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Despite all the rhetoric that the unions are finally ready to embrace reform, AFT union prez Randi Weingarten took to the podium Friday at her group’s national convention in Detroit to lambast those who would dare challenge the status quo and to instill fear in her dwindling membership that there is a “new normal” that threatens their very existence with efforts to shift the old power structure from unions to individuals most affected by the system. This “new” regime (actually, Randi, it’s hardly new — we’ve been at work for more than 20 years!) wants testing, standards, choices and performance pay (Lions and Tigers and Bears, OH MY!)

Rather than ponder the atrocities outside the doors in Detroit where fewer than 9 percent of African-American kids graduate in 4 years, where reading scores are below 15% on a good day, and where families and school officials both are exiting for better learning environments (like the new schools starting there), Randi believes it’s not the system, but some bogeymen that are to blame.

“Sure, we can blame ALEC, or the Koch Brothers, or Eli Broad, or the Walton Foundation, or Mitt Romney—and we’d be right to do so.”

Never mind that with the exception of Walton, the aforementioned have had little to do with real education reform progress. If there’s blame to be had, put in on the hundreds of thousands of teachers and parents who have elected officials willing to buck the status quo, and who then create their own alliances, their own schools, their own choices, rather than wait for the AFT, NEA or other ed groups to fix the problems — again.

With a brighter option available to more people than every before, it’s that reform revolution that has caused the drop in union membership the AFT leader bemoans, from 37 to 8 percent in the US since the 70s. But Randi thinks its because the “so-called” reformers have made public education their scapegoat. That means she really does oppose all the reforms that most empower parents and kids, and yet, she has had a continual barrage of praise on the news media (Morning Joe being the worst offender!), for supposedly becoming progressive.

Do me a favor — next time some “so-called” reformer tells you they think the unions are coming around, that Randi has softened her rhetoric and is ready to support performance pay programs, charter school laws with teeth or more accountability in general for schools, give them this.