Fwd: [eddra] dissemination

[Susan Harman <susanharman@igc.org>]

From another listserve. Michael is a lead-poisoning expert.
Susan

Begin forwarded message:

> From: "Michael Martin" <mike@azsba.org>
> Date: Fri Feb 2, 2007  11:43:42 AM US/Pacific
> To: <eddra@yahoogroups.com>
> Subject: RE: [eddra] dissemination
>
> I think it is far more fundamental than this. Look up sophists in your
> encyclopedia (or Wikipedia!). Disinformation has a long philosophical
> history. The fundamental difference between conservative and liberal
> philosophy is that the conservatives understand the sophist view that
> the judge determines the winner, whereas liberal philosophy is a more
> empirical reasoned philosophy. Thus in the presidential elections and
> other endeavors the conservatives have concentrated on character
> assassination while liberals tried to argue policies. Conservatives  
> view
> this entirely as a power struggle while liberals view it as a truth
> investigation.
>
> In my own area of concern on lead poisoning, the lead/paint industry
> initiated a vicious smear campaign against the primary researcher who
> was demonstrating the ills from lead poisoning
> (http://www.azsba.org/leadepihero2.htm). This tactical attack was
> designed as much to dissuade others from researching in this area as
> much to stop Dr. Needleman. In other cases, they offer to buy off
> opponents. In other cases they pre-emptively create media whores who
> will act as intellectual transvestites and parade around as
> intellectuals.
>
> These conservative "scholars" infest phony "think tanks" and  
> consciously
> mimic intellectual activities in order to confuse the public. For
> example, a couple of years ago the conservative writer Ann Coulter was
> praised for her heavily footnoted book, and received widespread media
> attention as a scholar. But when scholars actually looked at the
> footnotes they frequently had nothing to do with the topic and  
> sometimes
> even refuted what she claimed. In Arizona when the conservatives
> released a report supporting charter schools I showed how the appendix
> in their own report refuted the report's conclusions. Conservatives see
> data as a costume to wear to mimic what scholars actually do.
>
> Consider Charles Murray's book "The Bell Curve." An article in Slate
> magazine (http://www.slate.com/id/2416) noted:
> "The Bell Curve was not circulated in galleys before publication. The
> effect was, first, to increase the allure of the book (There must be
> something really hot in there!), and second, to ensure that no one
> inclined to be skeptical would be able to weigh in at the moment of
> publication. The people who had galley proofs were handpicked by Murray
> and his publisher. The ordinary routine of neutral reviewers having a
> month or two to go over the book with care did not occur. Another
> handpicked group was flown to Washington at the expense of the American
> Enterprise Institute and given a weekend-long personal briefing on the
> book's contents by Murray himself (Herrnstein had died very recently),
> just before publication. The result was what you'd expect: The first
> wave of publicity was either credulous or angry, but short on evidence,
> because nobody had had time to digest and evaluate the book carefully."
>
> It should be obvious that this was intentional and planned. As I linked
> to in my rejoinder to Murray's recent WSJ essays, Media Transparency
> profiles Murray this way:
> "He has received more than $1 million from the Bradley foundation over
> the past decade, enabling him to write two important conservative  
> books,
> Losing Ground: American Social Policy 1950-1980 (1984), in which he
> argued that social programs designed to help the poor actually hurt
> them, and The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American
> Life (1994), in which he argued that Black people are genetically
> intellectually inferior to white people."
>
> Murray's articles in the WSJ were a product of the American Enterprise
> Institute (AEI). Consider this current newspaper article
> (http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/ 
> 0,,2004397,00.htm
> l) noting that the AEI, using funding from Exxon/Mobil, is paying
> scientists to write articles disputing global warming.
>
> The process of conservative propaganda involves establishing a theme
> that promulgates a STRATEGIC rhetorical point. The point is frequently
> an Orwellian concoction like "war is peace" or "up is down." The most
> recent one is that social programs designed to help low-income people
> actually hurt them: thus being anti-welfare and anti-minimum wage seems
> socially viable. The Wall Street Journal opinion page diatribe on
> January 26, 2007, against the minimum wage increase, was headlined "How
> to Make the Poor Poorer."
>
> Strategic rhetorical points represent a foundation from which the
> network of conservative surrogates can promulgate tactical initiatives
> against social programs. They can utilize statistical anomalies, such  
> as
> that Mishel pointed out here on teacher salaries, to echo some  
> strategic
> rhetorical point, provided they publish them quickly with the help of
> surrogate media rather than circulate them for serious critiques.
>
> Consider again that the fundamental principle behind conservatism is
> that concentrating power in an oligarchic ersatz royalty (during the
> early twentieth century there was actually a wave of industrialists
> marrying into the lesser British royalty or even buying royal status).
> The fundamental liberal position derived from Adam Smith's thesis that
> empowering the populace enhanced the Wealth of Nations represents the
> foundation of public education and the antithesis of conservative
