Adventures in Oxymorons

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DSC_0107Say what you will about living in these political times, snaps go to the marketeers coming up with the names. Why if you didn't actually spend a large portion of your reading time being skeptical and following up with questions and queries, you might just miss out on some really fun oxymorons.Let's take the group, Families for Excellent Schools as an example. Or Students First. Or Great Schools or Building Excellent Schools.Is there a single person on the planet who is NOT for excellent schools or excellent opportunities for students and children?Families for Excellent Schools Advocacy (FESA), a close cousin of Families for Excellent Schools, recently was fined more than $450K and banned from campaigning in Massachusetts for 4 years. Why? Because in an effort to win over a ballot question that would expand charter school networks unnecessarily, the FESA group attempted to hide large donors, including Paul Sagan (Chairman of the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education in 2015)  from campaign finance reporting.  Not cool, FESA. Not cool Mr. Sagan. Link to Maurice Cunningham's piece on this published on the WGBH website here.What these names, knee-deep in oxymoronic descriptors, demonstrates to me is the never-ending need to question and check on "advocacy" groups for their true mission and purpose. Marketers are expert manipulators of vocabulary. They know which word combinations may cause unsuspecting audiences to be lulled into endorsement of groups which may, or may not, be supportive of their own beliefs. Exhibit A: Democrats for Ed. Reform (DFER) which endorses expanded charter schools, rigorous high-stakes testing, and top-down school structures particularly in the areas of "accountability".  Building Excellent Schools apparently believes the only way to make a school "excellent" is to partner with a charter group.It always is a good policy to learn about groups purporting to advocate, especially those involved in or attempting to be involved in public education. What you may find out can be surprising.