Now That That’s Over, You Can “Get To Know” Cathie Black

The three ABC 7 interviews of Cathie Black are kind of scary in the way that the Sarah Palin interviews exposed the Vice Presidential candidate as a fundamentally decent communicator of vacuous thoughts and superficial platitudes. Watch them and see if you feel confident that she’s prepared to negotiate a new labor contract, tackle the lingering teacher tenure “issue” (sounds like the issue was lifted from Newsweek or Time, circa 1987 — teacher tenure isn’t troubling if you have a good evaluation system, which she barely mentions) or designing an innovative curriculum.

In a way, the interviews almost do more harm than good.

The first one: Platitudes like “We’re all human beings,” “It’s about the people” and “I am a proven manager.”

The second one: You’re reminded that she has no experience with labor unions — and the stuff about teacher tenure just exposes how superficial her understanding of the issue is — “We feel very strongly about teacher evaluations.” And . . . ? “I don’t agree with last in-first out” — it all sounds like pablum, not unlike what Sarah Palin sounded like with Katie Couric. Regarding changing teacher tenure, “We have to make sure that the union is in agreement that it’s really ‘children first’ . . . if ‘children first’ is really at the heart of what a teacher should be doing, there should be ways that we can work at this.” And “Give me a chance — I will listen . . . get to know me — don’t judge someone that you’ve never met.”

The third one: “Let’s move forward.” On the reconfigured standardized tests and new “corrected” higher standards “Individuals have seen their scores come down but we will get them back up again because we’ve got to motivate them” (pitch-perfect Palinistic circular MTV logic). “We have to make sure that the curriculum is strong enough, is innovative enough, is smart enough to prepare these children for a very different work force” — And . . . ? And don’t shut her out because you haven’t met her — “Give me a chance — I want to listen to them [parents].”

If you’re still curious about this issue, it’s kind of shocking to hear how superficial she sounds. I expect a Vice President, or even a legislator, to have a “fresh perspective” — they represent voters, so in some ways I think it’s OK to have them be more uninformed — but to have such a “fresh perspective” for a position designed for an education professional? It’s bizarre, cynical and ultimately discouraging.