As we come down to the first of many wires on the next of many rewrites of ESEA, Politico provides a nail-biting tale of House Republicans looking to make sure they have the votes, while Andy Smarick has provided a handy chart of the range of political stances, ideas, and versions of a new ESEA.
The pieces are instructive. Smarick in particular shows how the various proposals, from Lamar Alexander's to NGA to FEE to-- hmmm, I don't see anything from Secretary Duncan on here. Almost as if he's completely irrelevant to the discussion. Anyway, it's an easy to size up look at the various political positions on the ESEA rewrite. As such it is somewhat informative and entirely depressing.
Likewise, the Politico piece which approaches the rewriting of ESEA as if it's a political office deserving the same horse-race style coverage of a battle for the job of Mayor of Chicago. Also depressing?
Why depressing? Because both pieces are a reminder that the one thing that is not being discussed with any degree of fervor or intensity or even at all is the educational basis for any of these choices. Many of the policy discussions (say, the desire for an eternal onslaught of standardized testing) could be informed by actual research and facts and stuff, but they won't be. ESEA could be rewritten in an atmosphere in which lawmakers and policy writers sit quietly and listen to what actual teachers and educators and researchers (real researchers, not thinky tank un-peer non-reviewed opinion pieces) have to say.
That's not going to happen, and I'm enough of a big boy to understand that that's not how the world works when it comes to any policy. I understand we've crafted a system where expertise and knowledge are often dwarfed by money and power, and that it's hard to have any kind of political system that tries to organize representative government will tilt in that direction. I'm a grown-up. I get it. I'm not going to sit and moan about how we should be living in some non-political utopia where lions and lambs lie down together and the birds and the bees sing kumbayyah. We live in the real world, and this is part of that.
But, by God, the next time some reformster wants to complain that the opponents of Common Core and standardized testing and charter schools keep politicizing things instead of discussing educational policies on their educational merits, I'm going to refer him back to these two pieces. It's time to watch, once again, how the sausage is made, and it's not made out of educational pieces-parts in an educational sausage factory. It's political sausage made at a political sausagefest.
This is a reminder to teachers who want to stay home and say, "Well, I don't want to get my hands dirty with political stuff" that they are opting out of making the decisions that they have to live with. And it's a reminder that "Why must you make this so political?" is another way to say, "I'd like you to go back to being uninvolved and ineffective, please."
Showing posts with label FEE. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FEE. Show all posts
Friday, February 27, 2015
Sunday, February 8, 2015
Reformster Fallacious Argument Made Simple
It is one of the great fallacies you will frequently encounter in the work of education reform.
I most recently encountered a very striking version of it in a new position-paper-advocacy-research-report-white-paper-thingy from FEE, the reformster group previously working for Jeb Bush and handed over (at least until Bush finishes trying to be President) to Condoleezza Rice.
The report (which I went over in more detail here) wants to make the case for charters and choice in education, and it starts by arguing that soon there will be way too few employed people paying for way too many children and retired geezers, therefore, school choice. The "report" runs to almost 100 pages, and ninety-some of those are devoted to mapping out the severe scrariosity of the upcoming crisis. The part that explains how school choice would fix this-- that gets a couple of pages. At its most critical juncture, the argument depends on one previously debunked study.
This is a relatively common fallacious argument structure, but if you are going to spend time in the education debates, it's useful to know it when you see it. The basic outline of the argument looks like this:
1) SOMETHING AWFUL IS GOING TO HAPPEN OH MY GOOD LORD IN HEAVEN LOOOK I EVEN HAVE CHARTS AND GRAPHS AND IT IS SOOOOOOOOO TERRIBLE THAT IT WILL MAKE AWFUL THINGS HAPPEN, REALLY TERRIBLE AWFUL THINGS LET ME TELL YOU JUST HOW AWFUL OH GOD HEAVENS WE MUST ALL BEWARE--- BEEE WAAAARREEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!
2) therefore for some reason
3) You must let me do X to save us!
The trick here is to load up #1 with facts and figures and details and specifics. Make it as facty and credible as you possibly can (even if you need to gin up some fake facts to do it).
#3 is where you load in your PR for whatever initiative you're pushing.
And #2 you just try to skate past as quickly as possible, because #2 is the part that most needs support and proof and fact-like content, but #2 is also the place where you probably don't have any.
In a normal, non-baloney argument, #2 is the strongest point, because the rational, supportable connection between the problem and the solution is what matters most. But if you are selling baloney, that connection is precisely what you don't have. So instead of actual substance in #2, you just do your best to drive up the urgency in #1.
For example:
1) The volcano is gigantic and scary and when lava comes pouring out of it WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE HOT FLAMING DEATHS AND SUFFOCATE IN ASH AND IT WILL BE TERRIBLE
2) Therefore, for some reason
3) We should sacrifice some virgins
Or:
1) We are falling behind other countries and if we don't get caught back up we will be BEHIND ESTONIA!! ESTONIA!!!! GOOD GOD, WE MUST NOT FALL BEHIND THESE OTHER NATIONS ON THE TOTALLY MADE-UP INTERNATIONAL AWESOMENESS INDEX
2) Therefore, for some reason
3) We should adopt Common Core
You can manufacture the #1 crisis if necessary. But this can be even more effective if you use an actual real problem for #1:
1) Poor and minority children in this country keep getting the short end of the stick educationally, with fewer resources and less opportunity to break out of the cycle of poverty. This is a crappy way for our fellow Americans to have to live, and certainly leaving no pathway out of poverty is a violation of the American dream
2) Therefore, for some reason
3) We should make sure they all have to take a Big Standardized Test every year.
You just have to convey a sense of urgency about #1 and never ever let the conversation drift to #2. If people start trying to ask exactly how #3 actually helps with #1, you just rhetorical question them into silence.
Treat questioning #2 as if it's the same as questioning #1.Can't for the life of you see how the #1 of poverty and under-resourced schools is solved by more charter schools that drain resources from public education and only agree to teach the handful of students that they accept, while remaining unaccountable to anyone? Condoleezza Rice says you're a racist.
But it's #2 where the most important questions lie. Even if I accept that US schools are in some sort of crisis (which I don't, but if), exactly how would Common Core fix that? I do believe that we have a real problem with poverty in this country, but how, exactly, will giving poor kids standardized tests help with that?
If you have a gut feeling that a great deal of the reformster just doesn't make sense, #2 is where the problem mostly lies. Most reformster arguments involve using a loud #1 and a slick #3 to cover up a non-existent #2.
1) Some students score low on Big Standardized Tests-- They GET LOW SCORES! LOW SCORES THAT ARE A BAAAAAAD THING! True, they're a bad thing because we've set up a system of artificial imposed punishments for low scores but hey, still-- LOOOOWWWW SCOOORESSSSSS!!!!!
2) Therefore, for some reason
3) There should be no tenure for teachers
There's no connection at all. We could just as easily say
3) Taxpayers should buy charter operators a pony
3) The National Guard should shoot a badger
3) We should sacrifice a virgin
But of course badgers and ponies and virgins aren't nearly as profitable as charters and tests. That, and I think some folks really believe that #2 is there when it just isn't. Either way, it's important to know what the real connection is before you start sacrificing virgins.
I most recently encountered a very striking version of it in a new position-paper-advocacy-research-report-white-paper-thingy from FEE, the reformster group previously working for Jeb Bush and handed over (at least until Bush finishes trying to be President) to Condoleezza Rice.
The report (which I went over in more detail here) wants to make the case for charters and choice in education, and it starts by arguing that soon there will be way too few employed people paying for way too many children and retired geezers, therefore, school choice. The "report" runs to almost 100 pages, and ninety-some of those are devoted to mapping out the severe scrariosity of the upcoming crisis. The part that explains how school choice would fix this-- that gets a couple of pages. At its most critical juncture, the argument depends on one previously debunked study.
