Anthony Cody writes that the corporate reformers have decided that it’s time to shift the narrative. Having spent the past few years ginning up a crisis climate about our “failing schools” and the need to fire “bad” teachers, the reformers realize the public is tuning them out. There’s an old line about npt wanting to listen to a broken record but there aren’t too many people left who remember what a record is (you know, the vinyl discs that were either 78, 45, or 33 rpm; if they got a scratch, the needle would get stuck in a groove, and the same notes would play over and over, to the point of tedium).
Cody says that Gates is now funding “success” stories. We all love success stories. But what we really need is honest, objective reporting about how testing and choice are working and how they affect children and the quality of education.
Cody writes:
“In 2010, a stark image was broadcast around the nation. It showed a child seated at a school desk surrounded by absolute devastation and ruin. That image was used promote the movie, “Waiting For Superman.” The movie was boosted with a $2 million advertising grant from the Gates Foundation, and was further promoted on Oprah and NBC’s Education Nation – also underwritten by the Gates Foundation. The clarion call was “public schools are broken and bad teachers cannot be fired
“But that is not what we hear now, for some reason. Now, we have stories of success popping up in the media – strangely sponsored by some of the same people who were shouting warnings of calamity just a few years ago.
“How and why has the prevailing story advanced by sponsors of education reform shifted over the past four years from one of failure and doom to one of success? And how is our media cooperating with the crafting of these dominant narratives?”
Well, it is not all happy talk. We still have the Vergara attack on teachers’ due process; we still have loopy efforts to judge teachers by test scores; we still have Pearson buying up every organization that measures American education; we still have Arne Duncan with his snide comments about parents, students, and schools.
I would settle for objective reporting about our schools, better informed and more of it.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The better reporting will occur in the social media sphere as is happening here. The major media outlets are owned by a small group of very wealthy people who promote market solutions to everything including public education. All the more important to fight hard for “net neutrality” which is under assault. Obama gave a half-hearted endorsement of net neutrality unlike his forceful endorsement when he was campaigning for election. Let’s not forget that he appointed Tom Wheeler, a 30 year lobbyist for cable companies, as chairman of the FCC.
I have no happy talk for anyone right now. This is my post on FB today – as Michael said – the true reporting is in the social media sphere. My post on FB: For any parents here:
Toxic Testing cannot be decoupled from Toxic Common Core Curriculum and Toxic Common Core standards. They are designed to work together. I have yet to see a common core curriculum – that mind you is getting force fed to teachers and students dictator style – that is not scripted, filled with test prep, and filled with mind-numbing formulaic writing or multiple choice questions. All boring. All create non-thinkers. All destroy democracy. Anyone who stands by the common core is assisting in the dismantling of the public schools and assisting in the abuse of children – I’m not mincing words today. Why? Cause I’m watching it first hand and I am sick of outsiders making decisions that harm children while they gain money and political status. I’m watching children be used like guinea pigs. Right now, my only backup is parents. Parents – begin to file open records requests in your school to get contracts on this new CC curriculum and testing. Find out the cost. Begin to carefully examine this curriculum – alongside ed. activists who can help you identify the test prep and the ever so slick character building being enforced to engage these children on these tests – the children are tired, they are fed up with testing – and folks are afraid that when PARCC arrives they will just whip through the test and get it done. Therefore, perseverance and character building is becoming the name of the game – children must be forced to persevere on these tests. I am telling you, this campaign is at times a loud and clear campaign to privatize using our children, and other times it is subtle and doesn’t show up on the radar. It’s war at all levels. And I don’t exaggerate. Ask me about my week. One day – testing all day. Another half day – Pearson online social studies curriculum training. Another full day – coach training for me by a former TFA. The other two and a half days? I did my best to help children and teachers engage in authentic learning. One week. One teacher. Your tax dollars at work. And children suffering. Where is the outrage. And where is my backup? Right now, parents, you are it. Thank you. Revolt
Peggy Robertson: what you said!
And you are not exaggerating in the slightest when you state “Toxic Testing cannot be decoupled from Toxic Common Core Curriculum and Toxic Common Core standards. They are designed to work together.”
