John Thompson, teacher and historian, engages in debate with educator and historian Larry Cuban over the proper nomenclature for those who call themselves “reformers.” Cuban thinks it is wrong to call them “corporate reformers,” because it has negative connotations. Thompson disagrees.
How would you describe a movement that stretches from Barack Obama and Andrew Cuomo to Scott Walker and Jeb Bush? They call themselves “reformers,” but they make clear their commitment to high-stakes testing, teacher evaluations by test scores, and privatization by charters and, in the case of Republican governors like Rick Scott, John Kasich, and Mike Pence, vouchers too.
Thompson writes here:
http://www.livingindialogue.com/term-corporate-reformer-personal-attack/
I call them “corporate reformers” because they rely on carrots and sticks to motivate teachers and students. Educators usually seek to encourage intrinsic motivation, not extrinsic motivation.
What do you call this movement?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Call it “scamucation.”
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.
I call them Education Deformers. To deform something means to distort the shape or form of; make misshapen.
That’s exactly what they are trying to do to public education.
Reform generally implies a change to improve something. These Ed Deformers aren’t improving anything.
Edu-opportunists?
“I call them “corporate reformers” because they rely on carrots and sticks to motivate teachers and students. ”
I think corporate reformers is accurate because of the governance models they create and employ. They’re wholly responsible for charter school governance schemes. Our feckless, irresponsible and self-interested politicians “relinquished” the whole process over to them.
If you want to know what an ed reform system of governance will look like look at Ohio’s charter schools. They were given total control and this garbage is what they came up with- appointed and conflicted “boards”, no transparency, opaque “authorizers” who take a cut of every student dollar and no one knows what they do to earn it, no accountability for public funds. This is what the Founding Fathers of ed reform came up when they were tasked with “reinventing” school governance.
I choose “Naked Emperors”. Because they wear no clothes and their minions have attempted to convince the population that they are dressed royally. However they have no garments, yet believe they are parading the most lovely wardrobes. They surround themselves with those who insist that they are well clothed and set up agencies to combat elected representatives who attempt to lead. And lately, they give labels to children who attempt to mimic the ideas of their elders such as “little lobbyists” and “political pawns”. Whatever wrong they accuse the opponents of committing they are blatantly doing so to a greater extent…for money. Big money. Major money. The money is stuck on them like post its…thus they have the sensation of being fully clothed. But we see them and they are naked under those huge coins and bills stuck to their faces and bodies. Naked Emperors.
I call them Neo-segregationists.
Since this movement comes from the “bowels” of industry, I would call it a “bowel movement.”
I watched some of Duncan’s testimony yesterday on the budget, and they are in lock-step in DC. Maybe the only people who show up at these things are people who agree with him- I don’t know, maybe it’s ALL just show, so that’s a possibility.
There’s no dissent at all. I know there’s political posturing to play to their respective base(s) but the fact is DC is gone. The Ed Reform Movement gospel is hard, baked-in conventional wisdom at this point.
It reminds me of when they all jumped off the “deregulate the finance system!” cliff together. There was no stopping that once it got rolling, and this sounds the same to me.
I think it goes back to their conceit that if something is “bipartisan” that means it is “good”. That simply isn’t true, and it’s never been true. The two things aren’t at all connected. Arguably “bipartisan” carries more risk of REALLY BIG mistakes, because there’s no dissent, there’s no check and balance.
Astute observations.
Why not call them promoters of testing and privatization, since it describes exactly what they are? The scary part of this is it appears that instead of seeking to support struggling schools through comprehensive services for children and families, this movement seems to be focused on developing metrics to discredit public education.
“Cuban thinks it is wrong to call them “corporate reformers,” because it has negative connotations.”
Heavens! Negative connotations? Why, we couldn’t hurt their widdle feelings now, could we?
I call it corporate education, since most of the ideas are formulated by them. To me using the term “charter” seems to recall the original intent of these schools, ie. something new and innovative, and this no longer applies to the current movement which is corporate driven. Testing is part of the agenda to be used as a weapon against public schools with the ultimate goal of destroying them. If you think about corporate education, we are reminded that the ultimate goal of a corporation is profit, no matter how many ways they choose to obscure this motive. Profit is their main incentive, and the bottom line always gets lower and cheaper. Parents need to consider this. With corporate education parents will lose their voice. Do they want a cheap, skill-drill factory model education for their children, or do they want a comprehensive education taught by a professional that has studied child development and methods of teaching.?