This is a relatively common fallacious argument structure, but if you are going to spend time in the education debates, it's useful to know it when you see it. The basic outline of the argument looks like this:
1) SOMETHING AWFUL IS GOING TO HAPPEN OH MY GOOD LORD IN HEAVEN LOOOK I EVEN HAVE CHARTS AND GRAPHS AND IT IS SOOOOOOOOO TERRIBLE THAT IT WILL MAKE AWFUL THINGS HAPPEN, REALLY TERRIBLE AWFUL THINGS LET ME TELL YOU JUST HOW AWFUL OH GOD HEAVENS WE MUST ALL BEWARE--- BEEE WAAAARREEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!
2) therefore for some reason
3) You must let me do X to save us!
The trick here is to load up #1 with facts and figures and details and specifics. Make it as facty and credible as you possibly can (even if you need to gin up some fake facts to do it).
#3 is where you load in your PR for whatever initiative you're pushing.
And #2 you just try to skate past as quickly as possible, because #2 is the part that most needs support and proof and fact-like content, but #2 is also the place where you probably don't have any.
In a normal, non-baloney argument, #2 is the strongest point, because the rational, supportable connection between the problem and the solution is what matters most. But if you are selling baloney, that connection is precisely what you don't have. So instead of actual substance in #2, you just do your best to drive up the urgency in #1.
For example:
1) The volcano is gigantic and scary and when lava comes pouring out of it WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE HOT FLAMING DEATHS AND SUFFOCATE IN ASH AND IT WILL BE TERRIBLE
2) Therefore, for some reason
3) We should sacrifice some virgins
Or:
1) We are falling behind other countries and if we don't get caught back up we will be BEHIND ESTONIA!! ESTONIA!!!! GOOD GOD, WE MUST NOT FALL BEHIND THESE OTHER NATIONS ON THE TOTALLY MADE-UP INTERNATIONAL AWESOMENESS INDEX
2) Therefore, for some reason
3) We should adopt Common Core
You can manufacture the #1 crisis if necessary. But this can be even more effective if you use an actual real problem for #1:
1) Poor and minority children in this country keep getting the short end of the stick educationally, with fewer resources and less opportunity to break out of the cycle of poverty. This is a crappy way for our fellow Americans to have to live, and certainly leaving no pathway out of poverty is a violation of the American dream
2) Therefore, for some reason
3) We should make sure they all have to take a Big Standardized Test every year.
You just have to convey a sense of urgency about #1 and never ever let the conversation drift to #2. If people start trying to ask exactly how #3 actually helps with #1, you just rhetorical question them into silence.
Treat questioning #2 as if it's the same as questioning #1.Can't for the life of you see how the #1 of poverty and under-resourced schools is solved by more charter schools that drain resources from public education and only agree to teach the handful of students that they accept, while remaining unaccountable to anyone? Condoleezza Rice says you're a racist.
But it's #2 where the most important questions lie. Even if I accept that US schools are in some sort of crisis (which I don't, but if), exactly how would Common Core fix that? I do believe that we have a real problem with poverty in this country, but how, exactly, will giving poor kids standardized tests help with that?
If you have a gut feeling that a great deal of the reformster just doesn't make sense, #2 is where the problem mostly lies. Most reformster arguments involve using a loud #1 and a slick #3 to cover up a non-existent #2.
1) Some students score low on Big Standardized Tests-- They GET LOW SCORES! LOW SCORES THAT ARE A BAAAAAAD THING! True, they're a bad thing because we've set up a system of artificial imposed punishments for low scores but hey, still-- LOOOOWWWW SCOOORESSSSSS!!!!!
2) Therefore, for some reason
3) There should be no tenure for teachers
There's no connection at all. We could just as easily say
3) Taxpayers should buy charter operators a pony
3) The National Guard should shoot a badger
3) We should sacrifice a virgin
But of course badgers and ponies and virgins aren't nearly as profitable as charters and tests. That, and I think some folks really believe that #2 is there when it just isn't. Either way, it's important to know what the real connection is before you start sacrificing virgins.
Wednesday, February 4, 2015
Age Before Booty
Wondering if FEE has been up to anything since Jebmaster Bush took off his FEE leader hat so that he could put on his Help Me Further a Presidential Dynasty Hat? Well, today they released the grand-daddy of fake research report position advocacy papers.
If you thought that there were some connections in the pursuit of school choice that were a bridge too far, Dr. Matthew Lardner, Senior Adviser at FEE and Senior Fellow at the Friedman Institute for Educational Choice is here to sing a few choruses of "Ain't No Mountain High Enough."
The new report-like paper product is called "Turn and Face the Strain: Age Demographic Change and the Near Future of American Education" and it is a symphony in baloney, an epic exercise in polishing the living daylights out of a weak argument that could only have been the product of a writers' room meeting that started with, "Who can come up with the most outlandishly ridiculous argument for more school choice?"
It's the little things
Okay, we've got large fish to fry here, but there are so many moments of delicious dopiness.
For firsties, the title is a misquote. The actual line from David Bowie's "Changes" is "Turn and face the strange," but Lardner can be excused because even Bowie's background singers originally messed it up. I just wanted to set the record straight. Also, the real line from the song makes an awesome title for this reporty paper-thing.
Also, there is this cool graphic to go with the report.
My esteemed colleague Edushyster (we while away some twitter time poring over this thing) pointed out that A) the affected parties are all white folks and B) some Amish appear to be involved. I think I'm offended that the artist decided to use baldness as a signifier for aged.
There's also a policy brief (kind of like the book jacket for the report paper thing) which warns that Hurricane Gray is going to make landfall, so I guess we need to board up the windows before we are hit by an onslaught of geeezers. I am wondering what the storm surge is in this metaphor; I'm also wondering if it's a good metaphor for a group headquartered in Florida.
But hey-- here's another metaphor. How many people are going to be in the cart, and how many are going to be pushing it. As someone who is going to be in the cart soon, I have other questions. Will it be a nice cart? Will there be comfortable seats? Will I sit facing forward or backwards, because I might get cartsick? Who gets to steer the cart? So many questions.
Perhaps that's why FEE declares "We need policymakers to be more daring." What does that mean? Does this mean that Senators should be BASE jumping off the top of the Congressional dome? Should they drive around DC without seat belts? Should they spit into the wind and pull the mask off that old Lone Ranger?
Well, as it turns out, they should be daring and support choice, and by that FEE means a woman's choice to control her own reproductive options. Ha! Just kidding. Of course the only choice that matters is school choice, which, as it turns out, is the magic solution to everything.
So how did we get from a geriatric avalanche to school choice? Let's back up a step and look at the full report and see if we can piece this together.
Watch out for old people and babies.
"Boomers retire and send their grandkids to school" reads the headline, and that's pretty much the upshot of Part I of this argument.
Lardner introduces us to something called Age Dependency Ratios. This is the ratio of able-bodied working age folks to the combined number of slacker old people and wussy children who insist on living on some version of the dole. Lots of folks appear to compute this just using the oldsters, although most also seem to base the computation using 64 as retirement age, and I'm pretty sure that the real retirement age for my cohort is more like 82-- more if our pensions and social security are scarfed up before we get our hands on them.
Projects call for that ratio to tilt toward the slackluster old-young group, with fewer people pushing a cart full of more retirees and school children. That will probably be expensive.
Now, the reporty paper thing spends a lot of time (over twenty-five pages) establishing this, and we could spend some time picking at the numbers and how panicky they should make us (I've lost the link, but one on-line source I read showed that the projected sky-is-falling ratio for the US is lower than the ratio in Japan right now today-- update: found it).
But I'm not going to argue the point. I'll stipulate that baby boomers are getting old and retirey and that will make us collectively what I believe the economists call Pretty Damn Expensive.
And this relates to school choice how, exactly...?
The connection seems to rest on a couple of pieces of reformster baloney.