An absolutely unimpeachable witness to the veracity of your assertion: Dr. Frederick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute, a charter member of the self-styled “education reform” movement. From a December 2013 posting by him on his blog, reproduced [with invaluable contextual information] on the blog of deutsch29 later that same month—
[start quote]
In truth, the idea that the Common Core might be a “game-changer” has little to do with the Common Core standards themselves, and everything to do with stuff attached to them, especially the adoption of common tests that make it possible to readily compare schools, programs, districts, and states (of course, the announcement that one state after another is opting out of the two testing consortia is hollowing out this promise).
But the Common Core will only make a dramatic difference if those test results are used to evaluate schools or hire, pay, or fire teachers; or if the effort serves to alter teacher preparation, revamp instructional materials, or compel teachers to change what students read and do. And, of course, advocates have made clear that this is exactly what they have in mind. When they refer to the “Common Core,” they don’t just mean the words on paper–what they really have in mind is this whole complex of changes.
[end quote]
Link: http://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2013/12/28/the-american-enterprise-institute-common-core-and-good-cop/
With one absolutely essential and non-negotiable caveat: when it comes to the schools attended by the leaders and peers of the self-styled “new civil rights movement of our time”—think Lakeside School [Bill Gates] and U of Chicago Lab Schools [Rahm Emanuel] and Sidwell Friends [Barack Obama] and Delbarton School [Chris Christie] and Harpeth Hall [Michelle Rhee-Johnson] and the like—this hazing ritual that enforces the “hard bigotry of mandated failure” is not allowed to replace genuine teaching and learning.
Really! Not Rheeally, even in a Johnsonally sort of way…
And for a blast from the recent past:
This blog, 3/23/2014, “Common Core for Commoners, Not My School”—the entire blog posting: “This is an unintentionally hilarious story about Common Core in Tennessee. Dr. Candace McQueen has been dean of Lipscomb College’s school of education and also the state’s’s chief cheerleader for Common Core. However, she was named headmistress of private Lipscomb Academy, and guess what? She will not have the school adopt the Common Core! Go figure.”
No, Common Core and its conjoined twin, high-stakes standardized testing, is only to be inflicted on, er, imposed on, er, mandated for OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN aka the vast majority.
Not walking their own talk? Grand Canyon chasm between what they ensure for THEIR OWN CHILDREN and what they are foisting on OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN?
It’s all part of their Marxist playbook:
“The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”
Groucho, yes, the North Star of the “education reform” movement.
And the chance that the “thought leaders” of the education establishment will listen to you and others about what is happening on the ground? That they will reflect on what you and others have written and proved and demonstrated? That they are capable of genuine self-criticism and self-correction?
“I reject that mind-set.” [Michelle Rhee]
Says the person who [imitating her style] “sucks” at education reform but excels at “education reform.”
But in this case, I believe her…
😎
KrazyTA.. what can one say… FANTASTIC COMMENT…
worth repeating the whole piece but here is my fav …
“With one absolutely essential and non-negotiable caveat: when it comes to the schools attended by the leaders and peers of the self-styled “new civil rights movement of our time”—think Lakeside School [Bill Gates] and U of Chicago Lab Schools [Rahm Emanuel] and Sidwell Friends [Barack Obama] and Delbarton School [Chris Christie] and Harpeth Hall [Michelle Rhee-Johnson] and the like—this hazing ritual that enforces the “hard bigotry of mandated failure” is not allowed to replace genuine teaching and learning…”
AMEN, Peggy!
Yes, exactly right, thanks!
I think “Happy Talk” is like Custer’s last stand at the Battle of Little Big Horn. For every one positive charter school story… THERE ARE THOUSANDS OF BAD ONES. Charters and “ed reform” are succumbing to a reality as sinking as quicksand but they refuse to acknowledge it. All the PR in the world would not work after the “unsinkable” Titanic SUNK! Parents outnumber the few megamillionaires sustaining this sinking “cause”. These are absurd times.
Artseagal,
I think your ratio of good charters to poor ones is wildly off. There are a little less than 6,000 charter schools in the US.
Actually I think artseagal is correct on the ratio of good/bad charter schools. I’d be surprised if there is even one good charter. By that I mean a charter whose students would perform better than if they were in a public school. With all the corruption that seems to be going on with charter schools I’d say charters are a disaster, a cancer on public education that needs to be removed.
