

    And you smell like soybeans.

  10. 10.

    mac

    @Cornerstone — I have no idea where you are coming from. EDK is maybe slightly to the right of Ike Eisenhower. Maybe. Ike was a pretty OK guy, in my book.

    @Doug–
    Actually, I totally agree with Ms Rhee: Consensus is overrated. The only things in the middle of the road are yellow lines and dead armadillos.

  11. 11.

    Corner Stone

    @mac: I have no idea where you’re coming from either. Your post doesn’t make any sense.
    And as far as I am concerned EDK can find a vendor who sells nice large, soft beanbags with velor tiger print covering and wallow on it.

  14. 14.

    Another Commenter at Balloon Juice (fka Bella Q)

    @Corner Stone: I like this comment too, and I disagree as well. Weird.

    Cooperation, collaboration, and consensus-building are way overrated.

    Certainly it’s safe to say Gov. Wanker Walker would approve of this sentiment. Not to mention the Actual Orange Satan(TM) and his Robinesqe whip Eric Cantor. In fact, didn’t AOS essentially say as much it when he insisted that he “rejects the word compromise” in his 60 Minutes weepfest interview?

  15. 15.

    Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)

    @Ash Can: Ah fahrt een your general direction.

    (Fetchez la vache)

  16. 16.

    matoken_chan

    Cooperation, collaboration, and consensus-building are way overrated.

    Oddly enough, it’s also the kind of thing professional leftists like to say about Obama.

    But do carry on.

  17. 17.

    goblue72

    Of course she says stuff like that – she’s a crappy manager who lied about her resume. She’s buddy buddy with the Bushes and works for Rick Scott in Florida. Reforms (and test improvement) – as well as school closings and firings of principals – were started before she showed, under the prior DC schools chief.

    And if anyone buys the story that in a scant 3 years she completely turned around a massive government bureaucracy through the magical force of her “get tough”, union-busting force of will…well, they are the same kind of people who incredulously bought her bogus claims that she raised her students from 13th percentile to 90th percentile in a two year period while a student teacher with Teach for America.

    Because, you know, all it takes to be effective as a teacher is to yell at your students a lot.

  19. 19.

    James E Powell

    Cooperation, collaboration and consensus-building, like reflection, are weaknesses that we cannot afford when we’ve all got to be tough enough and rough enough to fight Billy Petrolle. From the hip. Get it?

  20. 20.

    Martin

    We’re never going to be rid of Michelle Rhee, are we? I appreciate that she’s enthusiastic and all of that – but she’s the Dr. Phil of education.

  27. 27.

    Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)

    Well, what are you doing creeping around a cow shed at two o’clock in the morning? That doesn’t sound very wise to me.

    Oh, wait. Wrong film. That means I lose, doesn’t it?

  29. 29.

    James E Powell

    @goblue72:

    Because, you know, all it takes to be effective as a teacher is to yell at your students a lot.

    I get the sense that a large percentage of the American public actually believes this.

  31. 31.

    MikeJ

    @Joseph Nobles: Do you have a transcript? You’ll have to forgive me for refusing to accept the one sentence characterization of a random person on the internet.

    Earlier today somebody was upset because Gates said he thought rich people should be giving more of their money away.

    You really can’t believe anything anybody tells you about what Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, or Linus Torvalds says.

  32. 32.

    Mnemosyne

    @freelancer:

    I’m pretty sure you don’t convince people that you’re not smoking massive amounts of crack by spouting your delusions of grandeur on national television.

    I feel sorry for his friends and family, but damn.

  33. 33.

    Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)

    @arguingwithsignposts: Oh, I fainted halfway through that film. I don’t think I got to that part. It was during the needle in the heart scene. On a first date too. So embarrassing.

    And I’m still a sissy w/film violence.

  35. 35.

    Nylund

    I haven’t read this post about schools, but in general, I don’t have too much faith in the “consensus” opinion always being a good thing. In one sense has the same stench as “bipartisan.” I also think that history is filled with examples of when the “consensus” opinion was very wrong. Witch trials, etc. come to mind. I’m always frightened by how easily a large group can belief something completely unfounded (like the autism-vaccine issue).