Part I is that the current generation entering their thirties are mostly dopes who did poorly on their standardized reading tests, and if they didn't get good reading test scores, then we know, somehow, that they won't be able to pull their weight in society and make sure that my cart is comfy with maybe bucket seats. At least they don't try to back this "connection" up with the fully-debunked "research" by Chetty et al.
They do note that the Age Dependency Ratio depends on the assumption that work age people are working, but this does not lead them to the question of where the jobs went for those folks to work at. Like all problems, this one has nothing whatsoever to do with a fractured economy and rampant poverty. Nor does it suggest that the 1% might want to get off their mountain of money and th9ink about how to put America back to work. Nope. That has nothing to do with it.
Also, throwing money at education hasn't helped anything. Again, don't ask them for a research back-up to this idea. Everyone, you know, just knows. But education the way we do it costs too much and makes the cart too big and heavy.
Now, they will try to back up this next action plan portion with some research because we get to school choice by referring to a study called "The Productivity of Public Charter Schools" by Albert Chang et al. This study "found" that charter schools are much more productive (assuming, as usual, that the only thing anybody wants a school to do is get students to pass a standardized math and reading test).
I have not had a chance to read this study, but Gene V. Glass of Arizona State University did take the time to review the report. We don't have to get into the fine points-- I think a couple of sentences from Glass's review will give you the drift of his gist:
Not reported is the fact that the demographic differences between the two sectors are highly correlated with the estimates of different effects; the sector with the higher percentage of poor pupils scores lower on the NAEP test. This failure alone renders the report and its recommendations indefensible.
So, it's bunk.
But it's part of the foundation of FEE's argument. Education is costly, so we should use more efficient providers aka charters. Or we could have schools powered by cold fusion generators carried on the backs of hippogryphs.
Digital learning. Outcome-based funding (aka merit pay on teacher and district scale). Charter schools. Education savings accounts (aka vouchers 2.0).
Test question. The above four are:
A) programs advocated by FEE
B) approaches that have been repeatedly tried without any hint of success
C) good ways to turn public tax dollars into booty for private interests
D) all of the above
Did you pick D? Congrats-- you are proficient! And since you have been scored proficient, we can confidently say that one less old person will die in poverty.
And just for kicks
The report also throws in a quote from Friedman right next to a photo of him looking all thoughty and heroic, like he is considering the best way to go kung fu on some accountant's ass. Are you convinced yet?
Bottom Line
I have seen choice fans stretch to make their case, but this is going to Siberia to get a bagel. On the back of a unicorn. Edushyster challenged me to sum up the whole program in one tweet, and this was the best I could do:
This is a monument of incoherence, the grand-mac-daddy of non-sequitorial arguments. We will have more old people, therefor we need more school choice. Because reasons.
So, twenty-some pages establishing a problem before setting up a bogus and unsubstantiated connection to their proposed solution. It's slick and pretty and well produced and one more graphic artist staved off starvation for another day, but in the end, this is 100% grade-A nonsense. Good to know FEE is able to carry on without Candidate Bush.
If you thought that there were some connections in the pursuit of school choice that were a bridge too far, Dr. Matthew Lardner, Senior Adviser at FEE and Senior Fellow at the Friedman Institute for Educational Choice is here to sing a few choruses of "Ain't No Mountain High Enough."
The new report-like paper product is called "Turn and Face the Strain: Age Demographic Change and the Near Future of American Education" and it is a symphony in baloney, an epic exercise in polishing the living daylights out of a weak argument that could only have been the product of a writers' room meeting that started with, "Who can come up with the most outlandishly ridiculous argument for more school choice?"
It's the little things
Okay, we've got large fish to fry here, but there are so many moments of delicious dopiness.
For firsties, the title is a misquote. The actual line from David Bowie's "Changes" is "Turn and face the strange," but Lardner can be excused because even Bowie's background singers originally messed it up. I just wanted to set the record straight. Also, the real line from the song makes an awesome title for this reporty paper-thing.
Also, there is this cool graphic to go with the report.
There's also a policy brief (kind of like the book jacket for the report paper thing) which warns that Hurricane Gray is going to make landfall, so I guess we need to board up the windows before we are hit by an onslaught of geeezers. I am wondering what the storm surge is in this metaphor; I'm also wondering if it's a good metaphor for a group headquartered in Florida.
But hey-- here's another metaphor. How many people are going to be in the cart, and how many are going to be pushing it. As someone who is going to be in the cart soon, I have other questions. Will it be a nice cart? Will there be comfortable seats? Will I sit facing forward or backwards, because I might get cartsick? Who gets to steer the cart? So many questions.
Perhaps that's why FEE declares "We need policymakers to be more daring." What does that mean? Does this mean that Senators should be BASE jumping off the top of the Congressional dome? Should they drive around DC without seat belts? Should they spit into the wind and pull the mask off that old Lone Ranger?
Well, as it turns out, they should be daring and support choice, and by that FEE means a woman's choice to control her own reproductive options. Ha! Just kidding. Of course the only choice that matters is school choice, which, as it turns out, is the magic solution to everything.
So how did we get from a geriatric avalanche to school choice? Let's back up a step and look at the full report and see if we can piece this together.
Watch out for old people and babies.
"Boomers retire and send their grandkids to school" reads the headline, and that's pretty much the upshot of Part I of this argument.
Lardner introduces us to something called Age Dependency Ratios. This is the ratio of able-bodied working age folks to the combined number of slacker old people and wussy children who insist on living on some version of the dole. Lots of folks appear to compute this just using the oldsters, although most also seem to base the computation using 64 as retirement age, and I'm pretty sure that the real retirement age for my cohort is more like 82-- more if our pensions and social security are scarfed up before we get our hands on them.
Projects call for that ratio to tilt toward the slackluster old-young group, with fewer people pushing a cart full of more retirees and school children. That will probably be expensive.
Now, the reporty paper thing spends a lot of time (over twenty-five pages) establishing this, and we could spend some time picking at the numbers and how panicky they should make us (I've lost the link, but one on-line source I read showed that the projected sky-is-falling ratio for the US is lower than the ratio in Japan right now today-- update: found it).
But I'm not going to argue the point. I'll stipulate that baby boomers are getting old and retirey and that will make us collectively what I believe the economists call Pretty Damn Expensive.
And this relates to school choice how, exactly...?
The connection seems to rest on a couple of pieces of reformster baloney.
Part I is that the current generation entering their thirties are mostly dopes who did poorly on their standardized reading tests, and if they didn't get good reading test scores, then we know, somehow, that they won't be able to pull their weight in society and make sure that my cart is comfy with maybe bucket seats. At least they don't try to back this "connection" up with the fully-debunked "research" by Chetty et al.
They do note that the Age Dependency Ratio depends on the assumption that work age people are working, but this does not lead them to the question of where the jobs went for those folks to work at. Like all problems, this one has nothing whatsoever to do with a fractured economy and rampant poverty. Nor does it suggest that the 1% might want to get off their mountain of money and th9ink about how to put America back to work. Nope. That has nothing to do with it.
Also, throwing money at education hasn't helped anything. Again, don't ask them for a research back-up to this idea. Everyone, you know, just knows. But education the way we do it costs too much and makes the cart too big and heavy.
Now, they will try to back up this next action plan portion with some research because we get to school choice by referring to a study called "The Productivity of Public Charter Schools" by Albert Chang et al. This study "found" that charter schools are much more productive (assuming, as usual, that the only thing anybody wants a school to do is get students to pass a standardized math and reading test).
I have not had a chance to read this study, but Gene V. Glass of Arizona State University did take the time to review the report. We don't have to get into the fine points-- I think a couple of sentences from Glass's review will give you the drift of his gist:
Not reported is the fact that the demographic differences between the two sectors are highly correlated with the estimates of different effects; the sector with the higher percentage of poor pupils scores lower on the NAEP test. This failure alone renders the report and its recommendations indefensible.
