Peg Robertson is a teacher in Colorado and a national leader of the Opt Out movement (she co-founded United Opt Out). In this post, she describes what happens to teachers in schools that are supposedly “turnaround schools.” They are “gaslighted.” Anyone who has seen the famous George Cukor film of the same name knows what it means to be “gaslighted.” Ingrid Bergman’s husband wants to kill her, and he tries to convince her that she is going mad. In Peg’s school, teachers are told that they caused low test scores, and officialdom works hard to persuade them that they cause failure.
She writes:
Gaslighting is such an insane reality to live in that it becomes incredibly difficult to focus on anything else except the ability to get through the day- it is designed intentionally so.
So let’s try to take a look at what’s really happening.
The first stage of Gaslighting is described as disbelief. Strange events, behaviors, and actions by others begin to occur. Perhaps you are told something that doesn’t seem true to you or simply just sounds bizarre. Perhaps someone you trusted speaks to you in a manner that seems fake, or staged.
In my case, the “disbelief” began with the supposed root cause of our turnaround status.
We were told: Students experienced lower-quality and less rigorous instruction that did not accelerate them to proficiency and beyond, because the CCSS was not used to guide instruction in all content areas.
Now, for someone like myself, who has spent hours upon hours researching and advocating for the end of corporate education reform this “root cause” at first, is quite laughable. We know that standards – good, bad, and ugly, in no way increase student achievement. Quite honestly, there’s no correlation whatsoever between standards and student test scores. This has been clearly confirmed by looking at NAEP scores and the standards used in the various states. So, simply put, it’s a lie.
And therein follows the disbelief. You are told a lie about this so-called turnaround status. And I can assure you that nationwide there is no root cause – in a school improvement plan housed on a department of education website – that will state the truth – the truth is clearly poverty and that has been confirmed as well. But in this gut wrenching fast move to privatize our public schools it is necessary to lie and necessary to beat people into compliance in order to cash in quickly – using policies which gaslight educators who ultimately must carry out these actions of educational malpractice.
So, you sit in disbelief at these lies. At first you think, okay, whatever, we can play this game. We’ll continue to do right by children behind closed doors and the policy makers can go screw themselves. That’s the first reaction. At this point you still believe you have some autonomy and you think you might be able to reason with the powers that be in order to figure out a way to “tweak” this to make it doable.
But then, the gaslighting process continues. The policy makers have a strangle hold on our public schools, and they will find various ways to continue to push forward their measures in a turnaround school. Perhaps they will bring in an auditor who interviews (interrogates) each staff member in an attempt to expose weaknesses that might confirm the so-called root cause. Perhaps they will bring in district personnel to dig through your data and observe your classrooms nonstop in order to, once again, find confirmation that your root cause is true, valid and that ultimately – you, the educators, are to blame for your low test scores. Perhaps they will bring in consultants, books, videos, or additional training to lead you to see how embracing their root cause will fix your failure. There are many ways they might move forward as they gaslight you. In my school, we were enrolled in the Colorado Department of Education turnaround program. We were labeled a Relay Leadership School and Relay indoctrination became the vehicle for our gaslighting.
This is a gripping story, and I urge you to read it all in total.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on Exceptional Delaware and commented:
Delaware Priority, Focus, and Focus Plus teachers: This is a MUST-READ!!!
This is what authoritarian regimes that seek your demise routinely do.
They keep things constantly changing and unstable, with shifting, contradictory mandates issued and pushed under threats, only to be replaced by the next unattainable, if not absurd or destructive, command. The entire time, the subject population is constantly being whiplashed and under threat of discipline or professional execution.
Reblogged this on Politicians Are Poody Heads and commented:
Marginalize and gaslight teachers, destroy the unions, privatize everything you can. Yes, do all these and more to destroy public education, but never, ever spend all the money that is being thrown at the Common Core, the testing mandates, etc, to even begin addressing the root causes of poverty in this country.
If this is gaslighting, then the district administration in the district where I taught for 30 years from 1975 – 2005 did it all the time.
When too many children teachers taught failed a class because of children who didn’t do enough work, only the teachers were called in and asked why so many students had failed their classes, and it was clear that us teachers were being blamed for the children who failed.
Like the other teachers who had students failing their classes, I was called in for a two on one conference more than once and when I was asked why I had given so many F’s to my students, I replied that I didn’t give an F to any of my students. I said that the students earned that F because they didn’t do even half of the classwork or homework that made up 90% of the grade. Administrators went into orbit when I said this. Their faces would purple and swell and they’d get angry. One even shouted at me that I was responsible for giving too many of my students failing grades. And I calmly replied that I wasn’t. That I didn’t give any student a grade because my students had to earn those grades and an F meant the student hadn’t worked enough to earn a passing grade.
In fact, one principal at one middle school held an introductory staff meeting soon after the district transferred him from an elementary school and he had a flip chart. The first page said when children failed a class, it was the teachers fault because the teacher failed at motivating the students to do the work and learn. The second page said when children misbehaved in class, it was the teacher’s fault because they didn’t have control of the children. This went on for a half hour in a room with dead silence except for his voice. I learned to hate that district Turd. At the end of that year, half the staff quit or transferred to other schools in the district or left the district to work elsewhere. I was one of the ones who left. I transferred to one of the three high schools in the district with a reputation for having a very tough staff of teachers that all fought back against the district’s gaslight crap. They were still fighting back 16 years later when I retired. The gaslighting never ended.
I felt like I was reading something I wrote! This is my exact experience (except I only taught for here years and left the field entirely).
