Thanks to John Ogozalek, a teacher in upstate New York, who alerted me to this peculiar (but not surprising) phenomenon.
John googled my name and the first thing to pop us was an ad for Teach for America.
I tried it, and this was the first listing under my name:
Dianeravitch – 7 Things You Should Know About Us
Adwww.teachforamerica.org/On-The-Record
Teach For America On The Record.
Don’t they have better things to do with their money?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
For goodness sakes, give them a break. TFA leaders need some diversion after a steady diet of promoting scab labor and degrading education.
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You should purchase the an ad for the keyword “teach for america” on adwords titled “Teachforamerica: 7 Things You Should Know About Diane Ravitch.” Then link it to a blog post in which you explain what you and TFA are really about.
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Ah, the speedy internet. If you do a Google with your name and ask for the most entry you get the title of this post. The ad is not there, but you are there and commenting about the TFA ad.
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Trying to buy a little credibility. Their work doesn’t provide the credibility they seek. Tying their propaganda to the reputation of Dr. Ravitch is sneaky but typical of that crowd.
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Is TFA violating the law by using your name purely to get people to view their ad? (particularly since it may be interpreted as an endorsement of TFA by you)
Following is from Digital Media Law Project
“Using the Name or Likeness of Another
In most states, you can be sued for using someone else’s name, likeness, or other personal attributes without permission for an exploitative purpose. Usually, people run into trouble in this area when they use someone’s name or photograph in a commercial setting, such as in advertising or other promotional activities. But, some states also prohibit use of another person’s identity for the user’s own personal benefit, whether or not the purpose is strictly commercial.”
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Diane, I really think you should look into this. For TFA to pay to use your name in their ads crosses a line. I’m outraged, but not surprised.
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I could be wrong, but my guess is that TFA have specified “diane ravitch” as a key word to get their ad to appear when people search on Diane’s name.
Technically, that’s not “using her name in the ad” but it would still be exploitation of Diane’s name for TFA’s advertising purposes and the fact that the search term appears at the beginning of the link to the ad has the same effect as would actually using the name “in” the ad.
Even if not illegal, the latter would be sleazy.
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I was wrong.
the keyword that is specified for the paid TFA ad is actually “gary rubinstein”
If you highlight the link for the ad, you can see that it includes the character string “utm_term=gary rubinstein tfa”, which specifies the keywords for the ad
So, their ads are not keyed on a search for “Diane Ravitch”, but since many posts here refer to (and link to) “Gary Rubinstein” and to “TFA” a search on “Diane Ravitch” brings up the TFA ad.
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This can be a bit more complicated. Search results outside of paid ads can use recent browser history to guess what is likely to be well received, so it is possible TFA is Google bombing Dr. Ravitch or it could be something “organic” to the user.
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If it is a paid ad (not showing up on my Android phone right now) it could just be paid for education related results. Whi checking makes it deliciously ironic. Some got to my blog by googling “arguments against Maxine Green” and boy THAT didn’t work out for him.
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The relevant question is probably whether “diane ravitch” is being included in the keyword list for the ad
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Try using Ad Blocker with your browser. I do, and I don’t see anything for TFA when I Google. Or any other ads.
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What we really need in the schools is a “TFA blocker”
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Remember Dan Savage’s brilliant take-down of Rick Santorum? How do we go about connecting a search for TFA someting equally hillarious? Connect them to a ne-Nazi group perhaps?
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I like this idea!
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There is one word for what they did—
Pathetic.
This is what you resort to when you, quite literally, don’t believe in the power of your ideas and the righteous of your cause, but are filled with worshipful admiration of billionaire edupreneurs and are proud to be among those trailing along in their wake, enabling and enforcing and spin spin spinning.
Think this sort of thing is simply a peculiar outlier?
From a blog posting, here, over two years ago. Note that the first paragraph is by the owner of this blog, followed by her excerpting comments from a commenter:
[start posting]
A reader writes that Change.org continues to offer deceptive petitions to recruit members for StudentsFirst (petitions like “do you support great teachers?” “are you against bullying?”). Frankly, I don’t think any of the organization’s membership claims are meaningful because no one pays dues, and no one knows how many names were added by deceptive petitions on websites like Change.org. I am still a member of StudentsFirst, even though I never knowingly joined. How many hundreds of thousands of others are there listed as members who are in the same boat? I was a “member” for over a year and never knew it. I was informed by a spokesman for Change. org when I complained about the same deception described here:
Diane, you’ve written a lot about how Michelle Rhee’s group StudentsFirst recruits most of their members from Change.org. Two months ago, on June 19th (acc. to HuffPo article about it) Change.org very publicly said they were dropping StudentsFirst as their client, and would stop recruiting new supporters for StudentsFirst. Now it turns out that they were lying hypocrites of the most cynical kind. In fact, for anyone like me who has been paying attention, it seems that Change.org (which is a for-profit company, by the way) has actually DRAMATICALLY INCREASED how many people they are signing up to be members of StudentsFirst. Back on June 19th, the number of Change.org “supporters” for StudentsFirst was listed here…
http://www.change.org/groups/studentsfirst
…as about 1,100,000 people. I remember thinking that was a lot of people already.