So, it's bunk.
But it's part of the foundation of FEE's argument. Education is costly, so we should use more efficient providers aka charters. Or we could have schools powered by cold fusion generators carried on the backs of hippogryphs.
Digital learning. Outcome-based funding (aka merit pay on teacher and district scale). Charter schools. Education savings accounts (aka vouchers 2.0).
Test question. The above four are:
A) programs advocated by FEE
B) approaches that have been repeatedly tried without any hint of success
C) good ways to turn public tax dollars into booty for private interests
D) all of the above
Did you pick D? Congrats-- you are proficient! And since you have been scored proficient, we can confidently say that one less old person will die in poverty.
And just for kicks
The report also throws in a quote from Friedman right next to a photo of him looking all thoughty and heroic, like he is considering the best way to go kung fu on some accountant's ass. Are you convinced yet?
Bottom Line
I have seen choice fans stretch to make their case, but this is going to Siberia to get a bagel. On the back of a unicorn. Edushyster challenged me to sum up the whole program in one tweet, and this was the best I could do:
@EduShyster Going 2be many poor, lazy geezers and infants; only solution is more school choice. Also, a bicycle, becuz a vest has no sleeves
— Peter Greene (@palan57) February 4, 2015
This is a monument of incoherence, the grand-mac-daddy of non-sequitorial arguments. We will have more old people, therefor we need more school choice. Because reasons.
So, twenty-some pages establishing a problem before setting up a bogus and unsubstantiated connection to their proposed solution. It's slick and pretty and well produced and one more graphic artist staved off starvation for another day, but in the end, this is 100% grade-A nonsense. Good to know FEE is able to carry on without Candidate Bush.
Saturday, October 25, 2014
Jeb's National Education Summit
It's almost November and that means it's time to start making our plans to attend Bush III's National Education Summit, brought to you by your friends at Jeb Bush for President 2016 Foundation for Excellence in Education. It's a giant reformsterpalooza. (For some great stories from previous summits, read here and here.)
This year's theme is Unlocking Student Achievement: Choice * Accountability and it provides a great template for how we can peddle all of the regular reformster wares even as we completely scrub them of any reference to the Common Core. Bush III has been scrubbing all of theroyal presidential educational advocacy materials lately, having noticed that being a Common Core Adorer is not winning him big love from the conservative wing of the GOP. Note this fundraising letter that completely avoids any mention of Bush III's previous policy BFF.
The national conference may be Common Core Free, but it is still stacked tall with reformy baloney. Here are the sessions you can expect to enjoy if you attend, and to save you time, I'll go ahead and predict the takeaways for each right now.
After Bush III's opening keynote (still working on a title, I guess), will be followed by these strategy sessions:
Measurement 2.0: Elevating students by testing what you teach
"States are adopting more rigorous academic standards" is about as close as we get to acknowledging that the Core exist (though if we're talking in present tense "dumping and distancing themselves from" might make a better sentence middle here).
But add to your stack of 1001 Statements That Prove CCSS and Tests Cannot Be Decoupled this sentence:
A standard without accurate measurement and strong accountability quickly becomes optional.
You can't kill the tests without killing the standards, and don't think for a moment that reformsters don't understand that. At any rate, this session focuses on the search for a super-duper test that is impervious to test prep and rote learning, and which measures critical thinking and depth of understanding. We will hear from four states about their search for this mythical test. Since the four states are Kentucky, Idaho, Mississippi and Florida (Pam Stewart will be there, perhaps to explain why tests should be administered to dying children), so I think we can cut to the chase, which is that nobody yet has the slightest clue how to create this mythically awesome tests.
Autonomy vs. Accountability: The right mix for school choice programs
We're talking about private school choice programs here. Michael McShane will be leading the panel, which includes leaders from FEE, Step Up for Students, and Alliance for School Choice. Let's go ahead and predict that the right mix is "Let them do whatever the hell they want."
Communicating Reform Part 1: Crafting e-messages people will read and watch
Given the short life and sad demise of the "Learn More. Go Further" PR campaign that Bush and Friends launched. complete with sad sponsored teacher twitter accounts, I'm not sure FEE is the group to give advice about this. But somebody must because " we are confronted by an organized and well-funded opposition dedicated to maintaining the status quo." All I can say is-- somebody had better cough up my share of this well-fundedness, because I am clearly not getting a cut of the money that is buying other public education advocates their summer homes and fancy dijon mustard on their fancy ham sandwiches. I am literally sitting here at my desk in pajamas with a toasted bagel perched atop my desk mess, and shortly the dog is going to demand to go poop in the back yard and I will have to take him myself. I wonder if Jeb Bush has to take his own dog to poop in the back yard. I wonder how all of these reformsters dogs will cope when their owners are all in DC for two days.
In short, "organized and well-funded," my ass.
But @TeacherFaye is going to be here on the panel, so I'm pretty sure the takeaway will be, "Yes, go on and use the twitter on the interwebs, and the young persons will see your message and become convinced by the twitness."
"because we won't let them" should probably be the rest of the title. FEE has beaten this drum since the first national convention in 2010, and the short form is simple-- flunk all third graders who can't pass your state's standardized reading test. The panel includes Mississippi State Senator Tollson and Ohio Superintendent Richard Ross; if you are expecting to hear the slightest lick of research por evidence that this test and punish retention plan is a sound and helpful idea, you should just go wait in line with the people waiting to see Sasquatch riding a unicorn across the Bridge to Atlantis.
Takeaway: we should flunk third graders who flunk the state test because eight year olds need to be whipped into shape. Uphill, both ways.
Innovation in the Certification Process: Rethinking teacher licensure
"Rethinking" is a great word. I am rethinking taking my dog out to poop because my wife is now up and if I rethink it long enough, I might get out of doing it. While I do not mean to compare teacher licensure to dog poop, I think the rethinking process is similar. The panel also seems to be interested in rethinking tenure and FILO. It includes John King, so you know this will totally not be about how to rethink your way to an easily managed, low paid, non-licensed teaching workforce.
Making Schools Better Instead of Just More Expensive: How to make your education dollars count
"Despite all evidence to the contrary, there is still widespread belief that school success is tied to school funding," begins this description. "So this panel will discuss how they cut the budgets of high achieving schools in rich neighborhoods down to level of low-achieving schools in poor neighborhoods because it shouldn't make any difference." Ha! Just kidding. This panel is led by Chester Finn. This panel will discuss how to "direct funds where they will do the most good" or, as I read it, how to rewrite funding rules so that generating good test scores gets you funding, because directing funding away from struggling schools so that they can be declared failures and closed is bad education, but damn fine business.
The Next Chapter in Educational Choice: Education Savings Accounts
aka "Maybe If We Try Legislating Vouchers This Way, We Can Finally Get Them Past the Courts."
Not Your Daddy’s Woodshop: Career and technical education in the 21st century
Possibly not stupid-- somebody has noticed that we have a problem filling high skills blue collar jobs. Since we haven't yet figured out how to make jobs like, say, welding as low-skills as making fries, we'll have to come up with a way to train these peoples. "This is definitely not your daddy's woodshop," they say, stopping just short of "And of course your mommy would never take wood shop because, no penis." The head of the US Chamber, heavy promoters of Common "Everyone Has To Go To College" Core will head this panel, so I hope he's taking his cognitive dissonance pills.
Accountability Works Workshop: A-F school grading
Another Bush III fave with no actual facts to back it up. Presumably we'll skip the unit on How To Tweak the System So You Don't Embarrass Your Charter School Friends.
Day II Starts with:
The Civil Rights Issue of Our Time: Access to a Quality Education
This general session is moderated by famous civil rights activist and educational expert Campbell Brown. Since she's only the moderator, presumably she will not deliver her speech on "How to squash uppity black ladies who try to horn in on your civil rights lawsuit action."
