Last Friday, both The Washington Post and The New York Times ran editorials or op-eds criticizing Stanford education professor Linda Darling-Hammond as a possible choice for a high-level position in the Obama administration, such as Secretary of Education or even Deputy Secretary.
And today there was yet another editorial in the Los Angeles Times that blasted Darling-Hammond, while urging the “accountability” camp in the Democratic party to acknowledge the short-comings of the No Child Left Behind Act. (It looks like Darling-Hammond’s detractors have some high-level contacts in the opinion writing world, while Darling-Hammond’s supporters are good petitioners).
This week, Darling-Hammond and her fans struck back.
Yesterday the Washington Post ran this letter-to-the-editor from Sam Chaltain of the Forum for Education and Democracy. And Mike Petrilli, over at Flypaper, wrote a response to it.
And today, Darling-Hammond had her own letter in the Times.
She writes:
Since I entered teaching, I have fought to change the status quo that routinely delivers dysfunctional schools and low-quality teaching to students of color in low-income communities. I have challenged inequalities in financing. I have helped develop new school models through both district-led innovations and charters. And I have worked to create higher standards for both students and teachers, along with assessments that measure critical thinking and performance.
And this op-ed showed up today in Darling-Hammond’s hometown paper, the San Francisco Chronicle.