Micheal,
I think you underestimate the varieties of charter schools. There are old traditional charter schools like the Pennsylvania School for the Deaf, newer ones like the Walton Rural Center charter school and the Community Roots Charter School. There are Montessori charter schools, Waldorf Charter Schools, and a Progressive Charter Schools.
And if those very same schools were public with same students and without a profit motive i’m convinced they would be better for the students, less so for profiteers.
Michael,
Many charter schools are run as non-profits, so I don’t see that as the big difference between traditional public schools and charter schools.
You can’t be serious. Success Academy in NYC run by Eva Moskowitz is a non-profit. The school has about 6000 to 7000 students. Eva Moskowitz’ salary as reported here in another thread is about $490,000! So let’s take the higher estimate of 7000 and apply the per student compensation she gets on a NYC wide basis for public schools. NYC schools chancellor has a salary of $250,000 in a system of 1.1 million students. If the chancellor were to be paid the same per student compensation as Moskowitz, the salary would be $77,000,000. Do you think the public would stand for that! These charter school operators are enriching themselves on the public dime. In addition there are several layers of officers below Moskowitz that also make hefty salaries. From what I’ve seen these numbers are typical among charter school. Pure greed abetted by Obama’s destructive public education policies. I’m you know that none of these policies apply to the schools Obama’s children attend.
Michael,
There are 197 charter schools in New York city. Why take Success Academy as the only example of a New York charter school?
You misrepresent so easily. I responded to your statement that many charters are non-profits therefore are similar to public schools, presumably meaning self enrichment was not a factor for the charter operators. Eva Moskowitz is just the most well known example. Harlem Children’s Zone is another example. Goeffrey Canada does very well too. Frank Biden, the brother of Vice President Biden is a major charter operator in Florida and I read somewhere that he earns over 1 million from his charter school. Oh, and by the way, Eva Moskowitz’ husband also runs a charter in NYC. Another $490,000??? My sense is you have some sort of connection to the charter industry.
Michael,
I have no connection to the charter industry.
I find it frustrating that folks here draw conclusions about the wide variety of charter schools based on a small fraction of the charter schools. Success Academy is one of many charter schools in the city, and concerns about it should be criticisms of it, not charter schools. If you don’t like Heads of charter schools making $xxx, make a regulation about how much the head of a charter school can make.
Charter schools claim they are public schools yet also claim they are not public schools when it comes to auditing their records.
Micheal,
Again an issue of insufficient or imprecise regulation of charter school.
teachingeconomist… you need to do a bit more close reading… I won’t spell out the mistake you made… go back into the text… I can help you with this… read the quote from my comment below:
For every one positive charter school story… THERE ARE THOUSANDS OF BAD ONES…”
hint: the operative word here is “story”…
That is all I have to say….
Not just outsiders. I watched as our local AFT president stated her support for CCSS at our Democratic gubernatorial candidate’s education forum. The decks are stacked – on all sides.
Hi Peggy, would you give me permission to copy and repost your comments here? I think your comment is very well stated. Thank you
“Could it be that a dozen years into NCLB and five years into a reform-pushing Obama administration, the Gates Foundation realizes it now has a large ownership of the reforms like Common Core it has promoted so vigorously, and must shift from broad condemnations of public schools to finding places where their reforms can be shown to be working?”
Great piece by Mr. Cody. I think we saw it with the Common Core test roll-out. It was good cop time. The same teachers and schools who supposedly couldn’t tie their own shoes without 15 national lobbyists monitoring and critiquing their every move somehow managed to make the giant , complex Common Core testing a huge success. They went from “mediocre” and “bottom of the barrel” to super-de-duper the moment they were putting in an ed reform-blessed program. I still have whiplash. I don’t how they got so smart so fast!
And then came the scores. We were told in a faculty meeting yesterday that we have to tell parents (if they mention the horrible test results) that we can’t compare the old tests to these new ones–that it’s a “higher bar” and all of that crud. I refuse to tell parents that. I will tell parents that the reason more than 85% of Utah schools will now receive a “failing” grade and that more than half (in some cases, more than 70%) of kids are now going to be told they are not “proficient” (whatever that means) is because the Utah state legislature wants public schools to look bad so that the public begins clamoring for charters and vouchers. I also hope parents begin asking about the additional tests that students are being stuck with, resulting in at least 17 hours of standardized testing per student per year.
