When We End Up Defending, Not Proposing
Dear Diane,
Money maybe can't buy everything, but it can buy influence. (Which is why some semblance of financial equity is so crucial to democracy.) For example, it can buy the terms of the debate in a way that gives one side a leg up.
Part of that staging is capturing the right words. Example: "Choice" is such a nice word that the Right grabbed onto it re. schooling—although it's object was privatized schooling, just as the Left did on abortion when they were stronger. Defining "our" side of the education debates has been difficult as a result. We end up defending rather than proposing. It's been additionally difficult because the "other side" has co-opted a lot of the language that my side "invented," while moving fast in the opposite direction. Examples: Empowering schools, one of Joel Klein's favorite claims for his New York City reforms, means only that principals have more power over teachers (and less power in relationship to city and state). Similarly, knowing kids well has been turned into having reams of computer data—mostly test scores—on kids.
To avoid endless semantic and historical debates, Al Shanker once told me that he had given up arguing about
