One of the brilliant readers of this blog sent in a comment that made me understand what has been happening to American public education for the past 15-20 years.
It is the conscious, purposeful application of a marketing strategy called FUD: Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt.
Wikipedia says that FUD is used in sales, marketing, public relations, politics, and propaganda. I sensed that this was happening but I didn’t realize that it was a tried and true strategy that has a name and a documented history.
It’s a strategy in which one competitor undermines the other by spreading FUD. Read the Wikipedia entry to learn who the FUDmaster is.
In this country, the enemies of public education use FUD to advance their primary goal of privatization. They say our public schools are “obsolete” and “broken.” They say it over and over again. They use that line to promote privatization and for-profit education. They want to cut costs by getting rid of experienced teachers and replacing them with online instruction, so they belittle the value of experience and push laws to get rid of tenure and seniority. As they succeed in their use of FUD, what is broken is the spirits of teachers.
They say again and again that our schools are failing when they are not. They have wept about international test scores since “A Nation at Risk” in 1983, even as our economy took off. They use FUD to blame the schools for the market failures they cause. They use FUD to blame the schools for poverty.
High-stakes testing is their tool of choice to close schools and fire teachers.
If you want to see the quintessential application of FUD to public education, read the report of the task force of the Council on Foreign Relations, chaired by Joel Klein and Condoleeza Rice, which says that our public schools are a threat to national security and that their salvation is to help kids escape them via charters and vouchers. For an antidote, read my review of that report.
Or you could watch the quintessential documentary of FUD, see “Waiting for ‘Superman,'” and then read my review.
The reader who opened my eyes to this marketing strategy, designed to harm public education and to allow its destroyers to call themselves “reformers” signs her stuff as “chemtchr.” Now we know.
| Your reader is describing a market-capture strategy refined in the hardware/software market wars of the last century. It is based on sowing Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt about competing products. I capitalized each word. because the acronym is for the strategy, FUD, is enshrined now in the history of the dawn of the computer age.Google it, and read how IBM piioneered it, and then how the FUDmaster himself out-fudded them.It’s been unleashed now on public education. The children of a whole free nation, and the very people charged with their daily defense, are deliberately assaulted by fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Our state-imposed subservience to the data industry monopolists eats into every day of their childhood, as the FUDmaster tries to impose his defective new operating system on their minds and hearts. |
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Why am I not shocked?
perfect timing for this post. I just commented on FB
Who says a school is really failing? If one is judging based on junk science and the use of discredited tests, does this really make sense. Is anyone looking at the culture of the school? I agree that often a school could and should be doing better for its staff. Is the DOE providing support and resources to make sure the failing school has a computer lab, a functioning library, small class size, experienced teachers? Closing and reopening a “failing” school with the same population and the same lack of resources is like, what our mayor loves to say, rearranging chairs on the deck of the Titanic.
Yes, fear is one of the “F” words that should not have any place in public education debates. Not only is fear used by those seeking to destroy public education in order to privatize it to make a ton of money of the backs of the students as noted above but also by the powers that be from A. Duncan and the Dept of Ed (DOE), down to the state’s DOEs, to the local district’s central office, down to the building administrators, down to the teachers who then project that fear onto the students-do good on the standardized test or else!
And we all were taught (more likely than not at least those who went through traditional degree teacher preparation programs. I doubt this gets discussed/analyzed in the 5 week Teach for America program) that the best student learning occurs in a stress free, non threatening environment. And the powers that be continue educational policies that promote a learning environment that is threatening and fear based.
How sad!! How insane!! Where is the compassion in all of this??
“off” not “of” the backs
FUD meets The Shock Doctrine: a marriage made in Neoliberal/Social Darwinist heaven.
Lets not forget the DelphiTechnique. The perfect trifecta.
http://www.iror.org/delphi.asp
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/07/18/white-house-announces-1-billion-master-teacher-program
I hate to consider all these initiatives part of a larger conspiracy but it’s difficult not to sometimes.
Reading about the new program to create master STEM teachers, to me, is another ploy at creating the illusion that public schools are not doing well.
I am thinking of who is actually going to benefit from this very expensive new program. I am sure a few teachers will but I am fairly sure, based on previous experiences, that the bulk of the monies will go to provide huge profits for companies that will now create college classes and assessments for these soon to be Master STEM teachers.
To me, this plan is designed to funnel more public monies into the hands of giant corporations rather than using those funds to actually improve schools that need additional, authentic resources.
Some days I think that the day after Brown vs.the Board of Education, the machine to dismantle it started. I don’t like to think that way because even I think I sound crazy. But the more I read about the current state of affairs in education the more plausible it sounds to me.
Creating vouchers and charter schools creates a two tier system of education and encourages segregation. Slick marketing has convinced the public vouchers and charters are a good thing. Never underestimate the power of marketing and aggressive advertising.