Good for you! You have seen the puppet master behind the curtain.Years ago, when I took a testing and measurement course, I was told that if results of testing should be a bell shape curve or I had failed to create a valid assessment instrument. Maybe the CCS people need some training in testing and measurement.
Brilliant observation, Chiara.
The need to market offensive policies is part of the reason for “happy talk.” Actually, experts do not recommend that strategy in every case.
Here is an example. In December 2012, anonymous contract writers for the Reform Support Network, a loose network contractors funded by USDE to market Race to the Top policies for teacher evaluation (under the banner of offering technical assistance to states with RttT grants) published a portfolio of communication strategies for state and district officials.
The title illustrates how USDE’s marketing experts see the problem: ” Engaging Educators, A Reform Support Network Guide for States and Districts: Toward a New Grammar and Framework for Educator Engagement.” The title is Orwellian, not noticed by RSN’s experts in communication.
This publication is addressed to state and district officials. It offers guidance on how to persuade teachers and principals to comply with RttT and federal policies aimed at pay-for-performance plans. Such plans usually depend on ratings calculated from multiple measures, including so-called growth scores.
Engaging Educators begins with the premise that RttT policies do not need to be changed. The policies are just misunderstood, especially by teachers. The solution is to “deliver knowledge” about RttT in formats most likely to secure compliance.
Engaging Educators packs about 30 communication strategies, all portrayed as “knowledge development,” into four paragraphs about “message delivery options.” These include “op-eds, letters to the editor, blast messages, social media, press releases,“ and regular in-house techniques.
RSN marketers emphasize the need to “Get the Language Right,“ meaning that communications should by-pass “gotcha” talk—the idea that teachers can lose their jobs—and also avoid excessive “happy talk.” Instead, messaging should focus on “improving student learning.”
RSN marketers recommend additional “messaging” strategies to keep teacher criticism at bay. First, criticism needs to be construed as “misunderstanding.” Among the suggested techniques to monitor teacher perceptions are teacher surveys, focus groups, websites with rapid response to frequently asked questions, graphic organizers integrated into professional development, websites, podcasts, webinars, teacher–made videos of their instruction (vetted for SLO compliance), and a catalog of evocative phrases and claims tested in surveys and focus groups. These rhetorical devices can then be used to maintain a consistent system of messaging.
RSN marketers also suggest that districts offer released time or payments for timely messaging delivered by “teacher SWAT teams that can be deployed at key junctures of the… redesign of evaluation systems.”
This publication is just one of about thirty produced by RSN (the most recent a 2014 communication strategy for selling SLOs). Few RSN publications have any identified authors other than the RSN.
You can see more of these strategies in Engaging educators: A reform support network guide for states and districts. Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved from www2.ed.gov/about/inits/ed/implementation-support-unit/tech-assist/engaging-educators.pdf and the other publications at the UDSE website under Reform Support Network.
The initial funding for this marketing program, at $43 million, went to ICF International a for profit company. IFC passed along some of the money to subcontractors, at least one of these Education First with the senior person a former advocacy expert for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
I’m signed up to receive messages from the White House and recently got one from Arne Duncan asking for success stories from my local schools. Coincidence?
I think they finally realized most children attend public schools and they probably have to make some effort to look like they’re actually interested in improving public schools instead of replacing them 🙂
Next up in amazing revelations to hit DC! They realize that telling working people they’re stupid and lazy and that’s why their wages haven’t budged since 2002 is NOT a political winner! 🙂
The whole “skills gap” theme has been amazing to watch.
Politicians and CEO’s fanning out all over the country to deliver stern, scolding lectures to the “middle class” on how we have to better serve our employers has to be the dumbest, most out of touch political campaign I have ever seen in my life. Can they not hear themselves?
Blaming the working and middle class for the demise of the working and middle class. Which political consultant came up with that, and why do they still have a job?
Arne is a just a “Drama King” like most politicians. Can’t trust him one iota.
