Renee Mitchell’s column in thee O today bubbles over with enthusiasm for new Portland Schools Foundation executive director Connie Van Brunt.

Mitchell mentions that “blogger Terry Olson began an online debate about whether Van Brunt—described as a ‘high powered charter school proponent’—was the right fit,” and reprints Van Brunt’s comment from that blog to the effect that Terry‘s got it all wrong. Mitchell completely fails to check up on what Terry was saying—Van Brunt is a big-time charter schools advocate; she was chief education officer at the Chicago Charter School Foundation—and breezes through the rest of her hagiography of Van Brunt without giving his valid concerns another thought.

This is what irks me about public schools politics in Portland. Everybody wants to talk about personalities; nobody wants to talk about policy. This is very convenient for those with a corporate schools agenda, since they can bring in these smiling faces who spew platitudes about closing the achievement gap and supporting our public schools while peddling policy that hurts students, teachers… and neighborhood public schools. Vicki Phillips got a pass on this for three years, and now we’ve got Renee Mitchell greasing the skids for Van Brunt.

I don’t know if Mitchell is a stooge for this agenda, or if she’s just fooled by the happy talk. But make no mistake, what the Portland Schools Foundation is pushing is not in your interest if you want strong neighborhood public schools in Portland.

Welcome to Portland, Connie.

I’d like to introduce my good friends Antonio Valle del Rio and Benson Williams, both from the hockey heartland of Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota. But they’re not here to talk about hockey. Oh no. Election ’08 is in full swing out on the prairie, and Benson just returned from a trip to Iowa City where he “happened to casually run into a Joe Biden rally in the Ped Mall on the way back from dinner one night, and then caught the Bill and Hillary show down at the river the next day. The campaigns are really gathering steam there.”

So my first question to these two astute political observers (I answered this one in my intro):

What criteria do you have for endorsing/supporting a Democratic candidate?

Williams: That question would seem to require a clarification up front as to what I might mean when I say “endorse/support” a candidate for president in this country. For me – and I would imagine all of those participating in this forum – this is more complex than it sounds. It reminds me of the polls taken in the lead-up to the Iraq war that purported to show an overwhelming percentage of Americans “supporting” the invasion. At the time I thought: these people aren’t processing this issue anywhere close to the extent necessary to “support” it. All they are doing is going along with it, and in so doing excepting themselves from the responsibility that would naturally be entailed by full-blown support.

Having said that, I’ll most likely end up supporting whichever Democrat that wins the nomination by voting for him/her. In the meantime I ask myself: How can my insistence upon rigorous benchmarks for endorsing a presidential candidate actually have an impact in this Miss America contest? With everyone else judging the candidates on their beauty, poise and evening apparel, what does it matter that I demand from them the admission that our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are fighting an energy war (Kucinich) or the recognition that the entire global economy is hanging by the thread of the dollar as it gradually loses it’s position as the World Reserve Currency (Biden) or the intention to grant all vets diagnosed with PTSD 100 percent VA disability benefits (Gravel). Unfortunately, these kinds of benchmarks go against the forward social motion required to engender large-scale change, and so I will have to be satisfied with the more abstract: in order to garner my endorsement (for now), a Dem candidate must go beyond the analgesic assuaging of our depression, and affirm for us what we all know on some level of consciousness — that we live in a sick, unbalanced society that is poisoning our country and the whole world, and the only way out is to do the one thing that Americans fear doing most – taking responsibility for it.

Valle del Rio: Can I say the most charismatic liar with the most stuffed war chest?

Himself: Hey, you can say whatever you want…. That’s why I invited you, you old sarcastard.

Okay, next question. The Democratic front-runners can generally be described as centrists. We’ve got this sort of illusory diversity, with Clinton representing women (despite her lack of feminist bona fides), Obama representing black America (though he is neither a product of the civil rights movement nor descended from the African slaves who built this country), and Edwards representing working people (though he made his fortune as a trial lawyer). It’s a picture of Republican-style tokenism.

None of them endorses single-payer health care, and of course none of them advocate a departure from neoliberal economic policy. And they’re all about as anti-Bush, anti-war as your average Republican presidential candidate (John McCain notwithstanding). Is there a role for progressive social democrats in the Democratic party? If so, what is it? If not, where do we go from here?

Stay tuned for part 2, and feel free to join the discussion.

I don’t know what took so long, but somebody in the local media finally pulled back the curtain surrounding the Vicki Phillips corporate foundation funding agenda—just a smidge—and asked her a couple tough questions about her insult-to-injury snark about her critics and her predilection for corporate bucks.

Willamette Week reporter Beth Slovic, denied an “exit interview” with Phillips, went all Michael Moore and stalked Phillips on her victory lap.

Local broadcast and print media have generally fawned over Phillips for wooing the business community, raising test scores and balancing the budget, convincing many citizens that she’s just a good, caring administrator. The real work of journalism has fallen to activists at the Neighborhood Schools Alliance and bloggers like Terry Olson, who have consistently worked to expose the fraud of corporate reform that lurks behind the caring face of Phillips and the Gates and Broad foundations.

