Rescuing Education Reform from Decades of Post-Truth
The presidential campaign and administration of Donald Trump have spurred a focus on the role of mainstream media as well as the influence of fake news and post-truth discourse on political and public debate.
For those of us involved in education and the education reform movement, however, the negative consequences of post-truth discourse have been around for more than a century—and during the past three decades, a harbinger of what the Trump phenomenon has brought to the U.S.
While fake news is a specific term about using click-bait headlines and purposefully false “news” to generate revenue, the concept of post-truth is more complex, and adjacent to that is the much less often addressed issue of how media and politicians often mislead through ignorance and bias grounded in common-sense beliefs that are not supported by evidence.
In those latter gray areas rest the problems associated with claims about education and education reform.
Now that we are admitting and confronting post-truth discourse and the role of media as well as the credibility of political leaders, the path to improved education must include rescuing education reform from decades of post-truth debate.
Here, then, I want to highlight the most common but false claims about education and education reform, false claims found throughout the media Rescuing Education Reform from Decades of Post-Truth | radical eyes for equity:
