If there is one area where educators consistently fail to flex their muscles and stand up for themselves and their students, it is in dealing with publisher's reps.
Making the deal
I don't know if this is part of the general tendency of teachers to be good team players who don't want to be mean or unpleasant to anybody, but many publisher's reps must feel as if they've slipped through a portal into salesman's heaven. It's a dimension where used car salesmen say, "Well, the price on the sticker is probably as good as it gets, and you'd better snap this up right now," and the customer just says, "Oh, all right, then."
I have a teaching colleague who, for a decade before she returned to the classroom, ran the sales department of a newspaper in the New York Times Giant Chain O'Papers. When she gets done with a textbook salesperson, he doesn't know what hit him. "You'll need to grab these up right now," goes the pitch. "I can only make this price available for the next few weeks, so you have to go for it. Sign here."
"Here's how it's going to go," she replies. "We'll be deciding in a few months, after we look at all the available books out there. If we decide to go with you in a few months, it will be at a lower price than the one you just quoted me, and here's a list of how many teacher manuals and supplemental materials you're going to throw in for free. We'll be in touch."
It's a thing of beauty, and it is based on what so many administrators and teachers seem to forget-- in the sales relationship with textbook publishers, it is school districts that hold the power.
Instead, too many administrators and teachers "negotiate" like Oliver Twist or an unattractive teen in an Abercrombie & Fitch, acting as if we're just hoping that maybe the publisher will consent to sell us something. No. Wrong. Backwards. We do not have to bow and scrape for the privilege of being allowed to buy their product. Negotiate from power and for the love of God, remember that no matter how much they try to suggest otherwise, you are not making friends with the salesperson-- you are buying something from them on behalf of the taxpayers who ponied up the money in the first place. Get the best deal possible and please don't worry about making the salesperson sad-- he'll perk right up when he finally makes a sale.
Amateur Hour Professional Development
Once the product is purchased, then we get the next round of fun and games-- professional development during which a textbook salesperson tells teachers how to do their jobs.
Textbook publishers have developed a greater interest in following up their sales, figuring that if they can make sure that teachers are successful with, say, Pearson products, then Pearson loyalty and repeat business may ensue.
This leads to the awkward spectacle of trained professional educators sitting in a room and listening politely as some publisher's rep (who may have taught for a year, once, a while ago) explain how to "properly" teach addition or pronouns or whatever else the textbook contains. These sessions range from insulting to infuriating, and they can be one more example of too-polite teachers refusing to stand up and push back.
I'm not advocating rudeness. The publisher's rep is just the messenger, but always remember-- the line of communication runs both ways, and your reaction in the "training" session will be carried back to the mother ship. Your behavior in the PD will be the difference between Publisher McRepface telling the boss, "People out there love this stuff" and "Boss, we have got to get this tweaked."
So don't be an asshat, but don't just sit there smiling and nodding if you are thinking, "Well, that can't possibly work." Use your words. Use them politely, but firmly. But use them. Is your principal in the room? All the more reason to be vocal. Stand up for your students. Stand up for your profession. Never forget-- you are the person who actually teaches and nurtures students for a living, and that guy in the nice suit is the person who sells textbooks for a living.
Sunday, June 28, 2015
The Education Monopoly?
I fell into a twitter conversation a while back with Neal McClusky, the education guy for the Cato Institute, a libertarian thinky tank originally founded as the Charles Koch Foundation in 1976, though in keeping with libertarian principles, the institute has had some spirited arguments with the Kochs over the independence of the organization.
Libertarians have never been a fan of Common Core, and they generally frown on anything that comes out of DC. But they do love them some choice. McClusky made this distinction today:
Libertarians don't dislike pub "education." Dislike pub "schooling" - gov monopoly - b/c freedom is essential
I questioned the "monopoly" label-- public education would have to be the lousiest national monopoly ever, with thousands of locally-run branch offices that cannot coordinate to save their lives. McClusky clarified that schools are local monopolies, and that citizens are forced to pay taxes for schools assigned by location.
I am generally not unsympathetic to the libertarian view. I am doubtful that top-down decisions coming out of DC will be helpful (though I also know that historically, some state make terrible choices if not federally co-erced). Unlike many of my progressive friends, I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't be sad to see the Department of Education go away. But while I found libertarian ideas appealing when I was younger, I've come to recognize that in practice, libertarian ideas look a lot like survival of the richest and best-connected. Libertarians comfort themselves with the idea that such extra power is earned and deserved based on merit. I remain unconvinced.
