Category / Election 2020

by nflanagan

Stop Trashing Joe Biden’s Cabinet Picks

Especially his choice for Secretary of Education—but lay off the nit-picky nastiness around the others, too. Yes, YOU might have chosen others. Your favorite candidate may have been left behind. But much of Cabinet-choosing is inside baseball, beyond the ken of Joe Citizen. Stop bellyaching.

Biden’s selections all seem pretty experienced, professional and well-known to Biden or people he trusts. And hey—given what he’s got on his plate, and the worrisome lack of information coming from some quarters—I’d be reaching for the tried and trusted, as well.

There are always Cabinet members who don’t pan out, who are gone in a year—and there are people Biden wants who give me serious pause, too. Biden was far from my favorite Democratic candidate, but he displayed qualities which made him President-elect in the most contentious election in modern history. It doesn’t serve us well to flyspeck untried and unconfirmed Cabinet members, because there’s someone we imagine might be better. I’m taking a wait and see approach.

Frankly, 90 per cent of the people who are raking prospective Cabinet members across specific, overheated coals don’t know much about any of the nominees. But they’re willing to retweet some old error, a comment from years ago– or speculate about just how bad someone will be, based on some pretty limited evidence, or a single issue.

Here’s the thing: we’re not dealing with an ordinary transition, where progressives can realistically hope for big-transformative-ideas Cabinet members. We’ve got a pandemic to deal with, for at least six more months, in addition to a dozen political crises that are raw and bleeding—and dangerous.

Not every advisor and policy chief will be anxious to break new ground. Some of them are going to try to please multiple constituencies. Most of them will be lucky to reverse a stunning amount of damage, a lot of which has yet to be unearthed. They also have to pass through a confirmation process with a hostile Congress.

What is important right now is remembering whose policies and advice left us with the mess we’re in, and working to right the ship. I still have hope for an FDR-level change, eventually, but there’s work to be done first.

Like most teachers, I’d never heard of Dr. Miguel Cardona until about four days before he was nominated. But unlike many teachers, I was reluctant to name ‘my’ preferred candidate for ED Secretary. I have seen utterly inappropriate people elevated as ideal candidates–most of whom, thankfully, understand the range and scope of the job, as well as the politics, and said so.

Both Dr. Cardona and Dr. Leslie Fenwick, the other rumored finalist, seemed like good bets, people who had worked across the range of K-12 education and had deep understanding of how well-meant policy initiatives actually played out in public schools.

I heard Cardona’s acceptance speech on the radio and it felt sincere, even inspiring, to me. Biden appears to be honoring his pledge to nominate someone with classroom experience. And frankly, I don’t think there is a magic number of years in the classroom that makes a person qualified to be EdSec. Cardona enthusiastically trained to be a teacher via a public university—he didn’t come into education as a temp. To me, that’s enough.

Dr. Cardona has been a teacher, a school administrator at multiple levels, and a state superintendent during a pandemic. He’s been embedded in public education–as object of policy, administrator of policy and creator of policy.

Scrolling back through all the Secretaries, in Republican and Democratic administrations, he seems pretty close to what teachers have always said was essential, and what they wanted: someone who believes in the critical importance of public education and understands the people who do the work. Cardona will be only the 12th Secretary of Education, but compared to the previous eleven, we’re getting closer to that ideal.

Some folks disagree with Cardona’s prioritizing face to face education during the pandemic, especially for children in poverty—and others agree. He led a state with only 24 charter schools, involving less than .02% of CT students, so his mild remark about schools that serve children well hardly paints him as someone who supports destroying public education in favor of charters or choice. The question isn’t whether you like everything he’s said and done—it’s whether his CV shows him to be dedicated to the core principle of an equitable education for all children.

The Secretary of Education has little control over policy decisions that belong to states—but the rise of federal power in education policy has undeniably been steady, and onerous, for the past two decades. Cardona, as advocate for equity in public education, could be a powerful voice in reducing unnecessary (federally mandated) testing and creating conditions that make it safer for a return to in-person schooling. This might begin with federal oversight over real—not ‘alternative’—CDC recommendations, or, say, rolling out priority vaccination clinics for teachers as first step toward getting kids back to school.