> thought.
>
> What I find particularly galling is the reluctance of liberals in
> general and educators in particular to disparage and discredit the
> conservative transvestites who attack them. Despite my efforts to
> demonstrate that there is solid medical and scientific research
> explaining the existence of lead poisoning that explains failing
> schools, there has been little or no recognition and promulgation of
> this in establishing a strategic rhetorical position for the education
> community. Indeed, there seems to be a strange reluctance for educators
> to argue from what logicians call "first principles." It is as if
> educators are so used to passing fads that they not only think that the
> conservative attack is a passing fad, but they almost seem to think  
> that
> reality is a fad, that there is no objective world from which to derive
> first principles. This is, for example, the primary critique of  
> colleges
> of education: that they have not established a true research base from
> which to derive pedagogical practices (the Holmes Group of research
> universities futilely tried to change this in the 1980s).
>
> It is not simply that "Greene et al work mainly as advocates under the
> guise of researchers, and sometimes go beyond reasonable advocacy  
> toward
> concocting the evidence." The problem is that they actively use this
> against an education community that is complicit in its own destruction
> by refusing to recognize and counter what is obviously an organized and
> coherent attack based on conservative first principles. Perhaps Marty's
> lament that educators are mostly oblivious to mathematics is partly at
> fault for not knowing from geometry how to argue from first principles.
>
> Maybe it's a little self serving on my part, but the lead poisoning
> issue represents a nuclear weapon that could be employed against the
> entire conservative strategic center, used to discredit their claim  
> that
> all kids can learn, used to discredit their claim that schools fail
> because educators don't care, used to logically explain the need for
> greater Special Education efforts, used to explain the reason small
> efforts like charter schools and vouchers can give the appearance of
> succeeding when professional educators cannot simply by siphoning off
> the nonpoisoned kids, used to explain why no one in their right mind
> would want to work in a low-income inner-city school rampant with the
> known symptoms of lead poisoning, used to explain why suburban schools
> can produce test scores that lead the world while the national average
> is dragged down by urban scores, used to explain Murray's diatribe
> against "genetic Black inferiority in intelligence" is a
> misinterpretation of empirical evidence of lead poisoning, used to  
> mount
> a major logical argument for intervening in the social and economic
> circumstances victimizing inner-city communities, used to establish an
> explanation for providing enhanced funding for urban schools, and used
> to clarify that education in the United States is being unfairly  
> smeared
> in the same way that Dr. Needleman was smeared to prevent his truth  
> from
> emerging.
>
> But instead I feel like this lone Marine attempting to seize this
> strategic rhetorical high ground alone. It's not just that Greene, et
> al, are willing villains, it is also that too many educators are  
> willing
> victims.
>
> Michael T. Martin
> Research Analyst
> Arizona School Boards Association
> 2100 N. Central Ave, Suite 200
> Phoenix, Az 85004
> 602-254-1100 1-800-238-4701
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: eddra@yahoogroups.com [mailto:eddra@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of
> Monty Neill
> Sent: Friday, February 02, 2007 8:30 AM
> To: eddra@yahoogroups.com; GERALD BRACEY
> Subject: Re: [eddra] dissemination
>
> Green, Manhattan and others have figured out how to attract media
> attention for reports that are often fraudulent. Reporters get
> inundated, may or may not have the skills or the time to dig into it,  
> or
> may be ideologically inclined to agree with whatever forms of
> school-bashing Greene et al concoct, and so the story starts, often
> producing copy-catting, etc.
>
> Most researchers understand that results tend to be complex, nuanced,
> sometimes contradictory, etc. They are not advocates intending to make  
> a
> case from the evidence (as good advocates do, vs concocting evidence as
> some do). Greene et al work mainly as advocates under the guise of
> researchers, and sometimes go beyond reasonable advocacy toward
> concocting the evidence.
>
> Monty Neill
>
>
> 	----- Original Message -----
> 	From: GERALD BRACEY <mailto:gbracey1@verizon.net>
> 	To: eddra@yahoogroups.com
> 	Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2007 4:44 PM
> 	Subject: [eddra] dissemination
>
>
> 	
> 	Sure, Manhattan gets more attn.  Most EDDRA stuff doesn't go to
> the media unless the individual poster takes the intiative except for
> the few reporters who are on the EDDRA list.
> 	
> 	I maintain a list compiled from members of the Education Writers
> Association plus those at the Washington Post, NY Times and LA Times,
> none of whom deign to belong to EWA.  Does it help?  Maybe.  I know  
> that
> most reporters get tons of stuff each day.
> 	
> 	A search on Google News turned up reports in only a couple of
> papers.  Those articles had balancing comments and rejoinders from AFT
> reps.  I was sent a copy of an article in the Omaha Register and
> interestingly enough got a thank you from another reporter at the
> Register for providing the Mishel info.
> 	
> 	Jerry
> 	
>
> 	
>
>
>
>
>
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