So if we end the local school monopoly and open the field up to the power of individual choice, what happens? I raised the question of Newark, an "all-choice" system that has spectacularly ignored the voices of individuals. McClusky says that Newark is state control, not freedom.
Libertarians aren't anarchists; they believe some regulation is required. But if we have erased local geographic boundaries to end the tyranny of the zip code, doesn't that actually shift the locus of control toward DC instead of away? (And if we hate the tyranny of zip codes, does that mean we should also stop hounding undocumented workers for just being born on the wrong side of another imaginary border?)
So who would regulate the new open market? Would we just let anybody open up any school and accept students from any place? Or would we have some quality control, in which case who would provide it, enforce it, and oversee it? Who would make sure that every single student in the country had access to a quality education and not just be consigned to Hot Potato High School (established and maintained at minimal cost for all the students that no charter wants)? Who would insure that no school could just suddenly close up? I mean, it's great fun when the invisible hand of the marketplace sorts out the winners and losers, but individual students do not have that kind of time to waste ("Yes, I have no real high school education because the market was stabilizing itself during my teen years.")
The mistake is in imagining education as a commodity to be sold, when it is a community service to be provided. It has not grown top-down, but bottom-up. The geographic restraints are a natural result of that-- people banded together to provide the service of education to themselves and their neighbors. Most communities also have "monopolies" on fire departments, sewage systems, police services, and water. None of these services would be improved by allowing for competition across geographical boundaries. What's more, creating such competition would be tremendously wasteful economically. It costs more to operate two or twelve homes than it does to operate one.
It is true that some "local communities" are too large to be truly local. I suspect there is some upper limit past which size becomes more of a problem than a help. I have no idea where that line is crossed, but I'll bet that New York, Chicago and many other metro systems are on the wrong side of it.
I'm aware that some libertarians are actually okay with some extra cost because they see the availability of choice as a virtue in and of itself. But in most communities, when people see that they are paying extra for redundant services, the pressure of the invisible hand is for consolidation. Certainly as individual districts find themselves cash-strapped across the country (often because many of their resources have been diverted to charter-choice schools), their reaction is to close existing schools, not open new ones.
I'm not an economist (but then most economists don't know jack about about education and that doesn't keep them from making pronouncements about it) but I'd love to read a scholarly look at the relationship between free markets and monopolies, because in my reading of history it certainly looks like the former often leads to the latter, and the process always involves government stepping in on the side of The People (hello, Ma Bell breakup) or on the side of the most powerful players (hi there, Affordable Care Act).
At any rate, what McClusky and friends call a monopoly, I call a delicate balance between democracy, market dynamics, civic responsibility, and federal-vs-local powers in the act of providing a vital community service that we, as a country, long ago decided we would provide to every single citizen.
When a corporation starts winning in a free market, its priority does not become to preserve the free market, but to take it over, dominate it, and come as close to a monopoly as possible. I see three possibilities here:
A) Our current system-- a loosely connected network of locally-operated service providers.
B) A system of private corporations providing the service, eventually dominated by a handful, or even just one, corporation that controls most of the market (though certain unprofitable customer bases would be left to fend for themselves).
C) A heavily-regulated market created when the government steps in to keep B from going Too Far.
The dream of a vast network of private corporations locked in robust competition that pushes all to greater and greater levels of excellence-- it's a lovely dream, but I cannot think of a single industry or sector of the economy in which that has ever happened. Not one.
Libertarians have never been a fan of Common Core, and they generally frown on anything that comes out of DC. But they do love them some choice. McClusky made this distinction today:
Libertarians don't dislike pub "education." Dislike pub "schooling" - gov monopoly - b/c freedom is essential
I questioned the "monopoly" label-- public education would have to be the lousiest national monopoly ever, with thousands of locally-run branch offices that cannot coordinate to save their lives. McClusky clarified that schools are local monopolies, and that citizens are forced to pay taxes for schools assigned by location.
