The Dea(r)th of Opinions [TFA and Writing As A Whole]
Back in 2009, ChalkbeatNY fka Gotham Schools had its first fundraiser featuring then-NYC Schools Chancellor Joel Klein and NYU researcher and former education reform cheerleader Diane Ravitch. He was there to give one of many speeches about the disruptive education reform he and former mayor Michael Bloomberg embarked on since the early aughts. Ravitch, on the other hand, read an excerpt on said legacy from her best-selling book The Death and Life of the Great American School Ssytem. By then, my blog was already blocked from all NYC public school computers (except those in central and with administrative privileges), so getting an invite to an event with most of the movers and shakers from NYC’s education sphere felt special for a guy who only had a PC and an Internet connection.
The handful of us who were typing about education policy didn’t see a dime off it, and because it was so new, people didn’t think I had ulterior motives.
Fast forward to today and it felt like everyone finally has attempted blogging, and telling folks you use social media for writing doesn’t shoot giggles up people’s throats. In many cases, folks assure youare getting paid if you’re writing on a regular basis. It’s hard to tell whether someone truly believes the things they’ve written, if the person in the avatar is the author of the piece, or who e-mailed the author on key information in the article. Organizations have teams of folks who write pieces, The Dea(r)th of Opinions [TFA and Writing As A Whole] | The Jose Vilson:
