Talk about a team of rivals.
Campaign K12 discloses the full list of names on Barack Obama’s education policy transition team, which includes two prominent New Yorkers who have sparred on this Gotham ground. Robert Gordon, now at the Center for American Progress, was the Department of Education’s mastermind behind the Fair Student Funding scheme that was supposed to spread education more equitably across schools, so that the schools with the most challenges get the most money. Geri Palast, who heads the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, has criticized the funding scheme as not being equitable at all.
Another big difference: Gordon fought the teachers union to get his funding scheme enacted (and only partially won), while Palast’s organization often works as an ally with the union and (I’m almost positive*) receives funding from it.
Also, this explains why the last time I called Palast she was weirdly in Washington, D.C., and told me she would “explain later.”
*Confirmed! I found a $25,000 contribution listed on the United Federation of Teacher’s 2007 tax filing.