    And when it comes to schooling, I have done some work in that area and there are myriad difficulties in measuring cause and effect. You need to have a lot of background to sort it all out.

    To use a baseball analogy with coaches/managers as teachers and players at students. You can’t easily conclude that playing for the Yankees makes you better because, on average, Yankees players have better stats. Sure, maybe the coaches are better. Or maybe surrounding yourself with better players makes you better. Or maybe the Yankees simply sign better players, and these players would do just as well on any other team, and the team, coaches, and other players have nothing to do with it.

    In technical terms, before you can evaluate teacher quality, funding, or class size, one has to know how to deal with peer effects, selection bias, and a whole host of other issues. I don’t have much faith that the people making the “consensus” are necessarily going to be well-versed in these technical aspects.

  36. 36.

    Jebediah

    @Nylund:

    I don’t have much faith that the people making the “consensus” are necessarily going to be well-versed in these technical aspects.

    I have done a little work/study in the field of education (no further than Master’s from Pepperdine and a few years teaching) and I have quite a bit of faith that the people making the “consensus” will not be well-versed, or will work hard to overlook/ignore the issues you mention.

  37. 37.

    Joseph Nobles

    @MikeJ: I couldn’t get back into the comment to edit it and then got unavoidably distracted, so I did not get a second chance to say my post was not an endorsement of the Gates speech. In fact, watching it on C-Span (that’s the link, so clicking would be just fine), it set my teeth on edge. I don’t know of a transcript of the speech. He made it to the National Governors Association just yesterday.

  38. 38.

    NobodySpecial

    Judging by this thread, consensus, cooperation, and consensus-building aren’t very entertaining, at any rate.

  39. 39.

    Xenos

    Not entertaining at all. Consensus building is hard work, and you can’t really build a consensus unless you accept that the process might fail, and if so, you are not going to force a solution. How many people who are brought to turn something around can credibly say that if consensus building fails, they will just resign their job so that somebody better qualified can take it?

  40. 40.

    jcgrim

    Here’s some background on the Billionaire Boys Club according to Diane Ravitch, Education Historian and one of the initial supporters of charter schools, who now recognizes that too many moneyed interests are pushing an agenda that will destroy the “public” and learning in public schools in order to enrich themselves. I highly recommend you all watch it.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHdP4w8So-Y&feature=player_embedded

    Furthermore, the “crisis” in education is manufactured- the latest manifestation of disaster capitalism.
    Read “To Starve the Beast we Must Drown the Children”

    http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2010/12/to-starve-beast-we-must-drown-children.html

  42. 42.

    Mike Kay (Chief of Staff)

    I like Mike. That a clinton-dead-ender-PUMA-nutob like corner stone doesn’t, only reinforces my opinions of both.

  43. 43.

    Mike Kay (Chief of Staff)

    should read:

    I like E.D. That a clinton-dead-ender-PUMA-nutob like corner stone doesn’t, only reinforces my opinions of both.

  44. 44.

    Corey

    I like the general sentiment here but I think it ignores the extent to which schools are seen as social services for teachers in a lot of urban areas.

    You never want to compare something as complicated as schooling to something as linear as manufacturing, but I was struck when reading a book about GM in the 80’s about how effective management techniques (rather than layoffs and union-busting) can lead to increased productivity among moribund workforces (such as UAW at many plants in the 80’s, and perhaps a number of teachers today). Turns out, when GM adapted Japanese management techniques and treated their workers like human beings with agency, they were able to institute a new process that all but erased the quality gap at certain plants.

    You’ve got to wonder if there’s a similar innovation out there that would improve schools.

  46. 46.

    Triassic Sands

    the profound stupidity of middle-class Americans

    The problem is that stupidity is real. I despise Rhee and her idea of school reform, but in countless failing school districts across this country the parents are at the root of the problem (along with school administrators). The mix is different depending on the school district, but getting meaningful school reform done is rarely made easier by the parents.

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