Inactive Your Take ... Talking Back to the Media
NCLB Parents versus Political Agendas
While browsing through the internet for information about the HUD awarding of contracts based on "political correctness" I ended up revisiting an older practive that a lot of people found "questionable." The administration's manipulation of the media to promote their No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act agenda, I went back to look at the fake "news" items created by the Ketchum firm.
While mucking through the various documents I happened upon the results of their focus group done by Ketchum to measure the effectiveness of their message.
What I found was incredible!
If you take a good look at their results*, you will find many parents and teachers that do not believe that the purported problems with the schools pertains to their schools.
When parents and teacher do identify problems, they do not believe the problems are the same ones that the administration's NCLB and Ketchum's media program are trying to present!
To me, this begs the question. Who knows their school and children's needs better than the parents and teachers?
Instead of Ketchum and the administration trying to understand what the parents and teachers are telling them in the focus groups, they try to present them with "information" and then trying to measure its impact on their beliefs.
I find this disturbing because a conservative would believe that it is the parents and the loacl school boards, not the federal government who should be mandating what is taught. Minimal federal interference in local (state) affairs.
I find it disturbing from the liberal perspective because of the heavy reliance on standardized tests as a measurement of achievement and the sugggestion that vouchers and participation by "faith based" organizations using federal money is the answer. Especially when the presumption of NCLB is that the teachers are part of the problem and are not using the latest scientific research to use the "best methods" of teaching? What makes a religious organization more qualified?
Lastly, NCLB pretends that no one knows which schools really need the help. As parents, city and school district administrators and they will tell you which school are falling apart. Which schools are not meeting the needs of their students. NCLB takes a supposedly objective stance, but in fact, wastes money and resources by mandating unfunded or underfunded testing of all schools. That money could best be used at the local level to let them fix the schools that need fixing.
*source documents, including funding, contracts specifying goals (costs are blacked out) and the results of the polling available at:
http://interactive.pfaw.org/ketchum/
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