I am generally not unsympathetic to the libertarian view. I am doubtful that top-down decisions coming out of DC will be helpful (though I also know that historically, some state make terrible choices if not federally co-erced). Unlike many of my progressive friends, I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't be sad to see the Department of Education go away. But while I found libertarian ideas appealing when I was younger, I've come to recognize that in practice, libertarian ideas look a lot like survival of the richest and best-connected. Libertarians comfort themselves with the idea that such extra power is earned and deserved based on merit. I remain unconvinced.
So if we end the local school monopoly and open the field up to the power of individual choice, what happens? I raised the question of Newark, an "all-choice" system that has spectacularly ignored the voices of individuals. McClusky says that Newark is state control, not freedom.
Libertarians aren't anarchists; they believe some regulation is required. But if we have erased local geographic boundaries to end the tyranny of the zip code, doesn't that actually shift the locus of control toward DC instead of away? (And if we hate the tyranny of zip codes, does that mean we should also stop hounding undocumented workers for just being born on the wrong side of another imaginary border?)
So who would regulate the new open market? Would we just let anybody open up any school and accept students from any place? Or would we have some quality control, in which case who would provide it, enforce it, and oversee it? Who would make sure that every single student in the country had access to a quality education and not just be consigned to Hot Potato High School (established and maintained at minimal cost for all the students that no charter wants)? Who would insure that no school could just suddenly close up? I mean, it's great fun when the invisible hand of the marketplace sorts out the winners and losers, but individual students do not have that kind of time to waste ("Yes, I have no real high school education because the market was stabilizing itself during my teen years.")
The mistake is in imagining education as a commodity to be sold, when it is a community service to be provided. It has not grown top-down, but bottom-up. The geographic restraints are a natural result of that-- people banded together to provide the service of education to themselves and their neighbors. Most communities also have "monopolies" on fire departments, sewage systems, police services, and water. None of these services would be improved by allowing for competition across geographical boundaries. What's more, creating such competition would be tremendously wasteful economically. It costs more to operate two or twelve homes than it does to operate one.
It is true that some "local communities" are too large to be truly local. I suspect there is some upper limit past which size becomes more of a problem than a help. I have no idea where that line is crossed, but I'll bet that New York, Chicago and many other metro systems are on the wrong side of it.
I'm aware that some libertarians are actually okay with some extra cost because they see the availability of choice as a virtue in and of itself. But in most communities, when people see that they are paying extra for redundant services, the pressure of the invisible hand is for consolidation. Certainly as individual districts find themselves cash-strapped across the country (often because many of their resources have been diverted to charter-choice schools), their reaction is to close existing schools, not open new ones.
I'm not an economist (but then most economists don't know jack about about education and that doesn't keep them from making pronouncements about it) but I'd love to read a scholarly look at the relationship between free markets and monopolies, because in my reading of history it certainly looks like the former often leads to the latter, and the process always involves government stepping in on the side of The People (hello, Ma Bell breakup) or on the side of the most powerful players (hi there, Affordable Care Act).
At any rate, what McClusky and friends call a monopoly, I call a delicate balance between democracy, market dynamics, civic responsibility, and federal-vs-local powers in the act of providing a vital community service that we, as a country, long ago decided we would provide to every single citizen.
When a corporation starts winning in a free market, its priority does not become to preserve the free market, but to take it over, dominate it, and come as close to a monopoly as possible. I see three possibilities here:
A) Our current system-- a loosely connected network of locally-operated service providers.
B) A system of private corporations providing the service, eventually dominated by a handful, or even just one, corporation that controls most of the market (though certain unprofitable customer bases would be left to fend for themselves).
C) A heavily-regulated market created when the government steps in to keep B from going Too Far.
The dream of a vast network of private corporations locked in robust competition that pushes all to greater and greater levels of excellence-- it's a lovely dream, but I cannot think of a single industry or sector of the economy in which that has ever happened. Not one.
Saturday, June 27, 2015
NC: Driving Teachers Away Still Working
North Carolina's leaders have made a long and strong commitment to ending teaching as a viable career in their state, and teachers continue to get the message.
Just to recap. NC legislators tried to get rid of tenure, but there were these dumb laws and things that got in their way. Then, since they couldn't manage that, the plucky leaders decided to hold teacher pay hostage-- an easy trick because North Carolina teachers have been losing ground in both real dollar wages and, well, any other kind of dollar wages, for almost a decade. The legislature offered a deal-- teachers could have a raise (just one) if they gave up job security. They've also attempted merit pay, offering a big whopping $500 bonus for teachers of students with good test scores.