Excellent points, Retired Teacher!
I think corporate reformer is accurate because they are taking my tax dollars. I and other tax payers are funding their research and development in many ways:
– field tests
– untested standards and curriculum
– standardized tests that have never been tested
– technology necessary to administer some of these exams
– unwilling and unpaid test subjects
I would call them neo-fascist reformers – Mussolini would be proud of their movement.
Privateers?
Political Educators
Education Fascists
a bowel movement? perhaps from a bovine?
The main problem with calling it “corporate reform” is actually the positive connotations of the term — people hearing it for the first time might think we are talking about reforming corporations. Heaven, well, Wall Street Forbid❢
“Corporate Raiders of Public Education” would help to place the agenda in the context of the force major push already in progress to convert all public institutions into commercial enterprises and all professions into at-will minimum wage slaves.
If you want to know what they really want, all you have to do is look around for the sweetest of the sweetheart deals in the country, which is the Defense Industry Model (DIM). Unlimited cash flow of taxpayer dollars into private corporate coffers, with token “oversight” (connivance, wink, wink) by bought and paid for so-called representatives of the People footing the bill.
The punish and privatize movement.
I think “corporate” also fits because they so latched onto the “skills gap” as an explanation for stagnant or falling wages and living standards. The skills gap is a very convenient explanation for business leaders, which is why business leaders all promoted it.
US public schools were a handy punching bag when it came time to explain to voters why they were feeling so economically insecure.
But now the “skills gap theory” is finally getting push-back and it’s coming from Larry Summers, who is no ones idea of a radical liberal:
“In his remarks, Summers, who previously had endorsed the idea that technology and automation are threatening middle class wages, seemed, to some, skeptical of the idea that technology is a major driver of stagnating wages. He also appeared dubious that education policy could fix the problem. America needs more jobs and workers need more power, he said. Betting on more education and skills training to fix things would be an “evasion.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/03/03/robots-are-hurting-middle-class-workers-and-education-wont-solve-the-problem-larry-summers-says/
Corporate Reformer seems like a perfectly reasonable, and accurate descriptor, since the big idea behind school reform is completely informed by the the corporate model that believes free market style competition will improve education. The whole data driven curriculum, that depends on high stakes testing, is corporate. Standardizing and ranking every thing that moves is corporate.
It’s interesting that Larry Cuban admits that Corporate Reform has negative connotations. He’s right, it does have negative connotations, because corporate reform is a narrow and cynical model for educating people. Implicit in his objection to the name, is his unconscious acknowledgment that the current model for school reform is negative.
School Reform in it’s current state is very Orwellian, because the needs of individuals are subordinated to corporate needs. Along these lines, and in the spirit of double speak, another good name for School Reform might be: The Ministry For he Liberation of Free Minds.
I call them predatory corporate reformers (because that is what they are)
NO!, They aren’t all “predatory corporate reformers”. Many of the edudeformers have nothing to do with corporations.
Traitor. They seek to destroy public goods that define the nation (the smart ones) or are useful idiots (the dumb ones). Traitors and followers of traitors. Against America.
Reformerz, sums up their lackluster thinking.
They are raiders, not reformers.
The oligarchs and their corporate PR departments that crank out propaganda by the second, call just about everything they do to lower corporate taxes in addition to increasing profits anyway they can—REFORM.
I have no idea how many of these—fool as many as we can—corporate reform movements there have been but here are two and those two reforms were managed and fought the same as corporate education reform.
For instance, this from ProPublica about Workers Comp reform: “The changes, often passed under the banner of ‘reform,’ have been pushed by big businesses and insurance companies on the false premise that costs are out of control.”
http://www.propublica.org/article/the-demolition-of-workers-compensation?utm_source=et&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailynewsletter&utm_content=&utm_name=
Before that, there was Tort Reform as revealed in this documentary:
And now that the GOP holds the majority in both houses of Congress, there is Social Security reform; Tax reform, Unemployment Insurance reform, Medicare reform, etc. In every one of these REFORMS, 99% of the people lose and the oligarchs and corporations win and gain more wealth, power and profits.
