The new leadership of the Dallas Independent School District loves positive thinking.
On this blog, we earlier reported that the superintendent, a graduate of the unaccredited Broad Superintendents Avademy, had hired a public relations team to write power words and power phrases for the staff. If asked what they thought of the new administration, the PR team crafted an upbeat response.
Now we learn that an administrator has asked teachers at every school to write a tiny essay on the good things happening at their school. No suggestion box here for ideas on how to improve, just happy talk.
Can any parent trust what teachers or principals say when they are under orders to spew happy talk and positive spin? Will problems be acknowledged or hidden?
Are candor and honesty really that threatening? Can adults teach honesty to children if they are forbidden to speak honestly by their boss?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The “Cult of Positivity” is a tactic being used in many schools to quell any dissent. We are only allowed to use the staff email to congratulate each other and share stories of how wonderful our school is. This is all fine and dandy, but if you send an email with important news that is critical of anything you are labeled “negative.” I prefer to think of it as being “informative.” My solution was to start a blog where I can say what I really feel. In Miami our superintendent is obsessed with positive press, winning “Races” and “Broad” prizes so he can have a nice article in the newspaper written about him (the school district pays the Miami Herald every month to cover school stories). The latest article declaring victory for teachers and the benevolence of the school district was regarding raises, of which I received $300 after five years of neither a raise or step increase. This inspired my latest blog post, “One, Two, Three Strikes I’m Out” as to why I can no longer continue a teaching career in Florida. http://kafkateach.wordpress.com.
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When I read your most recent blog post, I was tempted to question your sanity for still teaching in Dade County after ten years. Then I scrolled back a bit and read your Thanksgiving post that sounds like every other poor sod of a teacher. I found myself grinning and nodding my head in recognition as I read the scenarios that have kept you teaching for so long.
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BULL -More Bull and More Bull
They both need to go to college…an accredited one..
Do not tell me when to like something…
You want real world???? Then do not lie!!
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Lots of bull here, but your comment on “accredited college” is also bull. Here is a bit about Einstein: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein many stories just like it but we are all familiar with Einstein. Self taught, clashed with strict rules of formal ed, did all of his great thinking when he wasn’t in school etc… The people running the Dallas school district could have very well emerged from the “normal” path. We have plenty of leaders from “Accerdited” colleges screwing up equally as well.
The above plan seems like communist China type of propaganda. Don’t you dare point out the warts…..
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How about the media do this instead? I remember a local TV station that used to do a “What’s Good in our Schools?” segment since everyone else only told bad stories.
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Age old tactic. Hold your opposition down through any means of oppression necessary and, when s/he complains about it, chide him/her for being “negative”. And if they really try to fight back, then retire to your fainting couch complaining loudly about how you’ve been viciously and unfairly “attacked” and how you’re so “wounded” by the “name-calling”. Basic Oppression 101.
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BTW, remember when it was considered “unpatriotic” for the media to present any bad news from Iraq? Violence was growing daily, Iraqis were dying by the thousands, the American body count was around 4,000, the country was heading toward civil war, but the media was supposed to (and often did) report on how we were building schools and our soldiers were handing out school supplies to children. Americans have always made good ostriches.
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I’ll tell you what… If I were teaching at that school, I think I’d have to incorporate the “positive talk” into my classroom rules and lesson plans. I can just hear the students now… “Oh Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories are just so splendid! May we please read another? Please?”
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Please tell me that these “acknowledgement phrase” are a joke.
Has the book “1984” suddenly become non-fiction?
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Oops! … “phraseS” …
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I’m afraid it has… For better or worse, “Big Brother” has taken form in the way all these smart phones and gadgets are used…
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As a friend said, “Pass the happy juice and slice me some more bologna.”
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Sounds a little Jim Jones to me. I remember watching a documentary on the cult. People who were critical, were targeted for punishment and ridicule.
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Because I have tenure, I can tell my district how I feel and what I feel needs to be done to improve the district. In a charter you follow the script or get out, just like the children.
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Once candor and honesty are gone from education the next step would to pretend that creationism should be in the science text books. Wait, the Texas State Board of Education has seriously discussed that!
Do these events reflect a state educational system that spends the least per student of all but maybe two other states in the US? I say maybe because since 2010 Texas has cut more from their education budget per student than all but two other states, and neither of those two states that cut more from their budgets than Texas are the two who already spent less per student than Texas as of 2010. Texas cut $5.4 billion from education in 2011.
The world of pretend in Texas education, that multi-billion dollar cuts do not hinder education, will become the worst mistake the Texas Legislature has ever made. What price will Texas pay for these “happy words” and power words?
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Being negative about corporate education reform, especially that practiced by TFA-bots, automatically means you hate children.
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Yes, and puppies, baseball, apple pie and motherhood too.
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This blog reminds me: we got a new superintendent in our district where I was the deputy superintendent. His FIRST act was to send out a memo to all staff. His directive was that absolutely everybody had to start all letters and all memoranda and all emails with this statement: “Today is November 21, 2012, and it is a wonderful day!”
Many of us spent the rest of the day writing and sharing parodies. “Today is xxx, xx, xxxx, and it is a wonderful day! I am writing to tell you that due to budget restraints we have eliminated your position, effective immediately.”.
“Today is…., and it is a wonderful day! Due to the flu epidemic, we have determined it prudent to close our schools for the next three days in order to prevent more cases.”
“Today is …, and it is a wonderful day! Please join me in sending condolences to the parents of the young man who lost his life in the school bus accident last week.”
“Today is …., and it is a wonderful day. This letter is to inform you that since your daughter failed the exit assessment, she will not graduate with her class next week.”
“Today is …., and it is a wonderful day! The Texas legislature cut $5.4 billion from the education budget, so we must close schools, lay off staff, and eliminate preschool programs.”
Needless to say, we formed a pact and swore we would commit civil disobedience, and we did! He continued the ridiculous practice, but he never said a word to those who refused. This man lost every iota of credibility that he might have enjoyed simply by virtue of his position with that one demand for happy talk.
I know, I know. As deputy supt., I probably should not have led the coup. 🙂
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It’s a Brave New World of groupthink and doublespeak here at the Ministry of Information in the year 1984. This is really a standard southern tactic. Dress it up, and hope no one notices the cracked foundation and leaking roof. As someone once said, you can put lipstick on a pig… you also can’t make chicken salad out of chicken sh…
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Amen SST. This is exactly why I do 1984 every year whether common corpse calls for it or not and this is why I have th ekids search for examples of newspeak and the like not in soviet russia or iran but right here in the good old American Plutocracy.
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I think I’m going to be sick.
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