On top of all that, North Carolina has also instituted destructive classroom policies. NC is one of the states where we'll flunk your third grader if she can't pass the standardized test, despite a boatload of evidence that such policies do more harm than good. Plus, North Carolina has tried to become an Ohio-style charter school paradise with the kind of oversight-free approach that lets even the most obvious grifter strike it rich.
By spring of 2014, reports showed that the program to drive teachers out of NC was working well. It wasn't looking any better the following fall. NC is bad enough that to some teachers, Georgia is looking like a better option-- but when you're 42nd in teacher and plummeting regularly, that's what you get.
Well, here's a new report to let us know that things are still looking bad.
Station WBTV reports that teachers rallied at the state capital last week to speak out about the NC budget, which includes cuts to education money, resulting in various cuts including a possible 8,500 teacher assistants. The state's second-largest school district has seen almost 1,000 teachers resign for this coming fall. The state may be bleeding classroom professionals faster than any transfusion could hope to replace-- and no transfusion is coming soon, because enrollment in NC teacher training programs is down twenty percent over three years.
The report indicates that teachers are learning the fine art of one-to-one lobbying. It remains to be seen if they can make an impression in time to save the teaching profession in their state. It is true that teachers don't go into the profession in order to make money-- but we do like to make a difference, and we do like to make our bill payments. As long as North Carolina makes it more and more difficult for teachers to do either of those things, they will continue to be strong contenders in the race to the bottom.
Just to recap. NC legislators tried to get rid of tenure, but there were these dumb laws and things that got in their way. Then, since they couldn't manage that, the plucky leaders decided to hold teacher pay hostage-- an easy trick because North Carolina teachers have been losing ground in both real dollar wages and, well, any other kind of dollar wages, for almost a decade. The legislature offered a deal-- teachers could have a raise (just one) if they gave up job security. They've also attempted merit pay, offering a big whopping $500 bonus for teachers of students with good test scores.
On top of all that, North Carolina has also instituted destructive classroom policies. NC is one of the states where we'll flunk your third grader if she can't pass the standardized test, despite a boatload of evidence that such policies do more harm than good. Plus, North Carolina has tried to become an Ohio-style charter school paradise with the kind of oversight-free approach that lets even the most obvious grifter strike it rich.
By spring of 2014, reports showed that the program to drive teachers out of NC was working well. It wasn't looking any better the following fall. NC is bad enough that to some teachers, Georgia is looking like a better option-- but when you're 42nd in teacher and plummeting regularly, that's what you get.
Well, here's a new report to let us know that things are still looking bad.
Station WBTV reports that teachers rallied at the state capital last week to speak out about the NC budget, which includes cuts to education money, resulting in various cuts including a possible 8,500 teacher assistants. The state's second-largest school district has seen almost 1,000 teachers resign for this coming fall. The state may be bleeding classroom professionals faster than any transfusion could hope to replace-- and no transfusion is coming soon, because enrollment in NC teacher training programs is down twenty percent over three years.
The report indicates that teachers are learning the fine art of one-to-one lobbying. It remains to be seen if they can make an impression in time to save the teaching profession in their state. It is true that teachers don't go into the profession in order to make money-- but we do like to make a difference, and we do like to make our bill payments. As long as North Carolina makes it more and more difficult for teachers to do either of those things, they will continue to be strong contenders in the race to the bottom.
Duncan: Every Family's Rights
In addressing the national PTA conference last week, Arne Duncan unveiled a new, more compact and campaign-ready version of the USED talking points, three "foundational" rights for every family.
This collects several of the talking point adjustments we've made over the past year. "College and careers" have now become "college, career and life."
USED continues its commitment to preschool without showing any understanding of what "quality" means for a preschool. That is book-ended with a commitment to affordable college. The commitment to affordable college would be more compelling were it not that the Department of Education is one of the entities profiting from college students. If the feds want college to become more affordable, there is a simple but powerful first step readily within their grasp-- start lending money to college students at the same sorts of rates they grant big time banks and other favored customers.