This evidence makes a strong case that the progressive reforms that improved the quality of life for 99% of the people starting in 1900 under President Teddy Roosevelt are in reverse as a few billionaire oligarchs and huge global corporations hijack the word reform to roll back every gain the people made.
The oligarchs and the corporations they control and/or profit from have a successful working formula that has worked well for years and what they are doing to REFORM public education is nothing new.
I think it is arguable that these corporate reforms have spawned an industry of professional reformers and to keep the money flowing in to their bank accounts, they must find more public or private industries to reform.
President Eisenhower warned the United States about the dangers of industrial military Inc and then signed legislation that launched endless wars.
Now we have a parallel industry of reform managed and financed by a few billionaires and global corporations.
Reform has become a dirty word. Once the public wakes up to this misuse of reform, the reformers will change that word to something else. Maybe they will start to call themselves progressives.
You are so right. I just read a proposed “revision” of military benefits where they want to move veterans out of a defined benefit to a defined contribution plan in the name of “promoting financial acumen” among the troops. In other words they want to take them from money they can count on to money they can gamble with on Wall St. If corporations continue to rip people off, we should get ready for bread lines for the former middle class members.
The reformers want to transfer the flow of money from Public Education, public prisons, national defense, public roads, Social Security, Medicare, Veterans retirement account/benefits, and public retirement (etc.) plans from the people to a few bank accounts that are either taxed very low or not at all.
Meanwhile the 140 million Americans who have to work for a living will probably see their taxes and fees go up to find this transfer of public funds toward the 1% where we will find the hardest working 21st century reformers.
Then, when they have access to all these liquid assets, who can say how much risk they will take with that money with potential loss for millions of Americans? We know how irresponsible they are! 2008 is not that far in the past, or we have a very short memory.
Although there seems to be a semi-consensus to use “corporate reform”, I heartily disagree.
Not all corporations are evil/bad/exploiting/not caring organizations, and probably most, if not the vast majority are organizations that are doing good and doing right by others and the environment. When we lump all of those folks in with the EDUDEFORMERS and PRIVATEERS, we do a disservice to many fine hard working people. AND THAT AIN’T RIGHT FOLKS! We “lose” them with sloppy language usage. I’ve spoken with many who either own their own business or are involved with a corporation who don’t agree with the edudeformers.
The edudeformers and privateers may or may not be the same people. We should be careful to distinguish those who would avariciously profit off of public education-privateers from those misguided, ignorant wonks-edudeformers-who believe themselves to know how to improve the teaching and learning process without having been teachers (for at least 10 years) with the day in/day out responsibilities and who most certainly aren’t “reformers” but are rheephormers.
I wrote a scientific paper on the subject. 🙂
“We have the largest, most powerful organized crime in history. They call themselves the Public School Reform movement, but I prefer the more expressive and less formal Charter Mafia name, and I affectionately refer to them simply as the CharMa.”
http://wd369.csi.hu/apu/charma.html
If I understand George Lakoff well, we shouldn’t name them anything that refers to them as they call themselves. So I wouldn’t use any version of reform (deformers, corporal reformers, turnarounders, charterizers, achievementers, standardizers, topracers, etc) however satisfactory it may make us feel.
antonyms for REFORM are:
break
damage
destroy
harm
hurt
injure
ruin
waver
worsen
Reform also means change, convert, modify, and reconstruct. All of these words can have negative connotations through context.
Now, REFORMERS is an entirely different word that might mean: agitator, anarchist, demagogue, propagandist, radical, troublemaker, fomenter, heretic, incendiary, inciter, instigator, provocateur, rabble-rouser, revisionist, and disrupter.
Most of the synonyms for REFORMERS are negative.
satisfied
For reasons of simplicity and directness, “so-called reformers” is the term I customarily use, but I’m fine with corporate reformers, ed deformers (props to Norm Scott for coining the term years ago), school privatizers, edu-privateers, edu-profiteers, looters, compulsive liars, scabs (in the case of TFA), self-described reformers, school reform-bots, Stepford Reformers… the list could go on.
What’s crucial is that all the terms refer to an immensely well-funded apparatus that serves the brazen impunity and infinite greed of an out-of-control Overclass, one that heedlessly devours the very population its wealth depends on.