For actual panelists we get Andrew Malone of Harlem Success Academy, Rev. Samuel Rodriguez of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference and Patrick Dobard or the New Orleans Recovery School District. The blurb suggests that this will be a demonstration of how to appropriate the language of civil rights to promote your business interests as you cash in in the education sector.
Communicating Reform Part 2: Delivering effective messages
Marketing strategy. This is about "how to effectively reach your target audiences with tailored messages." So I'm expecting an update of the classic Charter Messaging Bible.And it should be a good one-- one of the panelists is Felix Schein, president of RALLY, the PR firm that created the successful astroturf group Students Matter for David Welch. Expect some practical branding and messaging advice here.
Bridging the Access Gap: How to bring the best courses to every student, in every state
I last encountered this idea in Michael McShane's walk-and-talk video-- why voucherize entire schools when you can really unbundle and voucherize by individual classes. Charter operators, you should attend this session so that you can understand that when some reformsters look into the future of education, they don't see you.
Building Trust in the Classroom: Protecting student data privacy and security
The big question is why this is not entitled "Doing the Right Thing: Protecting student data and privacy." But in reformsterland, data security is a PR problem, not an actual problem. This session promises to address all the data security issues except the main ones. We're going to talk about securing your on-line gradebook, but apparently not for the wholesale collection, sharing and selling of the data gathered from high stakes testing.
And there you have it
The confab runs from early morning, Thursday, November 20, through Friday afternoon, thereby guaranteeing that the doors will not be darkened by anybody who actually works in a public school classroom. Registration for the event is $499, though you can apply for a scholarship. The conference will be held at the Washington Marriot Wardman Park, so, fancy.
But the organizers want you to know: "Attendees leave the National Summit armed with the knowledge and networks to advance bold education reform in their states." They call it an "uncommon conference" which is kind of hilarious because they have scrubbed every reference to certain common thing, so it is literally un-commoned. At any rate, it "serves as a catalyst for energizing and accelerating the reform movement across the nation. Be there or be left behind."
I would love to be there to watch and learn and write down things I could blog about in a well-funded and organized way later, but I actually lack the funding and I am using my personal days this year to visit my soon-to-be-newborn grandson. Also, somebody has to be here to take the dog out to poop. Priorities, you know.
This year's theme is Unlocking Student Achievement: Choice * Accountability and it provides a great template for how we can peddle all of the regular reformster wares even as we completely scrub them of any reference to the Common Core. Bush III has been scrubbing all of the
The national conference may be Common Core Free, but it is still stacked tall with reformy baloney. Here are the sessions you can expect to enjoy if you attend, and to save you time, I'll go ahead and predict the takeaways for each right now.
After Bush III's opening keynote (still working on a title, I guess), will be followed by these strategy sessions:
Measurement 2.0: Elevating students by testing what you teach
"States are adopting more rigorous academic standards" is about as close as we get to acknowledging that the Core exist (though if we're talking in present tense "dumping and distancing themselves from" might make a better sentence middle here).
But add to your stack of 1001 Statements That Prove CCSS and Tests Cannot Be Decoupled this sentence:
A standard without accurate measurement and strong accountability quickly becomes optional.
You can't kill the tests without killing the standards, and don't think for a moment that reformsters don't understand that. At any rate, this session focuses on the search for a super-duper test that is impervious to test prep and rote learning, and which measures critical thinking and depth of understanding. We will hear from four states about their search for this mythical test. Since the four states are Kentucky, Idaho, Mississippi and Florida (Pam Stewart will be there, perhaps to explain why tests should be administered to dying children), so I think we can cut to the chase, which is that nobody yet has the slightest clue how to create this mythically awesome tests.
Autonomy vs. Accountability: The right mix for school choice programs
We're talking about private school choice programs here. Michael McShane will be leading the panel, which includes leaders from FEE, Step Up for Students, and Alliance for School Choice. Let's go ahead and predict that the right mix is "Let them do whatever the hell they want."
Communicating Reform Part 1: Crafting e-messages people will read and watch
Given the short life and sad demise of the "Learn More. Go Further" PR campaign that Bush and Friends launched. complete with sad sponsored teacher twitter accounts, I'm not sure FEE is the group to give advice about this. But somebody must because " we are confronted by an organized and well-funded opposition dedicated to maintaining the status quo." All I can say is-- somebody had better cough up my share of this well-fundedness, because I am clearly not getting a cut of the money that is buying other public education advocates their summer homes and fancy dijon mustard on their fancy ham sandwiches. I am literally sitting here at my desk in pajamas with a toasted bagel perched atop my desk mess, and shortly the dog is going to demand to go poop in the back yard and I will have to take him myself. I wonder if Jeb Bush has to take his own dog to poop in the back yard. I wonder how all of these reformsters dogs will cope when their owners are all in DC for two days.
In short, "organized and well-funded," my ass.
But @TeacherFaye is going to be here on the panel, so I'm pretty sure the takeaway will be, "Yes, go on and use the twitter on the interwebs, and the young persons will see your message and become convinced by the twitness."
Education Begins with K-3 Literacy: If kids can’t read, they can’t graduate
"because we won't let them" should probably be the rest of the title. FEE has beaten this drum since the first national convention in 2010, and the short form is simple-- flunk all third graders who can't pass your state's standardized reading test. The panel includes Mississippi State Senator Tollson and Ohio Superintendent Richard Ross; if you are expecting to hear the slightest lick of research por evidence that this test and punish retention plan is a sound and helpful idea, you should just go wait in line with the people waiting to see Sasquatch riding a unicorn across the Bridge to Atlantis.
Takeaway: we should flunk third graders who flunk the state test because eight year olds need to be whipped into shape. Uphill, both ways.
Innovation in the Certification Process: Rethinking teacher licensure
"Rethinking" is a great word. I am rethinking taking my dog out to poop because my wife is now up and if I rethink it long enough, I might get out of doing it. While I do not mean to compare teacher licensure to dog poop, I think the rethinking process is similar. The panel also seems to be interested in rethinking tenure and FILO. It includes John King, so you know this will totally not be about how to rethink your way to an easily managed, low paid, non-licensed teaching workforce.
Making Schools Better Instead of Just More Expensive: How to make your education dollars count
"Despite all evidence to the contrary, there is still widespread belief that school success is tied to school funding," begins this description. "So this panel will discuss how they cut the budgets of high achieving schools in rich neighborhoods down to level of low-achieving schools in poor neighborhoods because it shouldn't make any difference." Ha! Just kidding. This panel is led by Chester Finn. This panel will discuss how to "direct funds where they will do the most good" or, as I read it, how to rewrite funding rules so that generating good test scores gets you funding, because directing funding away from struggling schools so that they can be declared failures and closed is bad education, but damn fine business.
The Next Chapter in Educational Choice: Education Savings Accounts
aka "Maybe If We Try Legislating Vouchers This Way, We Can Finally Get Them Past the Courts."
Not Your Daddy’s Woodshop: Career and technical education in the 21st century
Possibly not stupid-- somebody has noticed that we have a problem filling high skills blue collar jobs. Since we haven't yet figured out how to make jobs like, say, welding as low-skills as making fries, we'll have to come up with a way to train these peoples. "This is definitely not your daddy's woodshop," they say, stopping just short of "And of course your mommy would never take wood shop because, no penis." The head of the US Chamber, heavy promoters of Common "Everyone Has To Go To College" Core will head this panel, so I hope he's taking his cognitive dissonance pills.
Accountability Works Workshop: A-F school grading
Another Bush III fave with no actual facts to back it up. Presumably we'll skip the unit on How To Tweak the System So You Don't Embarrass Your Charter School Friends.
Day II Starts with:
The Civil Rights Issue of Our Time: Access to a Quality Education
This general session is moderated by famous civil rights activist and educational expert Campbell Brown. Since she's only the moderator, presumably she will not deliver her speech on "How to squash uppity black ladies who try to horn in on your civil rights lawsuit action."