Sandwiched in between these, we get a now boiled-down version of the last decade-plus of reformster rhetoric. High standards (whatever that means, though we certainly won't use the C words any more), good teaching, good leadership, and resources-- families have a right to schools with all of these.
Note that families are not entitled to a democratic process for creating their own local school system.
When I say that these points are campaign ready, I was thinking specifically of the Clinton campaign. Hillary Clinton's website covers a lot of ground, but really doesn't say much about education issues at all. Her policies seem likely to be close to those of the current administration and the previous one, too, for that matter).
Her education PAC declares itself in support of five ideas:
1. Universal pre-school
2. Two free years of community college
3. Increased teacher pay and flex work options
4. Access to high quality schools for all communities
5. Full-service community schools
It all seems familiar, fluffy and foundation-free. Lordy, but I'm not looking foreward to the coming year in politics.
USED continues its commitment to preschool without showing any understanding of what "quality" means for a preschool. That is book-ended with a commitment to affordable college. The commitment to affordable college would be more compelling were it not that the Department of Education is one of the entities profiting from college students. If the feds want college to become more affordable, there is a simple but powerful first step readily within their grasp-- start lending money to college students at the same sorts of rates they grant big time banks and other favored customers.
Sandwiched in between these, we get a now boiled-down version of the last decade-plus of reformster rhetoric. High standards (whatever that means, though we certainly won't use the C words any more), good teaching, good leadership, and resources-- families have a right to schools with all of these.
Note that families are not entitled to a democratic process for creating their own local school system.
When I say that these points are campaign ready, I was thinking specifically of the Clinton campaign. Hillary Clinton's website covers a lot of ground, but really doesn't say much about education issues at all. Her policies seem likely to be close to those of the current administration and the previous one, too, for that matter).
Her education PAC declares itself in support of five ideas:
1. Universal pre-school
2. Two free years of community college
3. Increased teacher pay and flex work options
4. Access to high quality schools for all communities
5. Full-service community schools
It all seems familiar, fluffy and foundation-free. Lordy, but I'm not looking foreward to the coming year in politics.
USED Sticks It To NY Disabled Students
The United States Department of Education ordered New York to keep making life miserable for students with special needs.
The state had asked for freedom to test some students based on their developmental level rather than their chronological age. They had also asked to give new English speakers two years before giving them the 3-8 grade tests, rather than the current one.
Arne Duncan's department said no on both counts.
U.S. Assistant Education Secretary Deborah Delisle said the requirements are "necessary to ensure that teachers and parents of all students, including (English learners) and students with disabilities, have information on their students' proficiency and progress in reading/language arts and mathematics" and "to ensure that schools are held accountable for the academic achievement of all students."
The first reason is raw, unsliced baloney. First, as always, the department assumes that teachers and parents are dopes who have no idea how the student is doing until the student takes the magical test. Second, exactly how much information can really be gleaned by a test that a student cannot pass, either because it is far beyond the students intellectual capabilities or because it is in a language that a student has been using for less than a year?
The second reason is, at least, more honest. Duncan's has long expressed the belief that special needs designations are used to warehouse undesirable, difficult or underserved students, rendering them effectively invisible and allowing the schools to give up on them. Very well. Those of us who support public education need to not pretend that such things don't ever happen. But I don't believe that it happens nearly as much as the feds seem to fear, and I especially don't believe that the solution is to drag every single student with a challenge out into the center of town to be forced to fail visibly and completely.
There is nothing to be gained by forcing students to associate education with failure, to turn school into that place where they go to hear about how much they suck. It helps nobody.
Oh, I know. The most bizarrely stupid idea to become lodged in this department of education is the notion that students with special needs only do more poorly because teachers expect them to-- if teachers just expected harder, all students would do great. When it comes to English Language Learners, presumably the department is staffed with the same people who believe that when speaking to people who don't speak English, you can close the gap by speaking English at them louder, slower and harder.
So congratulations, New York, on being reminded that the feds have mandated failure for some of your most vulnerable students, and your teachers must continue to ignore their professional wisdom and personal empathy and instead continue throwing students with challenges under the bus.
The state had asked for freedom to test some students based on their developmental level rather than their chronological age. They had also asked to give new English speakers two years before giving them the 3-8 grade tests, rather than the current one.
Arne Duncan's department said no on both counts.
