Fresno,
Calif.,
school district, agreed that the
union, in particular, outgunned the district.
“The myths started very early on and they had
their own lives, and we were unable to get rid
of most of them:’ she said.
Admitted Shortcomings
Regarding the role of the media, James Har
vey
has written in
The Urban Superintendent:
Creating Great
Schools
While Surviving the
Job,
a publication for the Council of Great
City Schools, that “you have to initiate, not
respond, and you have to be as willing to
accept criticism and share bad news as you
are to issue press releases about awards or
glowing reports on student achievement. You
will find that reporters will respect you if you
respect their intelligence and don’t try to pre
tend there are no problems.”
Even when talking to reporters, superin
tendents must remember, first and foremost,
they are educators and they must lay out
their reform strategies clearly and repeat
edly to multiple audiences, recognizing their
differences.
Joel Klein, the former chancellor in New
York City, and Michelle Rhee, who briefly led
the District of Columbia school system, also
struggled with the challenge of telling their
story effectively to the local media. Klein told
the website Big Think.com he did not think he
had worked hard enough to personally share
the story of the reforms. “It’s a lesson that I
wish I’d learned sooner:’ he said.
Klein added: “We let other people char
acterize the changes in ways that were both
inaccurate and harmful. These things are
controversial, and you’re running up against
people who have very sophisticated media
machines
...
who can be counted on to mount
an effective defense’ To be sure, Klein had his
own sophisticated media operation. Reporters
who cover the school district say the com
munications staff did all it could to control
the flow of information from the district and
made it difficult to do independent reporting
on the reforms under Klein.
But blocking reporters’ questions is not the
same as communicating important ideas.
Rhee made enemies right away for seek
ing to close 23 schools and then battling the
teachers’ union over performance pay and
tenure rights. She cultivated a ruthless image,
appearing on the cover of
Time
magazine, jaw
set, dressed in black, holding a broom, sug
gesting she was ready to sweep aside all who
stood in her way. She also fell into a rocky
relationship with the main beat reporter at
The Washington Post
and for a while refused
to talk to him. Rhee came to regret these
choices; they assisted those who wanted atten
tion to be shifted away from the desperate
need for change.
Shaping Messages
No matter what districts and superintendents
do to try to bring the media along, they can
not completely control the message. Journal
ists always are looking for stories, and they
will never limit themselves to those that a
superintendent wants to tell. But if school dis
trict leaders can effectively communicate their
broad approach to reform, unpleasant news
will at least occur against that backdrop.
Bersin considers his inability to get across
the substance of the changes he and Alvarado
were trying to make to teaching and learning
to be one of his biggest failures. Even his allies
raised questions. “Eli Broad called me once and
told me that I needed to work on my bedside
manner,” Bersin later said with a rueful smile,
referring to the often-brusque Los Angeles phi
lanthropist who was an early backer of Bersin
and Alvarado and their ideas for reform.
Bersin attributes some of his shortcom
ings in this regard to his training as a lawyer.
“Because of my training and experience as
a
litigator, I mistook what I saw happening with
the school board and the union as something
I had experienced before. Parties in litigation
sometimes would take positions that were
not responsible, not based on facts and not
based on law:’ he said. “I believed in the ‘court
of public opinion.’ I thought that if we could
make our case, the community would be able
to make the proper judgment about what was
the right view.”
But, he added, “This outcome depends upon
a
full record, deliberately and accurately pre
sented. This was almost entirely lacking in the
public school context by reason of the ineffective
coverage but also because of our own communi
cation failures. There simply was no framework
for analysis by or on behalf of the public”•
RICHARD LEE COLVIN
is a writer and communica
tions consultant in Washington, D.C. He is author of
Tilting at Windmills: School Reform, San Diego, and
America’s Race to Renew Publi
Education Press, 2013). E-mail:
you have to
initiate, not respond,
and YOU HAVE TO
SE AS WILLING TO
ACCEPT CRITICISM
and share bad news
as you are to issue
press releases about
awards or glowing
reports on student
achievement.
YOU WiLL FIND
THAT REPORTERS
WILL RESPECT
YOU if you respect
their intelligence
and don’t
try
to
pretend there are
no problems.”
nen
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