Sherman Dorn, unlike some of us, is a classy blogger. He had a recent post on the overuse of certain terms and created an Education Noise index. I was on the road at the time, but shot off a comment asking given the egregious excesses, what would you use to describe the behavior of Michelle Rhee.

Dr. Dorn challenged me to think of a new term, so I’ve decided that for folks who are clearly sucking at the teat of public and private philanthropic dollars (I’m looking at you Michelle Rhee and Wendy Kopp) deserve the term edu-kleptocrats. For those spreading their largess and influence (Bill Gates, Rep. George Miller, New Venture Funds, the Walton Family — the ones in Arkansas) the term edu-oligarchs fits, since they have undo influence and are in no way creating a “free” or “open” market for ideas, students, or anyone but themselves and their favored kleptocratic allies. I think this fits well with the political zeitgeist of the time with the when folks will cry victim at the same time they impose Soviet-style strong-arm tactics (I’ll leave it to you to decide if that refers to Eva Moskowitz or Putin in the Ukraine).

Obviously these terms are too strong a term for folks who are just in love with the idea and “promise” of so-called “reform” in public education. For them, I’ll reserve the term edu-weenie because, it just fits.

Image credit: Name Calling Has Gotten To Be A Nasty Habit by outtacontext, on Flickr