U.S. Assistant Education Secretary Deborah Delisle said the requirements are "necessary to ensure that teachers and parents of all students, including (English learners) and students with disabilities, have information on their students' proficiency and progress in reading/language arts and mathematics" and "to ensure that schools are held accountable for the academic achievement of all students."
The first reason is raw, unsliced baloney. First, as always, the department assumes that teachers and parents are dopes who have no idea how the student is doing until the student takes the magical test. Second, exactly how much information can really be gleaned by a test that a student cannot pass, either because it is far beyond the students intellectual capabilities or because it is in a language that a student has been using for less than a year?
The second reason is, at least, more honest. Duncan's has long expressed the belief that special needs designations are used to warehouse undesirable, difficult or underserved students, rendering them effectively invisible and allowing the schools to give up on them. Very well. Those of us who support public education need to not pretend that such things don't ever happen. But I don't believe that it happens nearly as much as the feds seem to fear, and I especially don't believe that the solution is to drag every single student with a challenge out into the center of town to be forced to fail visibly and completely.
There is nothing to be gained by forcing students to associate education with failure, to turn school into that place where they go to hear about how much they suck. It helps nobody.
Oh, I know. The most bizarrely stupid idea to become lodged in this department of education is the notion that students with special needs only do more poorly because teachers expect them to-- if teachers just expected harder, all students would do great. When it comes to English Language Learners, presumably the department is staffed with the same people who believe that when speaking to people who don't speak English, you can close the gap by speaking English at them louder, slower and harder.
So congratulations, New York, on being reminded that the feds have mandated failure for some of your most vulnerable students, and your teachers must continue to ignore their professional wisdom and personal empathy and instead continue throwing students with challenges under the bus.
Friday, June 26, 2015
Corporatized: The Movie
As the resistance to the reformster movement has grown, it has slowly developed its own video wing.
There have been highlights already. The film Building the Machine (now available for free on youtube) is a slickly produced piece from folks who are not necessarily fans of public schools, but who share public education advocates' distrust of corporate and government forced reformy programs.
Standardized is a great look at the role of standardized testing in the reformster movement. You can buy a copy of that; I've handing mine off to anybody who will watch it.
Defies Measurement, a documentary by Shannon Puckett, is also available to watch for free on line. I've reviewed it on this blog; it's a masterful blending of the larger issues of reform with the specific example of one school's struggle. You should watch it.
I am waiting for my copy of Education, Inc by filmmaker Brian Malone; once I've seen it, I'll have a full review here.
(Just to be transparent-- while I know and respect many of the people in these films, I am not in any of them. My transformation from blogger to talking head has not yet occurred).
The film I want to talk to you about today is still in the pipeline-- Corporatized:The Real Story about the Education Takeover. The film is being produced by two film-makers-- Jack Paar and Ron Halpern-- with a background in the business. Paar's wife is a teacher, and a rally in Washington that she attended piqued his interest. Here's their kickstarter reel:
The film is still working on raising funds, and they have a fairly large chunk of change in mind, but the film looks like it has its heart in the right place. If you are interested in helping, stop over to their kickstarter page and make a contribution. I mean, blogs and words are nice, but for reaching the general public, pictures that move and talk are far more powerful, and we can use all the help we can get putting out the word. Like some critics of documentaries, I doubt that documentaries change already-made-up minds-- but I think they can definitely influence minds that haven't been made up yet. As much time as we spend on these issues, I still think there's a huge chunk of the population that just doesn't know, and films like this can help people finally understand what is going on. So spread the word and make a contribution.
There have been highlights already. The film Building the Machine (now available for free on youtube) is a slickly produced piece from folks who are not necessarily fans of public schools, but who share public education advocates' distrust of corporate and government forced reformy programs.
Standardized is a great look at the role of standardized testing in the reformster movement. You can buy a copy of that; I've handing mine off to anybody who will watch it.
Defies Measurement, a documentary by Shannon Puckett, is also available to watch for free on line. I've reviewed it on this blog; it's a masterful blending of the larger issues of reform with the specific example of one school's struggle. You should watch it.
I am waiting for my copy of Education, Inc by filmmaker Brian Malone; once I've seen it, I'll have a full review here.
(Just to be transparent-- while I know and respect many of the people in these films, I am not in any of them. My transformation from blogger to talking head has not yet occurred).