For actual panelists we get Andrew Malone of Harlem Success Academy, Rev. Samuel Rodriguez of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference and Patrick Dobard or the New Orleans Recovery School District. The blurb suggests that this will be a demonstration of how to appropriate the language of civil rights to promote your business interests as you cash in in the education sector.
Communicating Reform Part 2: Delivering effective messages
Marketing strategy. This is about "how to effectively reach your target audiences with tailored messages." So I'm expecting an update of the classic Charter Messaging Bible.And it should be a good one-- one of the panelists is Felix Schein, president of RALLY, the PR firm that created the successful astroturf group Students Matter for David Welch. Expect some practical branding and messaging advice here.
Bridging the Access Gap: How to bring the best courses to every student, in every state
I last encountered this idea in Michael McShane's walk-and-talk video-- why voucherize entire schools when you can really unbundle and voucherize by individual classes. Charter operators, you should attend this session so that you can understand that when some reformsters look into the future of education, they don't see you.
Building Trust in the Classroom: Protecting student data privacy and security
The big question is why this is not entitled "Doing the Right Thing: Protecting student data and privacy." But in reformsterland, data security is a PR problem, not an actual problem. This session promises to address all the data security issues except the main ones. We're going to talk about securing your on-line gradebook, but apparently not for the wholesale collection, sharing and selling of the data gathered from high stakes testing.
And there you have it
The confab runs from early morning, Thursday, November 20, through Friday afternoon, thereby guaranteeing that the doors will not be darkened by anybody who actually works in a public school classroom. Registration for the event is $499, though you can apply for a scholarship. The conference will be held at the Washington Marriot Wardman Park, so, fancy.
But the organizers want you to know: "Attendees leave the National Summit armed with the knowledge and networks to advance bold education reform in their states." They call it an "uncommon conference" which is kind of hilarious because they have scrubbed every reference to certain common thing, so it is literally un-commoned. At any rate, it "serves as a catalyst for energizing and accelerating the reform movement across the nation. Be there or be left behind."
I would love to be there to watch and learn and write down things I could blog about in a well-funded and organized way later, but I actually lack the funding and I am using my personal days this year to visit my soon-to-be-newborn grandson. Also, somebody has to be here to take the dog out to poop. Priorities, you know.
Sunday, May 18, 2014
FEE & FL Spew Out Silly Test Advice
Are your students worried about big stupid standardized tests? Well, Jeb Bush's shiny ed initiative has some help for you.
You may recall that Jeb Bush has been scaling up the Learn More Go Further campaign. The educational reformy initiative has been scaled up for a national audience-- it's almost as if Jeb is trying to prepare for some sort of national campaign of some sort. Learn More Go Further is what you would get if you set out to collect every bit of numbskullery ever said about the Common Core. You can read about this nifty initiative here, and follow it up with this account of their sad attempt to make use of that twitter thingy all the young folks are talking about.
My earlier attempts at shaming them notwithstanding (it's almost as if they aren't really worried about what some D-list blogger says about them), the LMGF folks have continued to crank out educational whiz-bangery including this-- a special printout guide for students who are concerned about whatever cockamamie test they are about to be subjected to.
Page one has a header of two chipper young (10-ish) students holding their bright yellow pencils-- wait! what? Are they not getting ready to take their FCATs on line? Are we not all planning to take our Big Tests on line? Maybe our intent is not to scare the children, but if that's the case, we run into trouble in the very first paragraph, which is this:
Over the past 15 years, Florida has successfully taken steps to implement policies to
increase the quality of education for students. This has resulted in vast academic improvements, made evident through the state surging upwards in national rankings.
Yes, I'm imagining the conversation between millions of third graders on their way to school on test day.
Chris: Hey, are you ready to do some surging upwards today?
Pat: Yeah, baby! Watch me take some successful steps to implement this policy!
Okay, so nobody talks like the ad copy on this flier, but you know who especially doesn't talk like that? The students that these fliers are theoretically aimed at. Perhaps it gets better, you say? Oh, honey.
Along with the hard work of teachers, students and parents, Florida’s transformation is largely rooted in accountability and assessments. A commitment to higher academic standards and aligned assessments are the next steps. By creating smarter, more efficient tests that push students to apply knowledge, students will develop greater critical thinking and analytical skills to prepare them for life after high school.
Two paragraphs in and we still haven't said a single thing that would be spoken by a real live human being, AND we've managed to wrap this verbacious gobbledeegook around utter bullshit. The impressive achievement here is that there isn't a single verifiable, supportable, non-baloney claim in this paragraph. What transformation? How do you trace the cause and effect? What is a smarter, more efficient test, and how exactly does it make students better thinkers? And why is any of this on a flier whose intended audience is students?????
And then-- oh, dear reader, oh sweet lord in heaven-- there is this. In the flier version it's just text, but Kris Nielsen located this awesome suitable-for-hanging poster version
I give the LMGF folks credit for just one thing-- it looks like they might have recognized that one of the great giant gaping holes in the narrative of test-based accountability is that students can't see any earthly reason to give so much as one half of a gluteus rattus about testing. But hey kids-- testing is a part of life! All these professionals-- all they do is just take a test and pass it and they are ready to fly a plane into surgery.
Well, that's page one. Page two has the actual tips for students facing a test. And first, to remind you that this whole thing was written by someone who has never met an actual child, we start with "While tests may seem scary, and some associated nervousness is normal, there are ways you can properly prepare to reduce stress." Yes, many's the time that teachers all the way from K through 12 have sat their students down and reassured them by looking them in the eye and saying soft, soothing tones, "Some associated nervousness is normal." I think Teddy Ruxpin used to have a chip programmed with that line.
Tips? We've got tips!
Before the test, approach the test with confidence. Get a good night's sleep. And-- as God is my witness I am not making this shit up-- "Strive for a relaxed state of concentration." Perhaps the writer chose the elevated diction to hide the ridiculousness of the advice-- work real hard to be relaxed. And also, don't take the test on an empty stomach. Fresh fruits and vegetables help reduce stress, so pound back some broccoli for breakfast on test day. (We'll ignore the traditional advice, which is don't eat out of the ordinary because it will make you drowsy).
After the test, check your answers and make sure you didn't make any silly mistakes. Then celebrate your achievement. I'm not sure if that means on the spot, like dancing in the aisle, or after school, when you try to share broccoli farts on the bus.
What about during the test? That's the biggest list. Read and follow the directions. Don't get frustrated and/or quit. Skip hard ones and come back. Use process of elimination (which it goes on to explain, as if this specific technique isn't routinely drilled into students' heads during the weeks of test prep prior to the test). And this-- "Don’t panic when other students appear to be finished. There’s no reward for finishing first." This is true; there will, however, be punishments for finishing at the bottom of the pack, so think about doing what you can to distract and sabotage your classmates, because their success will be your failure thanks to the magic of test results stack ranking.
Presumably LMGF envisions this handout being given to every testing student in Florida. It underlines, once again, twice, how much groups like this are envisioning imaginary children taking tests under imaginary conditions that will produce results of imaginary validity.
You may recall that Jeb Bush has been scaling up the Learn More Go Further campaign. The educational reformy initiative has been scaled up for a national audience-- it's almost as if Jeb is trying to prepare for some sort of national campaign of some sort. Learn More Go Further is what you would get if you set out to collect every bit of numbskullery ever said about the Common Core. You can read about this nifty initiative here, and follow it up with this account of their sad attempt to make use of that twitter thingy all the young folks are talking about.
My earlier attempts at shaming them notwithstanding (it's almost as if they aren't really worried about what some D-list blogger says about them), the LMGF folks have continued to crank out educational whiz-bangery including this-- a special printout guide for students who are concerned about whatever cockamamie test they are about to be subjected to.
