For me, it took recognizing it was about the journey, not the destination. If I could continue to set an ultimate goal, and then go back to old ways once I achieved it. Or I could commit to working hard at it each and every day, recognizing it was about improvement, not absolute accomplishment.
– dear ol’ Eduflack getting very personal on Medium, reflecting on lessons learned from life as a “fat man”
It reminds the MAGA crowd of everything they despise about the elites on the two coasts. For them, they need no one to defend Chick-fil-A or to understand the joy of a chicken biscuit in the morning. It reinforces that their opponents, and the publications at the heart of the Resistance, are godless, anti-community, even anti-meat advocates who represent why the nation went off the rails in the first place.
From dear ol’ Eduflack’s latest piece on LinkedIn Pulse, taking the New Yorker to task for its condescending piece on the presence of Chick-fil-a in NYC and how such a piece is indicative of the socio-political divide in the United States
Will it work? Only time will tell. But it is safe to say that perceptions of the slow pace of baseball will be mitigated by reading FB comments, in real time, as the action is unfolding. The disconnect for those who have never played the game – not even on the playgrounds of their childhood – can be offset by seeing your name and photo on a live broadcast, as you interact with a Hall of Famer or a complete unknown. The focus of truly following a game of baseball can be balanced with a need to multitask, as a live game takes up just part of your computer screen or goes mobile with you on your smartphone.
– From Eduflack’s latest on LinkedIn Pulse, Despite the Hype, MLB on Facebook Isn’t the Strikeout People Expected
Across the nation, folks are rightfully applauding young people for stepping forward and ensuring their voice is heard on the issue of guns. But haven’t we seen this dance before? Haven’t we seen younger generations speak loudly in the community, but then fail to turn out when it comes to voting?
The numbers of the percentage of young people voting — particularly in 2012 and 2016 — is disturbing. As valuable as marches and turnout in the streets may be, nothing is more powerful that that vote at the polling place.
Over on the BAM! Radio Network, we explore the topic, hoping that activism moves beyond the number of Twitter followers. Give it a listen.
I’m honored, humbled (and quite excited) that this week dear ol’ Eduflack was named a winner of the inaugural SPOKEie awards. Recognizing the best spokespeople in the field, DS Simon Media and its crew of expert judges recognized me as the top non-profit education spokesman in the land.
With so many terrific personalities in the education field, it is a true honor, particularly when I think of so many who are far better than I am. But I am proud of the work I’ve been able to do with the Woodrow Wilson Foundation and proud of the continued evolution of the Eduflack platform for a discussion of all things education.
I hope you’ll wish all of this year’s winners a hearty congratulation. Despite how it appears on TV or in the movies, what we do is neither easy nor glamorous. Being a flack is fairly thankless, as you bear responsibility for the challenges and provide the limelight for others when it is time to shine. But it is necessary work and, when done correctly, incredibly valuable.
Congratulations to all my co-winners. And thanks to all of you, and those like you, for helping make communications a noble profession.
We are now seeing students wanting to take a greater role whether it be in elections themselves whether it be in issues like school violence. I think we’re also seeing very slowly but we’re seeing that same thing happen in education itself where we’re seeing that for centuries now whether it be our colleges or K12 systems, schools are built largely around the system, they’re built around the adults who are there to deliver the education. And we’re seeing more and more from students that the learners themselves want to be in control. They want to be the ones that decide what is best for them. It’s why you see the rise of personalized learning in schools. It’s why you see the rise in mastery based education. I think you’re seeing the same thing as students are beginning to talk about the type of atmosphere that they want. You know we’ve we’ve seen it now as students have begun to dip their toes in issues like bullying and cyber bullying. And we’re now seeing it specifically with school violence. I think the challenge to students is we have this belief that today’s students have a shiny object syndrome that they’re focused on this right now and next week they’re going to be focused on something completely different.
From Eduflack’s recent interview with Doug Simon and DS Simon Media on The Power of Social Media Live and the Modern Education System. Come for the transcript, but really just watch the video. It is far more engaging (and it shows that Eduflack doesn’t just stay in his basement)
Even forgetting all of that, we can’t overlook that Cambridge Analytica was simply mining data (and microtargeting voters) based on the information that we willingly, easily, and freely handed over. While we may not have answered the quiz or clicked on the link to specifically provide voter targeting data to a political campaign, we shouldn’t be surprised when our information is used for that purpose. No, we shouldn’t be surprised to learn there is gambling in Casablanca.
Consider that I can learn a lot from a person based on the websites they link to from their Twitter accounts. Thanks to procedural cop shows, we all should know how easy it is to track criminals through their online search histories. Instagram can be just as reliable as a dark house in telling me if someone is home. And LinkedIn can help my employer know if I am looking to move to a new job.
School House Rock taught us that information is power. We shouldn’t be surprised when people use it to strengthen their positioning. Short of going off the grid entirely (or voting straight Libertarian), there will always be those who gather our information and use it for their own benefit.
From Eduflack’s latest on LinkedIn Pulse, Don’t Blame Facebook Data, It’s Your Fault!
“Her [Betsy DeVos]tribe in American education right now is very small,” Riccards said. “And I think it’s getting smaller as more people continue to look for what this administration stands for, education-wise.”
From Andrew Ujifusa’s Education Week piece, “Parkland, ESSA, and That Tweet: Betsy DeVos Had Herself a Week“
In an era of “alternative facts” and opinion masquerading as media, the truth can be a hard thing to find. Over at LinkedIn Pulse, dear ol’ Eduflack writes on how New England Patriots QB Tom Brady’s claims that “everyone has different truths” and the recent analysis that President Donald Trump has made more than 2,000 false or misleading claims since assuming office is incredibly dangerous, particularly for the communications profession.
As I write:
No, truth is no longer evident; truth lies in the eye of the beholder. And that should be unacceptable, particularly for communications professionals. For those of us who deal in information, it becomes essential that we prize truth as our most coveted commodity. We should defend our positions and our organizations with all of the zealousness that our positions allow. But we must do so recognizing we can never, ever lie. There may be elasticity in advocacy or in flacking, but there is none in the base truths on which communications and public engagement is based.
Give it a read. I swear it is all true!
It’s often not easy to have a thoughtful, meaningful discussion of charter schools, their goals, their metrics, and their impact on both students and society as a whole. The very topic of charter schools these days brings out the best and worst of most people, with the mere mention of the organizing structure polarizing a discussion to the cartoonish stereotypes of status quoers and the privatizing profiteers.
So one really has to hand it to Elizabeth Green (along with Chalkbeat and the Atlantic) for demonstrating that such a rich exploration of the minefields that are charter schools, Success Academy, and Eva Moskowitz is indeed possible.
That most will neither fully agree nor disagree with Green’s Atlantic piece is a testament to how impactful it can be. Green is particularly reflectful in connecting the impetus for K-12 education reform with her own work, writing:
I became disillusioned with the status quo too—but later, and with more trepidation. At the news organization I co-founded in 2008, now called Chalkbeat, reporters began covering reformers whose aggressive plans to close district schools and replace them with charters seemed to inflame the very parents whom the reformers said they aimed to serve. And the district-hating almost always came with a thuggish brand of teacher-bashing. I knew bad teachers existed, and I knew many of them were unfairly protected. But the idea that merely pruning the bad apples would save schools was unsupported by evidence or reason. Fire the rotten 10 percent, and who exactly did these reformers think would fill out a 3.8-million-person workforce? Vilifying teachers and their unions was surely counterproductive because it alienated the same overloaded foot soldiers who would ultimately be responsible for turning around poor-performing schools.
Pulling out quotes from the piece, though, just doesn’t do it justice. Everyone and anyone who is involved in K-12 public education needs to give Green’s piece a read. And we all need to look for how the conclusions she reaches, and even the stories she tells, reflect our own work and what we can learn from it.
Readers also need to head over to Chalkbeat to take a gander at Green’s companion piece on WHY she wrote the Moskowitz piece in the first place. It is just as illuminating to the entire discussion.
The full Atlantic story can be found here: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/01/success-academy-charter-schools-eva-moskowitz/546554/. Be sure to give it a real, deep read. It is worth the time.
Ultimately, we need to have more conversations like those that Green poses in her pieces. Personally, I continue to reflect on the lessons learned during my time in education reform, as well as my initial motivations, the hard realities I had to confront, and the behind-the-curtain moments that should give us all pause. If one isn’t self-motivated to pursue such topics, Green’s work is sure to spur it.
Eduflack By Patrick R. Riccards 