I think you should sent him a “success story”. Something like,
Dear Arne,
My school just finished a very successful testing period. This year only half the kids broke down crying and only two wet their pants (I teach high school). Last year about three-fourths broke down crying and we had five or six pants-wetters. But don’t worry, thanks to changes in cut scores, even though fewer kids cried, more of them failed, so you’ll soon have another school to “turn around”. Congratulations on your successes, Arne!”
Dienne,
Don’t your children attend a private progressive school?
Your point, TE? Yes, I refuse to subject my kids to the abuse that is being inflicted on public schools. But that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped fighting for public schools. Unlike Obama and his ilk who put their own kids in progressive private schools and then inflict abuse on public schools, I want every child’s school to look like my child’s school.
Dienne,
In your post above you talked about what was happening in “my school”. I was trying to figure out if those things were happening in the school your children attend or if the post was a fictional account of what might be happening in a school.
Geez, TE, you can be really dense. I can only assume it’s intentional. The “letter” I suggested was just a template for a “success” story from a public school based on the kinds of things teachers and parents post here every day, since Arne’s definition of success apparently differs from everyone else’s. I would have thought you would have understood that, but I’ll believe you’re that obtuse if you really want me to.
Do they just want charter success stories or public success stories as well? I’m afraid they just want to fill their charter war chests for their next propaganda campaign. Public schools should collect their own public success stories and post them on youtube.
I just got a “happy talk” mailing from the California Teachers’ Association that makes me ill. It’s all about the wonders of the Common Core. It’s all the usual dubious CCSS talking points presented as incontrovertible fact –teachers developed the standards, they’re just like Finland’s, they WILL result in improved critical thinking skills (even though there’s no proof), and, here’s the really astonishing one: they give teachers autonomy. What parallel universe is Dean Vogel living in? The moment testing resumes and a school’s existence hangs on the results, method will be mandated –just as it was under with the old tests. I don’t understand why the union doesn’t see the tyranny ahead.
The union mailing also hails the new tests in the language of the promoters –they’re smarter, “next-generation” tests. Bull. The tests are the worst part of the new order, the part guaranteed to deform education and force teachers to make arid skills exercise their sole focus. What successful school has ever made skills exercise, not subject matter, the focus of school? Finnish schools? Elite prep schools? Scarsdale schools? We’re embarking on a radical and misguided experiment that will fail. It’s too bad the union and many teachers don’t see this.
Since skills-exercise is now the new American curriculum, it would be nice if we professionals could have a sophisticated examination of this “best practice”. Does skills practice make well-educated graduates? Do we really know how to teach critical thinking? If so, how do we know? Do we know that the lessons we’re devising that allegedly prepare kids to meet the standards actually do? Do we know that the new tests will be valid measures of whether the kids meet the standards, or valid measures of any other worthy educational objective? Could it be that they merely measure doggedness and the quality of their brain’s hard-wiring (in other words, genetic endowment and whether they have avoided brain damaging experiences)? Is there any evidence that teachers can teach what is measured by these tests?
Sadly I can’t help but think that there’s an intellectual bankruptcy in the union and much of the education establishment that’s at the root of bad choices like this.
I got the same kind of email from the Utah Education Association last summer telling me the same garbage. The UEA wanted all members to flood the school board, which was looking at dropping the CC, with positive messages about how wonderful the Core is and how it is helping us teach so much better. I am the WRONG person to get that kind of an email, and I sent several fiery emails back to the president of the UEA, telling her I would do no such thing, and that I was appalled at the UEA’s unvarnished love of the CC.
PROPAGANDA…MARKETING…POLITICAL HACKS..GREED!
Oh, happy talk, like they had on CBS this morning, with “success stories” like the one from the 5th grade class in my district.
Anthony’s article cross-posted with some of your intro
http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Gates-Money-Attempts-to-Sh-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Education_FAILURE_Money_Narrative-140921-428.html#comment512553
and my comment
and here is the answer to WAITING FOR SUPERMAN. THE link to the GRASSROOTS movie which chronicles the destruction of the the nYC public school system.
https://vimeo.com/4199476
called GRASSROOTS AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH WAITING FOR SUPERMAN
Submitted on Sunday, Sep 21, 2014 at 6:32:24 PM