I now have a term that describes why I quit teaching: gaslighting (and pay, of course). I hope the USA one day realizes the damage this gaslighting is causing, as well as our whack ed. policies. We need to stop being in denial of the problems within our education system (and other systems).
Great post! However, although he made some fine films with Ingrid Bergman, Hitchcock didn’t direct “Gaslight.” It was George Cukor at the helm.
And while we’re on the topic of movies, I didn’t know where to mention this, but three recent films mention the degradation of teachers – “Trumbo” and “The Big Short” at the end credits, and surprisingly, a monologue by the main character in “Anomaliza.” He rants against the lock-step dumbing down of education by nefarious sources!
Thanks, Benten. The film was so scary, I had it in my memory bank that it was Hitchcock. I will fix that.
FYI: “Gaslight” directed by George Cukor.
I am with you Lloyd, I have had the same response to these pieces of walking excrement. I have had parents and administrators ask me what I was going to do to motivate little Johnny. My response as I was taking some law classes, sign here so I have general power of attorney and custodial rights and Johnny will come home with me. In about 7 or 8 years I’ll let you know how he is doing. Short of that I am a bit limited and my magic wand hasn’t worked in years.
TAGO, Old Teacher! Brilliant. And I highly recommend taking at least a few law classes–things were so crazy beginning the first year I taught (special ed.), that I took Sp.Ed. law, & our terrific prof. had copied the entire federal 94-142 (which was, in 1974, I.D.E.A.) for each student in our class of 20+. That way, whenever the admins tried to pull a fast one, i could whip out the binder, point to a section, statute, & stop them in their tracks! The next year I took School Law– enormously helpful in every situation. May save your students AND your job, & needed now, more than ever.
I did not know it had a name. I too went through this a few years back when our school (90% poverty ) was at year 5 of P. I. I thought I was going crazy. It was when I talked to other teachers and caught our unethical principal in more than one lie that reality set in. We, the older more educated experienced trachers, were being loaded up and set up to fail. The betrail and the cold calculated steps taken were what hurt the most. I stated keeping a journal noting every unanounced drop in visit, every negative comment , every thing that intuitivly felt off. I printed out emails and communicated most things through email to leave a paper trail. I let myself get stung a few times to show the vindictive petty treatment. There were multiple meetings – some with worthless union reps present. I documented any change that happened afterword. The change, predictably was negative. After one meeting, for instance, five A and B well behaved students were transfered out and six F students with behaviour problems were transfered in in the span of a week. Near the end of the year I had collected an inch and a half thick stack of highlighted and noted filled evidence. I put it on the principals desk and said that if they don’t knock off the crap I was going to sue for harasment. Age, gender..dosn’t matter. A lawyer will find one that works. Funny thing happened after that. I never got f&%@# with again. I was actually treated with respect the next year and not micromanaged and left to teach how I saw fit. The scores went through the roof and students loved my class. The data worshiping corporate serpent that mascarades as a principal actualy thought it was their leadership that “turned me around” . I told that person that no, it was not them. It is what happenes when you you treat professionals as professionals and don’ second guess them when they hold advanced degrees in the subject that they teach.
Fight these souless bastards and call them out when they lie or are less than 110% honest and truthful. Call evil evil and let them know that you know they have no integrity And no soul. Ask them how they sleep at night knowing they deceive and lie to achieve selfish goals and personal gain. Take the moral high ground – you have it.
/ sorry for mispellings and such. Fat fingers, tablet and no glasses are working in concert.
There are about 5,000 teachers in Los Angeles who have gone through this. Our union, United Teachers Los Angeles collaborates in this pogrom against teachers.
This technique is so uniform and widespread in the United States, I’m wondering why NO ADMINISTRATORS ANYWHERE have ever spoken out against it. The obvious answer is that they are “only following orders.” Are there no administrators in the U.S. that value public education as teachers do?
“I’m wondering why NO ADMINISTRATORS ANYWHERE have ever spoken out against it.”
Because the adminimals fear for their job with the vast majority being brown-nosed ass kissers. The system is set up on using fear and intimidation and the adminimals are the gestapo of that system.
I taught in high poverty schools all my career and never had to fail large percentages of students. Maybe you should reflect on your practice. Perhaps there are things you can do to be more effective.
Jay, how did you grade your students? It is really easy for a teacher to claim not many of their students failed their classes. It’s not difficult at all toe pass every student even if they don’t do the work and are absent most of the time.
I also taught in high poverty schools for my entire 30 years as a public school teacher and I knew teachers who also never failed any students. It didn’t matter if the student even came to class. They always passed.
One teacher had a very easy method of grading. He started with an A for the student that was listed #1 on his list of students and then #2 was given a B and #3 an A, etc.
Another teacher gave his students a 50% handicap. That mean he excused half of the work he assigned and based the grade on the other 50% that each student did. That way most of his students easily earned a passing grade by just doing 30% of the work that was 60% of half of the work assigned.
Some teachers, to avoid being called in and accused of being responsible for all those failing students who didn’t work or cooperate, teachers just made a D- the same as an F and never failed anyone.
Other teachers lowered the pass line to 55% or 50% or 45%, or 40% or 35% of the work assigned.
It’s amazing how a little pressure and allegations that a teacher is failing as a teacher when many students fail that teacher’s classes suddenly causes the fail rate to shrink or vanish by just changing the method used to grade students.
I knew one teacher who let his student grade all their own work. He told them to write the grade they felt they had earned on the top of the paper. That saved him a lot of work because he never corrected the work.
And don’t accuse these teachers of being incompetent. They were doing what they had to do to get the constant pressure from bully administrators, politicians and hacks paid off by billionaire oligarch off their backs so they could survive the education wars and avoid burn out.