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Friday, July 20, 2012

Bingo! Pattern-on-the-Rug Time « Diane Ravitch's blog

Bingo! Pattern-on-the-Rug Time « Diane Ravitch's blog:


Bingo! Pattern-on-the-Rug Time

One of the brilliant readers of this blog sent in a comment that made me understand what has been happening to American public education for the past 15-20 years.
It is the conscious, purposeful application of a marketing strategy called FUD: Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt.
Wikipedia says that FUD is used in sales, marketing, public relations, politics, and propaganda. I sensed that this was happening but I didn’t realize that it was a tried and true strategy that has a name and a documented history.
It’s a strategy in which one competitor undermines the other by spreading FUD. Read the Wikipedia entry to


What Publishers Are Doing About Common Core

As this article shows, publishers are not debating the Common Core Standards, they are trying to figure out how to align their catalogue with the CCSSI as soon as possible. They don’t want to be left out of the national market for materials aligned to the new standards.
At the same time, they are more than a little concerned about the political waters. They listen, and they know there is pushback from both the left and the right, where the idea of national standards remains anathema.


In What Other Profession?

Is it possible to be a classic if the thing is only two years old?
Well, this post is a classic. It’s by a teacher who sometimes calls himself a “union thug.”
I met him last year, and he is one smart guy.
He asks a simple question, “In what other profession?”
And his response is a classic.