Nationally, the most important event [this summer] was the release of the federal government’s regulations for the “Race to the Top.” Those regulations made clear that the Obama administration has fully aligned itself with the edu-entrepreneurs who favor market-based reforms. As I predicted on this blog, President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan are now the spear carriers for the GOP’s education policies of choice and accountability. An odd development, don’t you think? The Department of Education dangles nearly $5 billion before the states, but only if they agree to remove the caps on charter schools and any restrictions on using student test scores to evaluate teachers.

Diane Ravitch, from the epistolary blog Bridging Differences. Ravitch of late has taken on the role of Chief Teacher Union Apologist, and it’s telling that she labels a Democratic president, decried by right-wingers as somewhat left of Lenin, as a “spear carrier” for the GOP.