Look! It’s some of our favorite pundits and advocates dressed up in classic costumes just in time for Halloween. Let’s start with the Dickensian getups.<\/p>\n
In the group category, I see that Education Trust, DFER, La Raza, and other civil rights groups are all wearing the Ghost of ESEA Past<\/em>\u00a0costume today, complete with horrible ogre costumes that look remarkably like teacher union leaders and school board members. They’re hoping to rattle a few chains of senators with the idea that 2011 is JUST LIKE 1995 and before, that the only way there can be legitimate civil-rights pressure on schools is if Washington requires the specific sort of targets they are sure will do the trick.<\/p>\n Right behind them is American Enterprise Institute writer Rick Hess wearing more than he’s usually known for. No, he’s not in regular pants today–he still has shorts on. But he has dozens… no, hundreds of handcuffs, zip ties, and other sorts of things to shackle himself with. On another day, I might interpret this differently, but I can see he’s dressed today as the Ghost of NCLB Present<\/em>, and his costume symbolizes what he thinks is federal micromanagement of education policy. Hey, Rick! After you’re done with the gear, can you send it all to the Oakland PD?<\/p>\n Arne Duncan is all ready to go tonight with… hmmn, it looks like a giant percentage sign, 82%<\/strong>, and I see this is his\u00a0Ghost of NCLB Future<\/em>\u00a0costume. This is a bold move by Duncan, since I think he wore this costume last year, but maybe he’ll retire it next year after most states have accepted their waivers.<\/p>\n Oh, and … wow, another group costume. It looks like there are dozens… no, HUNDREDS of federal and state legislators and a bunch of governors coming up our driveway all dressed as Ebenezer Scrooge<\/em>. Well, they’ve certainly earned the right to wear that<\/em>\u00a0costume, at least the pre-ghost version.<\/p>\n I like classic Dickens, but where are the … oh, here they are, the fantasy and science fiction costumes!<\/p>\n First up is Iowa Senator Tom Harkin dressed up as Harry Potter<\/em>, complete with his wand, hoping to cast an accio<\/em>\u00a0spell to bring\u00a0a new ESEA to him. He hopes he found his Room of Requirement at the markup session, but given the Senate calendar this year, unless he can find Hermione’s Time-Turner somewhere in the senior chamber, he may not be able to cast so much as a wingardium levioso<\/em>\u00a0to float the committee report to the Senate floor.<\/p>\n I see now a few more people all dressed up as genie<\/em>s, complete with lamps: Eli Broad, Bill Gates, and several members of the Walton family. They have tiny slips of paper with them. It looks like they all have prewritten the wishes they want Aladdin to make. How well-planned these genies are!<\/p>\n It looks like Los Angeles Times<\/em> reporters Jason Felch and Jason Song have gone trick-or-treating too. One of them looks like he’s dressed up as Robbie the Robot, and the other as Hal 9000, but I can’t tell who is in which costume. Either way, I’d be careful about taking their advice!<\/p>\n Well, that’s been an exciting time today. I hope your trick-or-treating is entertaining and as colorful as our education pundits and advocates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Look! It’s some of our favorite pundits and advocates dressed up in classic costumes just in time for Halloween. Let’s start with the Dickensian getups.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[16,11,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-accountability-frankenstein","category-education-policy","category-politics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pag0MB-130","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4030"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4030\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4051,"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4030\/revisions\/4051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}