I saw that “Your Baby Can Read” finally has come to an end. The public eventually realized the snake oil that it was. In the meantime, people were bilked out of a great deal of money and many babies were subjected to drill and kill.
My concern is that when the public eventually realizes that vouchers and charters are not what they thought,it might be too late to ever recover.
We must all continue to speak out everywhere and at every occasion and expose the “man behind the curtain” as being a fraud.
Sheila,
It’s not a conspiracy, although apologists for the hostile takeover of the schools use that word to marginalize critics.
No, it’s not conspiracy; it’s ruling class consensus.
FUD sums up my thoughts about the direction of our nation and the future of education.
I am confused! I thought the NAEP report showed that several states are making progress over the last ten years. Here in Louisiana we are ranked fifth on progress. Yet state tests show us as failures. I don’t trust the content of our high states tests since the content is so easily manipulated. Also, there is no real cohesion across states as to what is being tested and how rigorous. Here in my state I have seen the spin from our Ed dept. to make the information fit their needs. For example NewOrleans Recovery Schools ranking at the bottom of the list, yet being touted as a huge success. Sounds like FUD is alive and well here in Louisiana. I’d like to hear other opinions on the correlation between NAEP reports and individual state tests. I am new to most of this and am trying to learn to be a good consumer of data and information. Help me understand…if possible.
The results on the state tests are easily “gamed” or manipulated, to make them look better or worse, depending on what the state education department wants. They can move the passing mark to make the test easier or harder or change the mix of test questions.
Louisiana has made great progress on NAEP in math especially but also in reading in the past 20 years, but it still has a large population of low-performing students–and I’m willing to bet that the low-performing students reflect the high poverty rate in the state.
Thanks. I have about 93% FRL at my school. I worry that the Ed deforms are making it more and more difficult to meet the many and diverse needs of my students. It’s not just about math and ELA. I feel we are moving farther away from developmentaaly appropriate best practices for ALL students that research shows is critical to success. Hanging in there!
Excellent post. I’ll be sharing this one far and wide.
Dear Diane,
Thank you for your brave voice in the wilderness. Or is it wildermess? After working for over 34 years in Sp.Ed. I have watched this train wreck in NYS become bigger and dumber. FUD is no doubt working and has been honed to a fine art. When and where is the antiFUD?
We are the anti-FUD.
The truth is our weapon.
So here in Louisiana we get ready to start the new school year, having spent the summer at “mandatory” conferences and training; middle schools are sending many teachers to become AP certified, math and English teachers have spent their summer in classes 5 days a week for STEM training, CCSS classes abound with little information and three full days of “in-services” await us before we see students. That alone will kill any motivation that remains. So many teachers are exhausted and yet the demands for new and better programs requires 200%, last year teachers were requested to give 200% or find another position. Yet we have no idea what our value added scores really mean-some are told they don’t really matter if you’re a good teacher. Others are told that starting 2013-2014 the firing of the lowest 10% will start.
No one can tell us how the scores will help us improve, where our strong or weak areas are, what we need to change, how we relate to the rest of the state etc. Teachers want to do their best and take it to heart when we are told we failed our kids. Even though logically we know the value added scores are bogus, especially since the numbers are not given meaning with explanations and feedback. Emotionally it has been devastating and most discussions are about the fear of hurting our students again since we don’t know what to improve. Teachers express fear of getting caught up in this mess and losing their tenure knowing that there is no way in hell anyone will manage to get “highly Effective 5 out of 6 years” to regain tenure if we don’t know what we did wrong in the first place!
A student I taught in high school several years ago, both of his parents are teachers, commented that this value added stuff is like failing your drivers test but no one tells you why and then says you have to do it again but since you don’t know what you did wrong in the first place you just keep failing. He said his family had a pretty miserable summer trying to deal with all the stress and fear of trying to decide if they should change careers, move to another state, get another degree (both of his parents have masters degrees and are national board certified and have been Teacher’s of the Year. He said they stick up for their students and that is what gets them in trouble and they fear it will effect their evaluations. He is looking forward to going back to college just to get out of the house and that makes him feel guilty.
If you teach math and English at least the LEAP scores count for your area, science and social studies are the step children. Any idea of how motivated a middle school student is to pass a test they don’t have to? Why focus only on 50% of the core subjects for years and years? Supposedly highly educated people who should know the interrelationship between all the core classes made that decision! Now math and English CCSS are here, with lots of overlap to science and social studies whose CCSS are years away.
No one want to talk about what is really going to happen next year, everyone is afraid, discussion leads to anger and frustration and many just want to ignore it and think all this will go away. Talking about the mess gets many in trouble and the newspapers don’t think it is worth discussing except for an occasional article. The Shreveport paper had a short article about how parents could avoid the inconvenience of PTA/PTO involvement(Thanks Shreveport Times), Jindal is gone running around campaigning for an office he doesn’t have yet while ignoring the one he has and our students are depending on teachers to create the safe, caring, learning environments they need. And we will, because that is what educators do.