I already stated above my preference, since I really think what these people are doing with tax dollars, kids and teachers is criminal, and I am sure in many countries there are laws against their activities (there may be laws against them here too, but I don’t see the lawyers).
But if we want to name them for what they are doing in gentler terms, we could call them The Medicine Men, The (Charter) Healers, The (Charter) Quacks, since they offer cures for something (education) in which they have no expertise, plus nobody asked for their advice. What they do is simple quackery.
My last idea is, and then I shut up before embarrassing myself further, is The Charter Charmers because we could then abbreviate it as The ChaCha.
New name for promoters of testing and privatization:
Fracking PARCCers
Start by calling them “corporation schools,” not charter schools. These schools are designed by, and run by, corporations, either non-profit, or increasingly for-profit corporations. They are nothing like the original charter school idea proposed by Shankar in the 1960s.
When you win the terminology war, you win the war. Or as George Carlin said, “Once they have you using their terms, you’ve already lost.” Because they call themselves “reformers,” they start the conversation by winning the terminology war. It is about time educators started owning the conversation–and the terminology wars.
Reformers? “De-formers,” too strong. “Test-o-crats”?
There’s a good term for corporatists out there. But do we have the courage to use the term once we find it?
Having too kids in this test flooded K12 system and the biggest $ people knocking down my university’s door, no terminology sounds too strong.
But some people would be cautious to use whatever it is, and I can’t blame them, since they may have friends on the “other” side, or they have political reasons. This is why I think a covert terminology would be useful: an abbreviation that sounds fine but the terminology it abbreviates is not that complimentary. (like CharMa = Charter Mafia, though it’s probably too strong for most people)
Maybe two different names are needed: one to use in politics and newspapers where you have to show respect, and another one to throw at reformers as they take over a school claiming “it is in your interest that we have to make this hard decision”, because they need to hear how people really feel and they do need to feel embarrassed.
a.) charlatans,
b.) ignorati
c.) dilettantes
Yeah, but what should the reform movement itself be called?
Given it’s backing by Finance, I’d suggest The Hostile Takeover of Public Education.
I like test-o-crats…also, privatizers, and “reformsters” (h/t Peter Greene).
Years ago Susan Ohanian named the pro-standards folks Standardistas.
My knee jerk reaction includes a lot of words that would need to be censored, so I’ll settle for “crooks posing as Good Samaritans.”
A guy from DFER was on here a couple years back and he complained about being referred to as a “profiteer.” If hedgefund managers and other DINOs don’t like that characterization, then it’s probably because it fits only too well and they’re more comfortable seeing themselves in a distorted carnival mirror they’ve labeled with inaccurate civil rights jargon to define their self-serving actions. But if it walks like a duck…
I do like the term “corporate schools” instead of charters. Since so many of them like to say they are “public charter schools” when it’s most convenient, I would be inclined to add clarification by saying “corporate schools privately managed by profiteers that siphon tax dollars from genuine public schools.” It takes a mouthful to describe their duplicity.
I think the standards should be called the Corporate Corps, too, since they were created primarily by representatives of the testing industry which will be profiting from required tests that are based on them, and they were paid for in large part by corporate mogul Bill Gates, whose company stands to benefit from online testing, data warehousing etc. No one wants CC more than Big Business and the politicians they’ve bought.
John Thompson Writes “Should educators worry about offending reformers by using the term ‘corporate reform?'”
Seriously, I don’t understand this question at all. Just go to a meeting where Tennessee’s ASD faces the people (students, parents, teachers) whose school they are taking over.
Thousands of teachers’ lives are ruined, a whole generation of kids are bored to death and tortured by tests in school but parents are supposed to be thinking about being polite, respectful?
Should parents respect the feelings of Gates and TFA-ers or the kids’ and their teachers’ feelings? We cannot have it both ways, can we?
In case you are not directly involved, reread the article that was referenced here less than a month ago and which starts with the sentence
“There is a stench in the air in Memphis and it’s a smell that is permeating throughout black school districts.”
http://tsdmemphis.com/news/2015/jan/30/stench-education-reform-and-need-respond-now/
This issue is not some kind of academic debate between two groups of researchers.
Since we respect ourselves, we don’t use four letter words, but calling the movement “reform” and its proponents “reformers” in any context is a disservice to the truth and especially to those with good intentions on the other side.