Page one has a header of two chipper young (10-ish) students holding their bright yellow pencils-- wait! what? Are they not getting ready to take their FCATs on line? Are we not all planning to take our Big Tests on line? Maybe our intent is not to scare the children, but if that's the case, we run into trouble in the very first paragraph, which is this:
Over the past 15 years, Florida has successfully taken steps to implement policies to
increase the quality of education for students. This has resulted in vast academic improvements, made evident through the state surging upwards in national rankings.
Yes, I'm imagining the conversation between millions of third graders on their way to school on test day.
Chris: Hey, are you ready to do some surging upwards today?
Pat: Yeah, baby! Watch me take some successful steps to implement this policy!
Okay, so nobody talks like the ad copy on this flier, but you know who especially doesn't talk like that? The students that these fliers are theoretically aimed at. Perhaps it gets better, you say? Oh, honey.
Along with the hard work of teachers, students and parents, Florida’s transformation is largely rooted in accountability and assessments. A commitment to higher academic standards and aligned assessments are the next steps. By creating smarter, more efficient tests that push students to apply knowledge, students will develop greater critical thinking and analytical skills to prepare them for life after high school.
Two paragraphs in and we still haven't said a single thing that would be spoken by a real live human being, AND we've managed to wrap this verbacious gobbledeegook around utter bullshit. The impressive achievement here is that there isn't a single verifiable, supportable, non-baloney claim in this paragraph. What transformation? How do you trace the cause and effect? What is a smarter, more efficient test, and how exactly does it make students better thinkers? And why is any of this on a flier whose intended audience is students?????
And then-- oh, dear reader, oh sweet lord in heaven-- there is this. In the flier version it's just text, but Kris Nielsen located this awesome suitable-for-hanging poster version
Well, that's page one. Page two has the actual tips for students facing a test. And first, to remind you that this whole thing was written by someone who has never met an actual child, we start with "While tests may seem scary, and some associated nervousness is normal, there are ways you can properly prepare to reduce stress." Yes, many's the time that teachers all the way from K through 12 have sat their students down and reassured them by looking them in the eye and saying soft, soothing tones, "Some associated nervousness is normal." I think Teddy Ruxpin used to have a chip programmed with that line.
Tips? We've got tips!
Before the test, approach the test with confidence. Get a good night's sleep. And-- as God is my witness I am not making this shit up-- "Strive for a relaxed state of concentration." Perhaps the writer chose the elevated diction to hide the ridiculousness of the advice-- work real hard to be relaxed. And also, don't take the test on an empty stomach. Fresh fruits and vegetables help reduce stress, so pound back some broccoli for breakfast on test day. (We'll ignore the traditional advice, which is don't eat out of the ordinary because it will make you drowsy).
After the test, check your answers and make sure you didn't make any silly mistakes. Then celebrate your achievement. I'm not sure if that means on the spot, like dancing in the aisle, or after school, when you try to share broccoli farts on the bus.
What about during the test? That's the biggest list. Read and follow the directions. Don't get frustrated and/or quit. Skip hard ones and come back. Use process of elimination (which it goes on to explain, as if this specific technique isn't routinely drilled into students' heads during the weeks of test prep prior to the test). And this-- "Don’t panic when other students appear to be finished. There’s no reward for finishing first." This is true; there will, however, be punishments for finishing at the bottom of the pack, so think about doing what you can to distract and sabotage your classmates, because their success will be your failure thanks to the magic of test results stack ranking.
Presumably LMGF envisions this handout being given to every testing student in Florida. It underlines, once again, twice, how much groups like this are envisioning imaginary children taking tests under imaginary conditions that will produce results of imaginary validity.
Friday, April 4, 2014
Bush, FEE, The Chamber & How Not To Tweet
Have corporations learned how to make social media work for them yet? Well......
Last week we noted that Jeb Bush's FEE (Foundation for Excellence in Education) and the Higher States Standards Partnership (a group funded by the US Chamber of Commerce and a few others well explained here by Erin Osborne) were launching a shiny new Common Core promotional blitz. (And by "shiny" I mean "shiny in the same way that artificial turf is shiny.")
And somebody in the launching team apparently said, "Hey, let us use some of the social media that I hear is very hip these days. The social media with the viral things-- we should use some of that, because I hear it is big with the young persons. (Also, with the rap music.)"
To anchor this blitz-ish like sort-of onslaught, the marketing team deployed four teachers as the face of "Learn More. Go Further." The four include a Florida DOE teacher ambassador (and previous virtual school instructor), two charter school teachers, and a pubic school reading specialist recently promoted to assistant principal. Beyond the obvious non-public-school slant, there's the more subtle slant involved in choosing four ladies; no secondary man teachers. The designers of the program did select one apparently-Latina lady; the other three are looking mighty white. I'm not suggesting any of these choices reveal nefarious purposes, but given that they had to be deliberate marketing choices, I find them.... interesting.
More puzzling is the fact that the four ladies resemble each other pretty closely in physical type. Some people have made observations about the type, and I want to be clear that using a woman's body type as a basis for criticizing her is just unacceptable uber-jerk behavior, and those people need to either grow up or shut up. But regardless of what configuration we're talking about, these four women look very much the same. I'm reduced to telling them apart by hair style. If four women look like each other, I don't see that as a sign of dark conspiracy-- but this is somebody's deliberate choice, and the messaging was supposed to be, "Look-- a wide variety of teachers support Common Core," then somebody failed.
At any rate. LMGF has set these four up with their own twitter accounts, because, you know, the social media. I've been following their progress. Let's see how they're doing.
@USTeacherFaye first tweeted in March 15. She has 33 tweets as I type this and each one is a promotional comment. Here's a typical tweet:
My passion for kids is what inspired me to be a teacher. My passion for their success is why I support Common Core: http://bit.ly/1fMIS5g
I can call this "typical" because she has actually tweeted it twice. Ditto for "Students face so many challenges. Academic standards shouldn't be one of them. Support Common Core." She usually tweets once or twice a day, but not on weekends. She has three re-tweets (two from LMGF and one from a Tom Greene at AEI). She has not once tweeted at anyone else, and she has not responded to any of the tweets directed at her, which seem to cover a wide range of Core-related crankiness.
@USTeacherRian lists herself as a government and economics teacher. Her first tweet is also March 15. She has 36 tweets and two retweets (one from LMGF and one from USTeacherFaye inviting people to follow the four spokesladies). She is also a one-or-two-a-weekday tweetress, but she was feeling feisty on April 2nd and responded to two critical tweets (CCSS is not a curriculum, y'all).
@USTeacherBeth is "excited to help more students go further to college and great careers." 33 tweets since March 15. I'll confess that I love Teacher Beth best of all. For one thing, she actually took a break from posting advertising copy with links to throw in an Emerson quote (“The secret of education lies in respecting the pupil.”). For another, she has a whopping five posts in reply to others, and one of them is to me. I'd tweeted a variety of more substantive challenges to the ladies and was becoming sad at the lack of response, so I tweeted to all four that I was beginning to suspect that they were bots, or paid interns. Awesomely, Teacher Beth tweeted me the following reply:
"Neither."
So now I have a huge twitcrush on her and her minimalist post-modern sniptweeting.
@USTeacherAngela is the group slacker. With a mere 20 tweets, I think we can agree she's just not trying very hard. No tweets addressed to anyone, no responses to her critics. Come on, Teacher Angela. Step up your game.
Now, I said I'd get back to the ladies' critics, because I think there's important information to be gleaned there.
See, these four accounts are being promoted, as is the initiative and the ads that go with it. If like me you visit some of these materials, you'll start seeing links for LMGF fill your browser ad spaces, and the four ladies will be appearing regularly as promoted twitter feeds. Online marketing allows very carefully directed marketing-- so can we guess at whom FEE and HSSP are aiming themselves?