Not a surprise that FUD explains our state and many others.
To both you and Bridget, Isn’t it strange how Supt. White keeps saying that teachers should have nothing to fear if they are doing their job? Fear =stress and unfortunately more apathy because one feels lost in the sea of attacks. Fear is such an unhealthy environment for teaching and learning. Who gets hurt the most, the kids in the classroom.
“No one can tell us how the scores will help us improve, where our strong or weak areas are, what we need to change, how we relate to the rest of the state etc.”
You are being set up. You have no way to use these tests
diagnostically; they are not designed to be used that way. I remember when parents in my state decided they wanted their students individual scores on the state tests. Since there was no state curriculum much less scope and sequence info, the tests were simply a rough snapshot of group performance designed for comparison of groups. It was accepted that students would be asked questions about material they had not studied. The scores gave no useful diagnostic information (and still don’t). While my home district is very high performing (upper,upper middle class), parents will still quibble over a percentage point or two difference between elementary schools. We are talking about grade testing cohorts of maybe 120 students tops. It doesn’t take much to create a difference
of 1-2%ile points nor does it matter when you are already talking about scores in the top 5%.
Text to world connection! I am thinking of Edward Bernays, a nephew of Sigmund Freud, and known as the ” father of public relations”. I’ll bet FUD is straight out of his playbook.
Amusing commentary on this topic: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jerrybowyer/2012/05/03/i-am-americas-amygdala/
More on Edward Burnays:
http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/1999Q2/bernays.html/
Also, Adam Curtis made a fascinating documentary on Bernays and propaganda throughout the 20th century:
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-century-of-the-self/
Thanks, Diane, for this FUD information. Thanks also to chmtchr whose comments and insights are such valuable contributions on your blogs.
Read this blast from the past in which Gates complains about how terrible US high schools are compared to what he’s seen in his travels around the world.
Microsoft Chairman Challenges Governors to Improve High Schools
Also tied to “THE BIG LIE”–the telling and retelling of a false narrative so that person after person starts to believe it and repeat it. Tell it often enough, and fervently enough, that even the initiators come to believe it. I am not surpirsed that this FUD is a business strategy and has a name and a doctrine, but I am saddened by its application.
OMG! FUD jogged my memory about a book I read 2 yrs ago by Naomi Oreskes & Erik Conway “Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming”. Edu-reformers are using some of the same strategies that were used by the tobacco and oil industries to advance their business agendas and preclude government regulation on their products. Oreskes is an historian of science at U Cal, San Diego. She and Conway tell an amazing story that begins in the 1980’s. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOnXL8ob_js
From a review: “Oreskes and Conway roll back the rug on this dark corner of the American scientific community, showing how the ideology of free market fundamentalism, aided by a too-compliant media, has skewed public understanding of some of the most pressing issues of our era.”
Her book chronicles how the tobacco industry and the oil industry ran effective PR campaigns to mislead the public on decades of science showing the effects of tobacco smoke on health and the effects of carbon emissions on climate. Both industries set up think tanks, hired established scientists whose credentials were stellar in their fields but whose expertise were not in health and climate. These “experts” conducted research to challenge decades of established facts. Their product was doubt. The purpose was to generate mistrust in established scientific findings. The outcome was to cloud the public’s knowledge, influence the media, and effect government policies that were moving to restrict tobacco and energy industries business practices. Their explicit strategy was “teach the controversy”. The sad reality is that doubt mongering works.
American public education is in a dark corner today. Our unquestioning media plays up the attacks on established education science and teachers. Recall Jonathan Alter & David Brookes articles denouncing Diane’s positions on NCLB & RttT. Think Tanks and private philanthropies have made it their business to disseminate junk science written by non-educators that, by design, bypass peer review (e.g. Gates Foundation, Center for American Progress, The Heritage Foundation, AEI, NEIT, et al.) to advance increasing class sizes, high stakes testing, merit pay, ending salary bumps for advanced degrees, charter schools, online education, vouchers, turn-arounds, ending collective bargaining, etc. Claims antithetical to actual scientific findings for efficacy. Bruce Baker (and many others) who regularly debunks the reformy arguments is virtually ignored in the national media.
Oreskes makes a provocative statement about scientists who make claims outside of their expertise: ‘The very features that lead to expertise in a particular domain leads to ignorance in many others.’ Bill Gates, Arne Duncan, Michael Milken, Joel Klien, Michael Bloomberg, Eli Broad, anyone?
A critical difference in the current edu-refomry campaign, missing from the previous campaign, is our government’s complicity with the privatizers. The private financial industry and philanthropists are using the full force of the government to advance their agendas. Capturing public money is their business model, schools are simply their vehicle. This is a story of betrayal by our elected officials. They are failing in their mission to serve the public. Indeed, our children’s future is in the hands of those who care the least about other people’s children.