The teacher’s union’s obsessive campaign to demonize hedge funds has been ratcheted up a few extra notches as we approach election day.
A headline in the most recent edition of New York Teacher gleefully proclaims: “Foes backed by hedge-funders turned back.” The article then goes on to report that among the 29 New York candidates the United Federation of Teachers endorsed in the Sept. 14 Democratic Party primary, three were “targeted for defeat by the anti-union Democrats for Education Reform and their hedge-fund manager members.”
Why were the state senators targeted? Because they had the nerve to refuse to support an increase in the cap on charter schools “until reforms were enacted that made the schools more accountable,” barred for-profit management of charter schools and required charters to educate the same children as those in community schools.
In other words, they refused to blindly back the teacher’s union’s plan to block, or slow to a snail’s pace the inevitable changes underway in education in the inner schools.
Funny how Democrats — the self-styled champions of the little guy and the disenfranchised — are vilified by the unions when the politicians chose the interests of their powerless inner city constituent over the powerful union. What’s a reform-minded Dem to do?
I pointed that out back in June when the same publication alarmed its readers in an article entitled, “War on Truth,” asserting: “Hedge fund managers spending big bucks to attack UFT: Their motivation? Stripping teachers of all job protections and using schools to make bigger bucks.”
The article stressed that a number of hedge fund managers are behind a group — Education Reform Now — that recently sent out a mass mailing seeking to lift the charter school cap (which did in fact happen).
Of course, charter schools are also heavily supported by President Barack Obama and his Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, who just happen to be Democrats.
So why are hedge funds so obsessed with charter schools and teacher reform?
There are several reasons. For one thing, it is selfish — they want a better pool of candidates from which to hire. Renaissance Technologies’ Jim Simons, who seeks to hire the best and brightest in math and science, has lamented for years that he has had trouble finding top-notch candidates among Americans. So, he has repeatedly gone overseas to hire his best people.
Also, keep in mind that the top hedge fund managers who support charter schools such as Tudor Investment’s Paul Tudor Jones II and Caxton’s Bruce Kovner are among the most successful people on Wall Street and among the most wealthy in our society.
And they got to this point by being very high achievers and demanding a high level of achievement from their top executives and employees. And they feel they would not have succeeded nearly as well if they had employees with lifetime contracts whom they could not fire. They also heavily believe in competition and have operated with the “eat what you kill” mentality.
So, tenure seems as alien to hedge fund managers as discussing their investment ideas on TV (except for a handful of them). To them, charter schools and pay-for-performance mean competition — the cornerstone of capitalism — which they believe will force public schools — as well as teachers — to perform better.
They have no patience for maintaining the status quo if the status quo is not working — or is a disaster — when it comes to inner city public schools.
Now, hedge fund managers do have flaws in their arguments. They are quick to dismiss the notion that poor attendance of students is the fault of dysfunctional parents who don’t make education a priority for their kids. They simply believe kids would attend if good teachers give them the incentive. Sorry, too simplistic.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg even thinks teachers should ring the doorbells of each of their students to get them to attend school. All at teacher’s salaries.
However, it is sad to see the teacher’s union repeatedly demonize one of society’s most successful groups, which — if they are successful — would make teaching a more interesting and rewarding profession.