My personal take on this: way too many people do not understand how inequitable virtual schooling is. There are high percentages of public school kids who do not have access.  And when I say ‘access,’ I don’t mean an internet hotspot via a bus parked near the projects. I mean enough devices in the home, some privacy and quiet, someone to help you when you run into trouble, and—most of all—adequate bandwidth to run all the programming.

There are plenty of pressing needs right now, around public education. It’s in crisis—and there’s even limited evidence that some of the strongest advocates of choice and standardization are now claiming that the pandemic has laid bare all the inequities and petty rule-making that have bedeviled public schools since NCLB sent us down the ‘accountability’ path.

Biden seems to have mostly sent us nominees that will be able to get through the confirmation process. There is SO much work to be done. I might eat my words in a year or two (Ghost of Arne Duncan floats into view), but for right now, I don’t want to waste time wishing someone else was president-elect, choosing candidates whose perspectives mirror my own. As someone once said, it is what it is.

Miguel Cardona, President-elect Joe Biden’s nominee for Secretary of Education, speaks after being introduced at The Queen Theater in Wilmington, Del., Dec. 23, 2020.
by nflanagan

Republicans

I was tempted to begin this reflection by saying ‘some of my best friends are Republicans’—but that’s not true, these days. I myself voted for years in the Republican primary, because it was the only way to have some say in who would be representing me, in my ruby-red district. My friends and family run the gamut from fire-breathing leftists to what we in Michigan call Milliken Republicans, after our longest serving, environmentally progressive governor.

Unlike the classic maturation template–moving from idealistic liberalism as a young person toward pragmatism, security and conservatism while aging– I seem to be going in the opposite direction. Fewer and fewer people in my inner circle cop to the label ‘Republican’—with or without qualifying adjectives.

Perhaps what is most true is this: Republicans used to be different.

Eisenhower built the interstate highway system, signed a major Civil Rights bill and promoted peace at critical foreign policy junctures, saying that war was ‘brutal, futile and stupid.’ My kinda guy. Unfortunately, he left office when I was in the fourth grade.

Whereas, last week, MY Congressman (Jack Bergman (R), MI District One) and MY Representative in the Michigan House (Jack O’Malley (R), District 101) demonstrated what the Republican party currently represents, by signing on to disenfranchise their own constituents. Because evidently, if you didn’t vote for Trump, your vote shouldn’t count.

Nobody, in 2020, needs to make an evidentiary list of the norm-busting behaviors of latter-day Republicans. We can start with the most recent: The Clown Coup. Plus: The Race War. Abandoning democracy. The Shame of the Nation. Bootlicking Bill Barr. Even rock-ribbed Bret Stephens admits that there’s been long-term damage done, although he points his well-manicured finger at Trump.

And that’s the second thing about Republicans: It’s not just Trump, although he’s the most colorful spotlight hog. It’s the whole range of elected Republicans, shutting down the common good—projects that benefit us all, the proverbial rising tide that lifts even the shabbiest boat. The Republicans are just pure nastiness at this point, indulging their deepest fantasies, abandoning those who need good government the most, protecting billionaires and corporate giants.

It wasn’t our institutions or norms (things conservative Republicans used to revere) that saved us from a second Trump term where absolutely nothing gets done to benefit the people of these United States, although the courts did their part.  

The flaw is vulnerability to party politics. It turns out that if a majority of members of at least one body of Congress exhibits a higher loyalty to its party than to Congress, Congress will not function as a reliable check on a president of that same party. This was what happened with Mr. Trump and the Republican-controlled Senate.

But–what about the Lincoln Project and its needle-sharp anti-Trump ads? What about Michael Steele and Steve Schmidt and John Kasich? What about all the other Democrat-come-latelys?

