No Disaster Left Behind

September 26, 2010 (GBN News): An upcoming education forum, dubbed “Education Nation”, is being seen by Education Secretary Arne Duncan as a springboard for new, urgent interventions to reform the nation's school systems. One particular panel discussion, aimed at examining “the advantages to the New Orleans school district of starting over post-Katrina, and whether the lessons learned there can be applied across the country”, will form the crux of a new initiative to be proposed by Mr. Duncan in the weeks ahead.

The panel, according to GBN News sources close to the preparations, will not only discuss the relative merits of disasters such as hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, bubonic plague and terrorist attacks, but will propose plans to quickly capitalize on such events even as they occur.

The Education Department, using real time data collected with software jointly developed by Microsoft and Bloomberg LLP, will stand ready to swoop down on disaster areas with teams of educational experts such as hedge fund managers and wealthy philanthropists. Using sophisticated data analysis, the teams will be able to fire poorly performing teachers and principals and replace entire public school systems with charter schools even before FEMA arrives on the scene.

“To paraphrase Rahm Emannuel, ‘Never let a good disaster go to waste’, ” an Education Department spokesperson told GBN News. “We’re working with all the folks who have already proved that they can destroy an entire economy. Now, with climate change upon us, we can have them harness the energy of the coming apocalypse and use it to destroy the educational status quo once and for all.”

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in town for the UN General Assembly, told GBN News that he might just stay in New York and amuse himself at the Education Nation conference. “Maybe the US Government didn’t actually bring down your World Trade Center,” he said through a translator. “But they’re doing a pretty good job bringing down your school systems.”