The film I want to talk to you about today is still in the pipeline-- Corporatized:The Real Story about the Education Takeover. The film is being produced by two film-makers-- Jack Paar and Ron Halpern-- with a background in the business. Paar's wife is a teacher, and a rally in Washington that she attended piqued his interest. Here's their kickstarter reel:
The film is still working on raising funds, and they have a fairly large chunk of change in mind, but the film looks like it has its heart in the right place. If you are interested in helping, stop over to their kickstarter page and make a contribution. I mean, blogs and words are nice, but for reaching the general public, pictures that move and talk are far more powerful, and we can use all the help we can get putting out the word. Like some critics of documentaries, I doubt that documentaries change already-made-up minds-- but I think they can definitely influence minds that haven't been made up yet. As much time as we spend on these issues, I still think there's a huge chunk of the population that just doesn't know, and films like this can help people finally understand what is going on. So spread the word and make a contribution.
Privatizer Product Placement
Fellow blogger Steven Singer has spotted one of the more troubling trends in the current education debates.
In the Marvel Universe, he ran across two examples of privatizer ideas embedded into the fabric of shows.
In Agents of Shield, a character uses charter schooling as shorthand for loving parental care-- if you really love your kid, you put her in a charter school.
In Daredevil, a character equates the of-course-their-corrupt villainy of the teachers union with the mob and evil corporate polluters.
Check out his original post to see the particulars.
This sort of thing troubles me more than the umpty-gazillionth essay by a reformster that will be read by a small sampling of other reformsters. One of things we easily forget in these debates is that while we struggle and holler and dialogue and argue, most of the US population goes on about their business unaware that there's any problem.
Product placement in mainstream media reaches those folks, and it reaches them in an uncritical, visceral way. It's a basic rule of politics and marketing-- repeat something over and over and over and over and over again, and people will start to assume that it's just one of those things that everybody knows.
We've seen it with the idea that US public schools are failing-- everybody has heard it so many times that they simply assume that it's so.
It is possible to push back, but it takes the same dogged repetition. Reformsters stopped saying that teachers wrote the Common Core because every single time they said it, someone was there to contradict them, to hold up the truth, to challenge them for the proof they didn't have. And so they stopped saying it.
Pushing back and calling out-- that's how these battles are fought.
As Singer surmises, someone at Marvel may have been paid for a little product placement, may have been told these issues are on the corporate synergy list, or may simply be repeating something they heard. In any case, and in all cases where we find this sort of thing, the answer is to send letters, tweet, emails, whatever fits your resources.
Here's the contact information for Marvel. Let them know. Pass the word. Speak up. Every repetition counts.
In the Marvel Universe, he ran across two examples of privatizer ideas embedded into the fabric of shows.
In Agents of Shield, a character uses charter schooling as shorthand for loving parental care-- if you really love your kid, you put her in a charter school.
In Daredevil, a character equates the of-course-their-corrupt villainy of the teachers union with the mob and evil corporate polluters.
Check out his original post to see the particulars.
This sort of thing troubles me more than the umpty-gazillionth essay by a reformster that will be read by a small sampling of other reformsters. One of things we easily forget in these debates is that while we struggle and holler and dialogue and argue, most of the US population goes on about their business unaware that there's any problem.
Product placement in mainstream media reaches those folks, and it reaches them in an uncritical, visceral way. It's a basic rule of politics and marketing-- repeat something over and over and over and over and over again, and people will start to assume that it's just one of those things that everybody knows.
We've seen it with the idea that US public schools are failing-- everybody has heard it so many times that they simply assume that it's so.
It is possible to push back, but it takes the same dogged repetition. Reformsters stopped saying that teachers wrote the Common Core because every single time they said it, someone was there to contradict them, to hold up the truth, to challenge them for the proof they didn't have. And so they stopped saying it.
Pushing back and calling out-- that's how these battles are fought.
As Singer surmises, someone at Marvel may have been paid for a little product placement, may have been told these issues are on the corporate synergy list, or may simply be repeating something they heard. In any case, and in all cases where we find this sort of thing, the answer is to send letters, tweet, emails, whatever fits your resources.
Here's the contact information for Marvel. Let them know. Pass the word. Speak up. Every repetition counts.
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