The folks at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute have extended the scope of their Education Gadfly project to include a blog: Flypaper, Ideas that Stick. If you’re unfamiliar with their work, take a few minutes to look around at their main site - they’re one of the most influential bodies in education reform, and for good reason.

But no good deed goes unpunished in this brave new web-world.

In “Reverse Commute,” Fordham blogger [and The Education Gadfly Show co-host] Mike Petrilli listed a few things that have grown beyond the ranks of the college/university and infiltrated K-12 public education:

“Usually bad ideas flow from academia into our K-12 system. (Think moral relativism, the decline of the core curriculum, dubious pedagogical approaches.) But now one of public education’s worst features—its hyper-unionized workforce—is finding its way into higher ed.”

That was enough to draw the ire of Sherman Dorn - who, incidentally, gives Jay Mathews that same thrill up the leg that Chris Matthews gets when Barack Obama so much as blows his nose. Dorn advised that the Fordhamites “Think, then blog.” I’ve clipped/sampled the following, but you can read the full post if you’re interested:

I’m not sure when I’ve seen Petrilli this shrill.

Taking the claims one by one…

• Public education’s worst features… unionization? So Mississippi and Alabama schools are perfect, because they don’t provide collective bargaining rights for public employees?

I left a quick comment on Friday:

Luke 4:23

… and now I’ll follow it up briefly because, well, idle finger-pointing stinks.

If one is going to chastise another for not thinking before blogging, one would do well to avoid in one’s case argumentation best suited to a 9th grade English class debate [say, for example, one of those mock trials in which kids discuss whether Piggy had to die in Lord of the Flies].

Or, to put it in terms we rabid American sports fans [we’ve received Dorn-derisions before] can understand, if a boxer is going to jab effectively, he can’t leave himself open to haymakers.

Petrilli described a “hyper-unionized workforce” as “one of public education’s worst features” - a claim that Dorn marginalizes. Dorn supposes that if unions are the real problem, states without union-driven institutions would be paradise.

Petrilli identified too-powerful unions as a problem in public education - not the only problem. It’s reasonable that removing even a serious problem would still leave a system wanting.

Consider a pressing medical problem - HIV/AIDS, which we can describe safely as a “worst feature” of current humanity, is arguably the most serious, important health issue in our history. Some places are ravaged by this disease [Botswana, 24% of the population, Zimbabwe, 20%, etc.]. Others - I’ll choose Tennessee - have a rate of HIV/AIDS infection that doesn’t come close to 1 in 5. Tennessee is not, however, a paragon of health or healthcare despite its relatively mild exposure to HIV/AIDS. Though it avoids the most serious medical problem facing the world, it suffers from others. It isn’t perfect.

This is common sense.

Thinking before blogging is a good habit, but reading and comprehending before thinking is important, too.

I’d love to stay inside dulling pointy heads all day, but I think I’ll go outside and enjoy a few “diabetes-sized buckets of cheap beer.”