StickWithANose

The Washington Post interview with Pres. Obama yesterday offers us a text-book example of how to write a political narrative or myth… a task aided by a compliant media outlet with a substantial financial stake in the outcome of the policies in question. The method for writing the narrative can be broken down into four easy steps.

Step 1. Open with the “take away” message and establish the actors involved.

President Obama is leaning hard on the nation’s schools, using the promise of more than $4 billion in federal aid — and the threat of withholding it — to strong-arm the education establishment to accept more charter schools and performance pay for teachers.

Step 2. Reduce all political controversy and nuance down to a simple battle between a sympathetic protagonist and an unsympathetic antagonist [ie. those resistant to change & more concerned about their paychecks than student learning].

Unlike Bush, Obama must try to carefully bring along the teachers unions, a key Democratic constituency that so far has praised the president’s goals but remains wary of the threat to members’ paychecks and the promise of tenure.

“There are going to be elements within the teachers union where they’re just resistant to change, because people inherently are resistant to change,” Obama said during the 20-minute interview. “Teachers aren’t any different from any politicians or corporate CEOs. There are going to be certain habits that have been built up that they don’t want to change.”

Step 3. Frame this “controversy” as a dichotomy between the rational and the irrational ["What works" vs. "Resistant Bureaucracy"].

Obama says the money will be distributed to states that can demonstrate results backed by data that show student scores and teacher performance are improving.

“It’s not based on politics, it’s not based on who’s got more clout, it’s not based on what certain constituency groups are looking for, but it’s based on what works,” he said. “Now, what we’re also doing, though, is we’re saying this is voluntary. If there are states that just don’t want to go in this direction, that’s their prerogative.”

Step 4. Bundle the policies together in a series of declarative statements.

Since the law’s enactment in February, states have inundated the department with queries about how to share in the bonanza. Duncan has dispensed plenty of tips: Lift restrictions on the growth of charter schools; build data systems that show individual student progress under specific teachers and principals; seek out new ways to turn around perennially struggling schools; and sign on to efforts to develop common academic standards that are tough enough to withstand international scrutiny.

As I’ve note previously, the research literature does not indicate that charter schools increase student achievement, but it does suggest that standardized assessment and accountability systems relegate student learning to the cognitive basement and create perverse incentives that lead to student disappearnces/drop-outs. The cognitive capture on display by the Obama administration is stunning. The education lobby is now fully cemented in both political parties.