But if you check that same page today, you will see that it has increased over the past two months to 1.6 million people. That’s an extra 500,000 people that Change.org has recruited for Michelle Rhee’s group in only two months. (And some of us have noticed how many times when we sign a Change.org petition we are “invited” to sign up for Michelle Rhee’s email list).
So instead of dropping StudentsFirst, as they so publicly said they were doing, Change.org has actually “stepped on the gas” to accelerate their work for Michelle Rhee over the past two months and earn a ton more money from her. I looked into Change.org’s pricing and was told they charge their clients $1.50 for each person who signs up. So that means that those extra 500,000 “recruits” were worth $750,000 to Change.org, in payments from Michelle Rhee over the past two months.
Where is the outrage? Change.org should be held accountable for lying to progressives like this. They don’t deserve support from any progressive organizations if they are going to lie like this in a baldface way.
Notice that none of this is insider knowledge. It isn’t necessary. It’s all out in the open for anyone to see.
Again: Where is the outrage? The news coverage? The boycotts of Change.org? Let them go work for Romney if that’s the kind of people they are.
[end posting]
Link: https://dianeravitch.net/2012/08/15/change-org-did-not-drop-studentsfirst/
Outliers? Did I misspell that? Shouldn’t it be outliars?
Where is a dictionary when you need one…
😎
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Pathetic seems to be a key word lately. It applied last week when former NJ Acting State Superintendent C Cerf cited Cami Anderson’s Oct letter requesting support in his NJ Spotlight OpEd. State-appointed Newark Superintendent Anderson was affiliated w. TFA, but if TFA teachers were hired at her Renew schools in NPS, it wasn’t enough to improve NJ ASK scores as CA predicted (see Bob Braun’s Ledger).
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Would you like 4 quarters or 10 times? Rhetoric, doublespeak, trickery, sleight of hand, bait and switch, masterfully crafted/scripted responses that are non-answers…..tools of the TFA trade.
They can never answer a question; they deflect with lie-filled anecdotes.
Their recent coup (and lie) is how diverse their “corp” is. TFA is whiter than a snow storm, and just as difficult to shovel to the curb.
Dianne, it is shameful if TFA is using you in its trickery. Then again, it is to be expected. Next, we can google soft cuddly kittens, and land at TFA’s bull$hit. Ugh. I hate TFA.
P.S. Has (Alma Dale) Campbell Brown fallen off the face of the earth?
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Diane, I don’t know if it was done intentionally or not, but this page is two pages removed from the front page of your blog, and I think that was a good idea, to prevent your name from being further associated with TFA.
I too use Ad Blocker and don’t see the ads to which you were referring. I also steer clear of Google, since they track folks and feed data to Prism, the government surveillance program which does not limit itself to watching terrorists. I recommend Duck Duck Go http://duckduckgo.com which has a full database for searchers and does not track people
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I see this page is on the front page of the blog now.
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TeacherEd: yep, earlier in the day I saw what the owner of this blog mentioned in the posting and now…gone elsewhere. Can we call this the “dance of the lemon links”?
😱
Not that I’m suggesting someone should do this—“Dr.” Ted Morris, got a moment free from all your school rheephorming?—but perhaps when people google “TFA” and “TeachForAmerica” the first thing at the top of the google find page is:
“Gary Rubinstein’s Blog” with the following link—
https://garyrubinstein.wordpress.com
If anyone reading this is for a “better education for all” then you are in for a real treat if you access the link.
😎
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Well that didn’t take long. Seems like the page is no longer available. I’ll bet anyone a six pack of their favorite brew ( high rollers like The Dark Lord n. Incl.) that there will be no apology, just diversionary excuses.
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No, I just tried it, and the TFA page came up first with no mention of Diane!
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I am happy to say that the TFA ad was taken off my Google search page. When I looked this morning, it appeared first, at the top of the page, as a paid ad for TFA.
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I was wrong in my original assumption above that “diane ravitch”was being used as a keyword for the ad
The actual keywords that are specified for the paid TFA ad are “gary rubinstein” and “TFA”
If you highlight the link for the ad, you can see that it includes the character string “utm_term=gary rubinstein tfa”, which specifies the keywords for the ad
So, their ads are not keyed on a search for “Diane Ravitch”, but since many posts here refer to (and link to) “Gary Rubinstein” and to “TFA” a search on “Diane Ravitch” brings up the TFA ad.
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They use the same tactics as $cientology does.
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“Pair ‘a sites”
Pair ‘a sites
And parasites
A gracious host
And ghastly ghost
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