One dynamic we see a lot is that if you’re trying to unseat the incumbent you attack them as insufficiently strident, not getting everything they could for members, not fighting hard enough and so forth.  That tactic cost a lot of pro-reform union leaders their jobs during the aughts. But it can also lead to the absurd. Take the case of Chicago where Karen Lewis was just elected to a second term.  Her opposition attacked her, as the Chicago Tribune reports:

“…Saunders-Wolffe said contract negotiations didn’t result in sufficient raises for teachers and that Lewis “didn’t deliver at the bargaining table” with issues surrounding teacher seniority and teacher evaluations.”

That line of attack is about someone, Lewis, who broke the teachers’ union losing streak with a strike that paralyzed Chicago, got sizable increases in compensation that may ultimately bankrupt the schools, reshaped the debate in Chicago and to a large extent nationally (AFT President Randi Weingarten had to go get herself arrested in Philly, for instance), forestalled evaluations in Chicago, and is fighting the proposed school closings tooth and nail. In the stridency department there is stuff like this.

The line of attack is also, of course, the same one that Lewis used to win the presidency from her predecessor. So the point is as obvious as it generally is intractable.  Just as in our national politics, in an environment like that genuine sustained moderation and consensus will remain hard to come by.

The barriers to getting there are substantial.  Here are seven big ones I see right now:

1. Will there be adequate curriculum and materials for teachers (not just in a few places and victory gardens but at scale around the country), or will the new standards collide with today’s inadequate marketplace for curriculum and lesson plans?
2. Teaching to these new standards and expectations is a seismic shift, will we be able to train, recruit, and/or use technology in a way that instruction can actually match the expectations?  The politically inconvenient truth is that the standards for the kids are about to become more ambitious than the standards for many of the adults. Not a lot of talk about how to square that circle.
3. Can the Common Core assessment consortia pull it off and develop solid assessment instruments that appeal to state officials? And if not, can the existing testing industry and infrastructure pick up the slack in a way that makes the new standards meaningful?
4. Can ambitious standards like the Common Core work when set against a school finance system that systematically disadvantages schools serving poor kids?
5. Is there enough of an educational center to resist critics on the left and the right who don’t like the standards for political and/or pedagogical reasons?
6. Can the public, and consequently the political system, stomach some hard truth about educational performance? Or will that cause an erosion?
7. Will what we aren’t seeing matter? The list of challenges is daunting enough but there is/are also thing(s) we don’t see.  Events or unforeseen circumstances almost always intervene – for good or ill – in human events like this. In other words, in addition to the challenges we see coming, don’t forget the ones we don’t.

Education writer Richard Whitmire’s wife Robin – a badass runner/cyclist and competent angler as well as all around wonderful person, if you don’t know her – celebrated Mother’s Day catching this largemouth bass:

And James Willcox of Aspire Public Schools landed a big redfish in April in Alabama:

That fish is apparently related to Big Red, who appeared here previously.  If you want to see many more pictures of all kinds of education people with fish then click here.

Finally, my first trip of the year was on Colorado’s Blue River late last month, and this was my first fish of the year, part of a banner day on that river (the fashion forward hat is indeed a fish magnet):

Update: Randi Weingarten immediately goes with a classic: CS&N.

America’s Progress Alliance is seeking a Chief Communications and Knowledge Officer.  And a Director of Policy Development role at ACT.

Teacher fellowships via StudentsFirst.

And charter schools in Idaho leading the state charter association - where the lifestyle is awfully hard to beat.