"Winning hearts and minds": Ed deformers as an occupying power

[Hannah Bell]

Cathy Black recently gave an interview to New York magazine, where she made intelligent observations such as:

“Well, too many people will say, ‘I don’t have the money.’ But the smartest principals will figure out ‘How do I reallocate my resources for the things I think are most important in my own school? The teacher evaluation, the … all of the work now in terms of curriculum development, for the core standards.’ This is going to be a game-changer. But it’s a lot of hard slogging, also. Then we have, with the new schools, whether they be charter schools or just new approaches … they’re very exciting. But too many people are afraid of change. They’re very wed to whatever they truly believe in. So obviously there’s a lot of noise about that.”

http://nymag.com/news/features/71279/index6.html

Subsequently Mayor Moneybucks Bloomberg put a gag order on her:

http://perdidostreetschool.blogspot.com/

NY mag, by way of introducing a defense of Black from the Deputy Mayor, describes her task as "to win grassroots hearts and minds, so that the changes go down more smoothly and the results generate more love for Bloomberg"

http://nymag.com/news/features/71279/index6.html

A commenter notes the origin of the phrase:

Michael Fiorillo said...
It's very revealing that Walcott uses the term "hearts and minds," with its implications of Vietnam and Afghanistan. In other words, these people truly are an occupying power, and it's not too far-fetched to imagine them referring to those resisting them as "terrorists." That smear they'll probably leave to the editorial writers from the News and Post, however.

In keeping with the occupying empire meme, keep mind that the TFAers whom they propose to staff the schools are always referred to as "the best and the brightest," totally ignoring the fact that Halberstam's book by that name was meant to be ironic.

http://perdidostreetschool.blogspot.com/2011/02/who-lets-cathie-open-her-mouth-to-press.html

Hearts and Minds was a euphemism for a campaign by the United States military during the Vietnam War, intended to win the popular support of the Vietnamese people. Hearts and Minds campaigns typically refer to liberal-democratic Western governments' attempts to effect regime change in a foreign state...

The term "hearts and minds", which was used as a method to bring a subjugated population on side, was first used during the Malayan Emergency by the British who employed practices to keep the Malayans’ trust and reduce a tendency to side with ethnic Chinese communists...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearts_and_Minds_(Vietnam)

[yurbud]

1. you got it.

[ladjf]

2. One of the quickest way to destroy America is to disband the

public school system.

[maryf]

3. deformation and defamation

are status quo regarding education, thanks for the nth time for your education advocacy! k&R of course.