There are two types of criticism aimed at the ladies. One is from teachers; in many cases, specifically BATS. I suspect that has something to do with some posting I did on the BATs facebook page. But listen to some of the other posts:
"You are communist dupes" (seriously-- I'm not making this up)
"Fell [sic] free to be interviewed by someone like @GerriWillisFBN from @FoxBusiness otherwise this is just propaganda."
"#CommonCore is more engaging & focuses on the Gov. Master. That's why progressives and unions support it."
So, boys and girls, using our context clues, which audience seems to have been the recipient of LMGF's media attention? If you're guessing "conservatives," I'm with you. The freshly scrubbed friendly (mostly) white ladies (who are US teachers!) and an American flag-quoting logo are beginning to suggest to me that Learn More. Go Further is not really concerned with selling CCSS to everybody, but is mostly about trying, again, to get conservatives on board with the Core. After a close reading of the four twitter accounts, I'm concluding two things:
1) The folks behind this think that once you set up a twitter account and pay to promote it, buzz just sport of magically appears, even if you don't really do anything with it or engage anybody.
2) Jeb Bush is really worried that hard right conservatives will kneecap his White House dreams if he doesn't somehow get them to drink the CCSS Koolaid.
Judging from much of what the conservative press are writing (like this recent Michelle Malkin piece), these four ladies and the massive well-funded media machine they are stapled to the front of-- well, they've all got their work cut out for them.
[Update: The folks at Integrity in Education directed my attention to the fact that the women have EIGHT accounts-- each has one as a USTeacher and one as FLTeacher. Not a surprise as many aspects of the initiative still have FL pieces stuck from when this Florida specific program was scaled up to national level.
The FLTeacher accounts are pretty much the same story-- same time frame, same style of tweets, though a bit more chatty tone. Oddest difference-- the FL accounts give the ladies last names.
So my apologies for missing that part of the story. I'll do better faux journalism in the future.]
Last week we noted that Jeb Bush's FEE (Foundation for Excellence in Education) and the Higher States Standards Partnership (a group funded by the US Chamber of Commerce and a few others well explained here by Erin Osborne) were launching a shiny new Common Core promotional blitz. (And by "shiny" I mean "shiny in the same way that artificial turf is shiny.")
And somebody in the launching team apparently said, "Hey, let us use some of the social media that I hear is very hip these days. The social media with the viral things-- we should use some of that, because I hear it is big with the young persons. (Also, with the rap music.)"
To anchor this blitz-ish like sort-of onslaught, the marketing team deployed four teachers as the face of "Learn More. Go Further." The four include a Florida DOE teacher ambassador (and previous virtual school instructor), two charter school teachers, and a pubic school reading specialist recently promoted to assistant principal. Beyond the obvious non-public-school slant, there's the more subtle slant involved in choosing four ladies; no secondary man teachers. The designers of the program did select one apparently-Latina lady; the other three are looking mighty white. I'm not suggesting any of these choices reveal nefarious purposes, but given that they had to be deliberate marketing choices, I find them.... interesting.
More puzzling is the fact that the four ladies resemble each other pretty closely in physical type. Some people have made observations about the type, and I want to be clear that using a woman's body type as a basis for criticizing her is just unacceptable uber-jerk behavior, and those people need to either grow up or shut up. But regardless of what configuration we're talking about, these four women look very much the same. I'm reduced to telling them apart by hair style. If four women look like each other, I don't see that as a sign of dark conspiracy-- but this is somebody's deliberate choice, and the messaging was supposed to be, "Look-- a wide variety of teachers support Common Core," then somebody failed.
At any rate. LMGF has set these four up with their own twitter accounts, because, you know, the social media. I've been following their progress. Let's see how they're doing.
@USTeacherFaye first tweeted in March 15. She has 33 tweets as I type this and each one is a promotional comment. Here's a typical tweet:
My passion for kids is what inspired me to be a teacher. My passion for their success is why I support Common Core: http://bit.ly/1fMIS5g
I can call this "typical" because she has actually tweeted it twice. Ditto for "Students face so many challenges. Academic standards shouldn't be one of them. Support Common Core." She usually tweets once or twice a day, but not on weekends. She has three re-tweets (two from LMGF and one from a Tom Greene at AEI). She has not once tweeted at anyone else, and she has not responded to any of the tweets directed at her, which seem to cover a wide range of Core-related crankiness.
@USTeacherRian lists herself as a government and economics teacher. Her first tweet is also March 15. She has 36 tweets and two retweets (one from LMGF and one from USTeacherFaye inviting people to follow the four spokesladies). She is also a one-or-two-a-weekday tweetress, but she was feeling feisty on April 2nd and responded to two critical tweets (CCSS is not a curriculum, y'all).
@USTeacherBeth is "excited to help more students go further to college and great careers." 33 tweets since March 15. I'll confess that I love Teacher Beth best of all. For one thing, she actually took a break from posting advertising copy with links to throw in an Emerson quote (“The secret of education lies in respecting the pupil.”). For another, she has a whopping five posts in reply to others, and one of them is to me. I'd tweeted a variety of more substantive challenges to the ladies and was becoming sad at the lack of response, so I tweeted to all four that I was beginning to suspect that they were bots, or paid interns. Awesomely, Teacher Beth tweeted me the following reply:
"Neither."
So now I have a huge twitcrush on her and her minimalist post-modern sniptweeting.
@USTeacherAngela is the group slacker. With a mere 20 tweets, I think we can agree she's just not trying very hard. No tweets addressed to anyone, no responses to her critics. Come on, Teacher Angela. Step up your game.
Now, I said I'd get back to the ladies' critics, because I think there's important information to be gleaned there.
See, these four accounts are being promoted, as is the initiative and the ads that go with it. If like me you visit some of these materials, you'll start seeing links for LMGF fill your browser ad spaces, and the four ladies will be appearing regularly as promoted twitter feeds. Online marketing allows very carefully directed marketing-- so can we guess at whom FEE and HSSP are aiming themselves?
There are two types of criticism aimed at the ladies. One is from teachers; in many cases, specifically BATS. I suspect that has something to do with some posting I did on the BATs facebook page. But listen to some of the other posts:
"You are communist dupes" (seriously-- I'm not making this up)
"Fell [sic] free to be interviewed by someone like @GerriWillisFBN from @FoxBusiness otherwise this is just propaganda."
"#CommonCore is more engaging & focuses on the Gov. Master. That's why progressives and unions support it."
So, boys and girls, using our context clues, which audience seems to have been the recipient of LMGF's media attention? If you're guessing "conservatives," I'm with you. The freshly scrubbed friendly (mostly) white ladies (who are US teachers!) and an American flag-quoting logo are beginning to suggest to me that Learn More. Go Further is not really concerned with selling CCSS to everybody, but is mostly about trying, again, to get conservatives on board with the Core. After a close reading of the four twitter accounts, I'm concluding two things:
1) The folks behind this think that once you set up a twitter account and pay to promote it, buzz just sport of magically appears, even if you don't really do anything with it or engage anybody.
2) Jeb Bush is really worried that hard right conservatives will kneecap his White House dreams if he doesn't somehow get them to drink the CCSS Koolaid.
Judging from much of what the conservative press are writing (like this recent Michelle Malkin piece), these four ladies and the massive well-funded media machine they are stapled to the front of-- well, they've all got their work cut out for them.
[Update: The folks at Integrity in Education directed my attention to the fact that the women have EIGHT accounts-- each has one as a USTeacher and one as FLTeacher. Not a surprise as many aspects of the initiative still have FL pieces stuck from when this Florida specific program was scaled up to national level.
The FLTeacher accounts are pretty much the same story-- same time frame, same style of tweets, though a bit more chatty tone. Oddest difference-- the FL accounts give the ladies last names.
So my apologies for missing that part of the story. I'll do better faux journalism in the future.]
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)