Washington Post hosts ownership society soiree

Katherine and David Bradley

Steve Brill is this year's Davis Guggenheim. His aptly titled "Class Warfare" book is this year's Waiting For Superman and has become the rallying point for a waning and frustrated clan of anti-teacher union busters, charter school operators, and corporate-style school reformers.

The Washington D.C. branch of the clan, still reeling from the expulsion of last year's hero, Michelle Rhee, gathered Thursday evening, for a soiree co-hosted by Washington Post Co. Chairman Donald E. Graham at the Embassy Row home of power philanthropists Katherine and David Bradley. The gala was called to celebrate self-described "media entrepreneur" Brill and his not-so-best-selling book. Post ed writer Bill Turque's description of the meeting failed to mention what was served or whether or not the servants were allowed to stay for the proceedings.

But we do know that corporate-reform luminaries like former education secretary Bill Bennett, D.C Council Chairman Kwame R. Brown (D), philanthropist Mark Ein, (Venturehouse Group) and charter advocate Mike Peabody (Friends of Choice) were in attendance. One can only assume that Bennett wasn't making any "abort all black babies" jokes in the presence of Brown.

Turque describes what seemed to be the highlight of the evening:

Brill was preaching to the choir. During a brief Q and A, Peabody, the grandson of Groton School founder Endicott Peabody, asked: “When did the unions get the right to strike, when they could shut down cities without recourse?” 

Reprising some of what was in his book, Brill said that unionized teachers were the product of years of underpayment and mistreatment, including mandatory two-year leaves of absence from the classroom for women who became pregnant. But as their influence grew under union leaders such as Albert Shanker, Brill said, it became “much too much of a good thing.”