#Commoncore Video Supports ‘The Bad Boyfriend’ Theory
Peter Greene writes about Common Core in edweek.org and its ‘bad boyfriend’ problem. From The Common Core’s ‘Image Problem’ and Your Bad Boyfriend:
The common core has an “image” problem in the same way that bad boyfriends have “image” problems. The image’s problem is that it can’t stand up to reality.
He compares those Common Core problems that one sees in ‘bad boyfriends':
- The crying kids
- The addiction problems
- The lies
- The money
- The blaming
- The not-working
- The delusional idealism
He writes
We can say that the standards has a growing image problem, or we could say that teachers and parents are having a growing problem with the reality of the Core. The trend of the surveys is clear—the more time people spend immersed in the Core, the less they like it. (Note that the Education Week survey, which shows slightly more positive numbers, is from Oct. 2013).This fall has seen a renewed push on common core messaging (most notably the multi-million dollar Education Post), so clearly Important People are trying to address an image problem. But marketing won’t fix everything (New Coke, anyone?). When you’re having trouble selling people a second helping of poop salad, your problem is not marketing—it’s that you’re trying to sell poop salad. And buying your bad boyfriend a new outfit will not fix your relationship.
Six One Seven Studio may have found that out it has an image problem in marketing a terrible product when it rolled out its video ‘Grandad Learns About the Common Core’. It was a video that was supposed to show common core is not that bad but the viewers weren’t buying the PR message #Commoncore Video Supports ‘The Bad Boyfriend’ Theory | Missouri Education Watchdog: