DFER launch

USA Today education writer Richard Whitmire covered DFER's launch on his blog (see below).  Here's an excerpt:

With the Democratic front  runners courting the liberal-liberals who are the big players in the  primaries, it's easy to overlook the basics of educating kids from low-income  schools, says former reporter and author Joe Williams ("Cheating our Kids: How  Politics and Greed Ruin Education"), who now runs the organization.
It's  time, said Williams last night, "to stand up for the little guy again" (as in, stand up to the National Education Association). In primary season, that's a tall order for Democrats. Who's going to spurn the most reliable liberal foot  soldiers to be found?
The message last night, from Rhee and Chicago Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., was in-your-face civil rights rhetoric: "Children are deserving of a more perfect education," said Jackson. To him, charters are the  bright option: "We need more competition in the system."

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Monday, September 17, 2007
Democrats for Education Reform
http://edelection.blogspot.com/2007/09/democrats-for-education-reform.html

The surprise star at last night's launch of the Democrats For Education Reform was Michelle Rhee, the new DC schools chancellor. With her humor and spunk very much intact in spite of smacking repeatedly against what may be the worst-run school central office in the entire country, Rhee regaled a crowd of about 100 national education reformers at the Hotel Washington across from the U.S. Treasury Department with fresh stories from close quarters bureaucratic combat.