Jersey Jazzman has pulled together an impressive collection of smears, wherein the corporate reformers’ attack machine tried to silence and/ or intimidate their critics.
JJ’s recitation brought to mind some of the many brushes I have had with the smear machine.
The first occurred in 2007, when I realized that someone in the NYC Department of Education was following me to my lectures and taping them. I saw this on four occasions and was curious but shrugged it off.
Then I realized what was going on when I read a sharp attack on me in the Néw York Post, calling me a “hypocritical critic.”
I later learned from journalists that the DOE was taping my lectures so they could compile a dossier called “Diane Ravitch, Then and Now.” They made the shocking discovery that I had changed my mind! First they showed the dossier to reporters, but none thought it was a story.
So someone at the DOE wrote the article, found someone else to sign it (the leader of the NYC Partnership, a business group that backs Bloomberg), sent it to the mayor’s public relations firm, which placed it in the Post. A journalist friend shared the email thread with me.
I promptly responded. The Post graciously gave me the opportunity to do so.
Since then, there have been so many smears and accusations that I have learned to deal with them.
Here are the general rules of engagement:
Assess the situation and do one of two things: Ignore them or refute them.
Either will be very frustrating for the smear machine, because they want to get to you. They want you to get angry; they want you to respond. If you ignore them, it reveals their insignificance and impotence.
However, if the smear machine is spreading outright lies that you must refute, take them on. Never be afraid. Confront them fearlessly. Do not be defensive. Do not be angry. Be civil even if they are not. Don’t raise your voice or lose your cool. The cardinal rule about bullies is that they are cowards.
Make the decision about which strategy to use, depending on the situation.
Excellent advice.
I have learned to see the “compliment” in having someone bother to “smear” me: It means that I am having an influence. Opposition does not bother to smear what it deems insignificant.
Exactly right. When they attack, it means they are afraid. You hit a nerve. You succeeded.
All the DEFORMERS want is to smear those who have the real information. Smear me and I know I am on the side of our students, teachers, and parents.
Dr. Ravitch, those smears tell that you are doing a great job of exposing the lunacy and the corruption.
Fight the good fight Dr. Ravitch!
As a mother on the opposite coast from where you are, I can tell you that your work is having a great impact on parents and shining a much needed light on the rampant corruption in education and the politicians who drive it.
I’d almost like to thank the people trying to smear you. They are helping expose the truth about what’s happening to public education in the guise of reform AND it leaves them less time to think up more ways of diverting public education funds for their private interests. Besides, it would seem to me that you have no problem taking on the bullies 🙂
You handled Randi Kaye on CNN with finesse..you were great. Take your words from this article and they work today and they always will:
“The public schools need involvement by parents and local communities. They need a lively and open public forum in which decisions can be debated before they are finalized. The public should have a voice in what happens to the children of the community.”
Thank you Dr. Ravitch. This is such a nicely-written piece. Not many are able to respond to smears with such grace, wisdom, and composure.
“The public should have a voice in what happens to the children of the community.”
YES!
(Especially if we are also asking them to pay for it, IMHO)
This is one of the answers to all the rhetoric of gaps, choice, failing, etc!
Yes they use sleezy tactics that are extremely hurtful. I think most educators never dreamed that people in America who go to any length to harm a system created for the public good. I still can’t believe there are people who are trying to steal schools, public tax dollars, people’s pensions, etc. and all for their own selfish wants. The scariest part is that politicians have gone along with it all.
The edubullies and the ‘accountabullies’ who serve them constantly strive to find new ways to make numbers dance to their twisted tunes.
So in deference to the charterite/privatizer crowd that worships edu$ucce$$ and knows ‘the price of everything and the value of nothing’ I offer up a very simple number for them to ponder:
“Diane Ravitch’s blog A site to discuss better education for all” has logged in 3,150,724 hits in less than eleven months [it went up hundreds just while I was composing this post!].
All without the [not an exaggeration] vast sums of money, strong support of the mass media, and powerful political connections enjoyed by the so-called education reformers.
Occasionally someone on this blog will post the suggestion that Diane adopt some of the edubullies’ tactics and then perhaps progress towards real education reform could begin. Means and end are connected. Diane’s ‘rules of the road’ for dealing with the edubullies are not just reasonable but have been proven to be effective.
The proof? Look at the stats. Or have Arne and Michelle and Joel and Wendy and the rest of that merry band of edupreneur$ racked up big numbers on their websites that we haven’t noticed?
Nope. They’re losing the argument in spite of overwhelming material and other advantages. That’s why the smears and sneers and distortions.
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then then fight you, then you win.”
Diane is winning. We are winning. It’s not like in the movies. It’s difficult, it’s trying, it’s painfully slow.
But a real-life victory will be all the sweeter.
Thanks, Diane!
🙂
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do NOT ignore liars. I lived for most of 11 years in Boston ’till I was 29 in ’89 – then I moved to the Pacified Northwest, Wishy-Warshy, Seattle. I’ve been part of the bottom 80% my whole life, politics has been my NFL or NASCAR or Knitting … hobby.
The John Kerrys and Al Gores can AFFORD to be noblerer, smarterer, gooderer and betterer than the lying thieves ‘cuz they can afford to lose, ‘cuz they’re rich. The toadies to the powerful who live in the leafy ‘hoods of the Bostons and Seattles MUST play the noblerer-than-thou game to fit in with the Star Bellied Sneetches, so the toadies play the noblerer-than-thou game. The rest of us will get our beating from the bullies, cuz, they’re bullies* – and while we’ll probably lose, it is better to lose knowing you fought back, and you weren’t a cowering, pathetic, wimpering dishrag playing the noblerer-than-thou game of the rich and of their their toadies.
rmm
*bullies – people who need advanced degrees to understand and to study why adult bullies are worse than a 5th grader who whomps on 2nd graders to take the 2nd graders nickle for the milk money are beyond redemption – at least the 5th grade bully is 11 years old – the adult bullies are just despicable humans.