There is little question that efforts to improve our public schools generate significantly heated rhetoric and emotions on all sides. But when the shouting dies down, does anyone really want to hear a student ask, “who will speak for me?”
That’s the level we’ve reached in the ed reform fight in Connecticut, where the past few months have focused on the adults in the room and what is owed them. But at some point, we need to ask who will stand up and advocate for the children in the room?
Over in the Connecticut Mirror, Eduflack has a commentary addressing that very question:
For months now, folks have spoken loudly in support of the adults in the room. We have spent week after week, hour after hour, discussing property rights, dismissal procedures and windows for contract negotiations. We’ve seen hundreds of teachers dance at a rally as our schools and students suffer, and as legislators tell those teachers they won’t have to agree to any uncomfortable changes that might benefit students. Yet we know 130,000 students remain trapped in failing schools, 9,000 won’t graduate this year, and thousands more will “graduate” but will be completely unprepared for the challenges of work and life in 2012 and beyond.
Eduflack By Patrick R. Riccards 
Maybe, just maybe, teachers ARE advocating for children? Why else do we put up with the BS you folks are publishing? When was the last time you or any of these people you are allied with was in a public school classroom? Howmany of you have ANY background in education (other than selling it)? The union is not evil, nor are teachers, for advocating for our own rights. The CBI exists to support the desires and agenda of their members, and are paid for by member dues – just like the CEA – and they are one of your partners, right? You are advocating for the people who will make a lot of money off of the educational system if the “commissioner’s plan goes through. And that includes you. Patrick Riccards makes over a quarter of a million dollars a year attacking teachers with disingenuous arguments that pervert the use of statistics. And you have millions of dollars from a number of groups that have a financial stake in this backing you. Who has spent more on ads – the CEA or the collected “reform groups” such as ConnCAN (how much did you receive from the Walton Foundation?), Rhee’s Students First and the other alphabet groups that have been lobbying illegally in this state?