So now comes Slovic, asking Phillips to clarify her snarky remarks about the critics of her screw-up at Jefferson. “I’m not going to name names,” says Phillips. “Shouldn’t you clarify what you meant?” asks Slovic.

That’s a nice opening to say something like “You know, it’s been really frustrating all around. I made some mistakes in the process; we should have listened more to the community members who were already engaged at Jefferson.” And those two little words wouldn’t hurt: “I’m sorry.” As in “I’m sorry we didn’t welcome them into the process, and I’m sorry I made that remark in the Tribune.” Hell, she couldn’t even manage a George W. Bush-style passive-voice non-apology. “Mistakes were made. I’m sorry people felt excluded.” Nope, not even that.

Instead, she throws some more gasoline on the fire:

I always prefer to put my energy in those people who are willing to come to the table and be appropriately critical but also supportive and problem-solving…. I think it’s pretty public who’s been critical or not supportive, and I think there’s always people who are on both sides of an issue and my point is that Jefferson has a lot of really positive things going on and it’s time to get in there and problem-solve and help. And I think that’s an appropriate point to make.

Right. I don’t even know where to begin with this. She seems to be saying, “I welcome criticism, but only on my terms.” Appropriately critical but also supportive? In other words, we’re going to cram this process down your throat, and if you don’t like the terms, your not being appropriate. The point of departure for dialectic in Vicki’s world is acceptance of all her preconditions, else you are not being appropriate.

Listen, that’s what I say to my 5-year-old when he’s— oh never mind… That’s something you say to kids, not grown-ups. Certainly not grown-ups who were already engaged at Jefferson when you came in a bulldozed them with your top-down, Eli Broad-sponsored redesign scheme that was broadly rejected by the community. Talk about inappropriate!

Anyway, I’m glad The Willy Week sent someone out to toss a few hardballs at Vicki. I can only hope the national media are a little more curious about the Gates agenda than the local media have been. (So far, they haven’t been; witness Robert Siegel’s April 25, 2007 softball interview with Melinda Gates on NPR.)

There is some good discussion over at Terry Olson’s blog about Doug Morgan’s swan song that turned at times into a paean to Vicki Phillips. (You really should pay attention to Terry, if you have any interest in PPS reform issues. He’s an actual educator and expert on school reform, unlike so many pushing market-oriented reform at PPS.)

I tossed off the casual remark “The election of Ruth Adkins and comments on this entry by die-hard public schools supporters indicate a fraying patience with ‘business’ as usual in our public schools. If the board still hasn’t got that message, perhaps it’s time for a recall campaign or two. Or Three.” Which prompted the question from “blueteeth”: Can we do that? Even without malfeasance or dereliction of duty?

And my answer: Yes we can. According to Article II, Section 18 of the Oregon Constitution, recall drives merely have to “set forth in the petition the reasons for the demand.” You need to gather signatures totaling 15% of voters in the last regular governor’s election. See also ORS Chapter 249.

Blueteeth suggested the trigger point for such a campaign would be the promotion of a Vicki Phillips minion, say Cathy Mincberg, to superintendent.

The obvious and most vulnerable member of the board is David Wynde, who nearly lost reelection to virtual unknown Michelle Schultz. He may not fare so well in a rematch. Bobbie Regan is also vulnerable, but doesn’t have such a convenient populist opponent waiting in the wings. Who else is vulnerable?

Is it foolhardy to even consider such a move? I don’t think so.

Whatever we do, it is important to keep up the pressure on the PPS board. We may think a message was sent by the election of Ruth Adkins and the near miss on Wynde, but it sure is smelling like business as usual over at BESC. Thanks again to Terry Olson for keeping such good tabs on things.

I know, it seems too early to be talking about the ’08 presidential election. But don’t forget, the primaries are piling up at the beginning of the year, so everything is coming early. I’ve been enjoying watching the Republicans run from Bush. Not sure what they’re running to, but this just adds to the fun. The Democrats have been less fun to watch, and far more predictable. I haven’t been a Democrat since ’84, and I’ve been critical of the post-Keynsian economic policies of Democrats and Republicans alike.

With ’08 the Dems’ to lose, you’d think the field would be a little more interesting. But no, we’ve got a troika of centrists in Clinton, Obama and Edwards leading the pack. There’s the speculation that Gore will step in, shaking things up a bit, but have we forgotten his abysmal ’00 campaign? And what about a third-party spoiler? Could there really be a three-way race between New Yorkers Clinton, Giuliani and Bloomberg? Delicious speculations, folks!

Anyway, I’ve invited two old friends to join me in a virtual round table to discuss the ’08 presidential primaries and election. We may do both the Dems and Republicans. I’ll be looking for a Democrat I can endorse. He or she will need to meet certain criteria, such as support for single-payer health care, ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, requiring free-trade agreements to have meaningful environmental and labor protections, and ending or rewriting No Child Left Behind. So far, I’m not aware of a viable candidate that meets these criteria.

Stay tuned!