That’s the third thing: Please stop with the admiration for Brad Raffensperger types—he merely did his job, and is now trying to re-burnish his Republican credentials by trashing Stacey Abrams and her righteous quest to, you know, make it possible for everyone who’s eligible to vote. He’s just one of the most visible Republicans to back away slowly from the Trump administration, pretending that he wasn’t 100% on board, weaseling around with voter purges and shutting down polling sites.

And that’s the last thing: Democrats persist in trying to be nice, to find common ground, to work cooperatively, yada yada. In a different age—say, a few decades ago—this was actually possible. But not after Republicans broke our political system. Gleefully.

Did Republicans really inflict permanent damage? Yes. They have—whether intentionally or not—released domestic terrorism on this nation. During a pandemic, no less, when millions are destitute. What else do they have to do—or fail to do—to prove that their party loyalty is destroying us?

I see you raising your hand over there, asking who ‘we’ are. Or saying that Democrats have also, throughout our history, been corrupt and greedy and feckless. Or that all political parties are flawed. To you, I say: Bingo. The perfect time to re-build a party or start a new one is now, after the SIX WEEKS it took to (probably) nail down a secure national election result. Go for it.

In the meantime, we have two big and viable political parties running the show, and I will turn to the voice of the most experienced Congressman in national history, the late John Dingell of Michigan, to suggest a framework for fixing elections and, in the process, our democratic Republic:

In December 1958, almost exactly three years after I entered the House of Representatives, the first American National Election Study, initiated by the University of Michigan, found that 73 percent of Americans trusted the federal government “to do the right thing almost always or most of the time.” As of December 2017, the same study, now conducted by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, found that this number had plummeted to just 18 percent.

There are many reasons for this dramatic decline: the Vietnam War, Watergate, Ronald Reagan’s folksy but popular message that government was not here to help, the Iraq War, and worst of all by far, the Trumpist mind-set. These jackasses who see “deep state” conspiracies in every part of government are a minority of a minority, yet they are now the weakest link in the chain of more than three centuries of our American republic. Ben Franklin was right. The Founders gave us a precious but fragile gift. If we do not protect it with constant vigilance, we will most certainly lose it.

Read the whole piece. You won’t be sorry. It’s full of commonsense suggestions under which we could all benefit. Even those with an inclination to fight until the battle is won.

I saw former Governor Bill Milliken in downtown Traverse City a couple of years ago, shortly after he was unceremoniously removed from the local Republican party by a Trump-supporting party hack, after being quoted in the newspaper about his decision to vote for Hillary Clinton.  He was coming out of Grand Traverse Pie Company, holding what was probably his dinner. I was tempted to speak to him, to say I was a fan, but declined, thinking he might appreciate a little privacy and a tuna-fish sandwich.

He died about a year ago, in his 90s. I am sorry I didn’t take the opportunity to thank him for his service. He was one of the good ones.

by nflanagan

Norms, Ethics and Civility. Plus Education.

Early in 2016, when it became apparent that Donald Trump would be the Republican nominee for president, the question emerged: just what percentage of the population actually endorsed his brand of brash white nationalism? It always felt impossible that more than a small sliver of the country would honestly embrace (not just tolerate) his behaviors and proclamations.

A lot of us were counting on norms, ethics and civility—plus our historic institutions—to make a Trump presidency more like All Other Presidencies. Now we’ve seen how that turned out. Do we still get to call for reasonable and ethical behaviors?

There was a gut-wrenching piece in the Washington Post yesterday about a mask mandate in Mitchell, South Dakota. If there ever were a place where neighborly norms and civility ought to reign, where people would be willing to help others, it’s small-town South Dakota. A friend of mine used to live there. Her husband was a Methodist minister. If people in Mitchell were like Donna and Dick, they’d be masked up, washing their hands, and dropping food off on ill neighbor’s porches.

But it turns out that they’re not. In fact, many of them are adamantly anti-mask, anti-science. As beloved coaches and grandmothers are dying, they’re insisting on falsehoods. These people aren’t evil, and it’s wrong to dismiss them as dumb and worthless. They are still following community norms. It seems to me that what’s missing is a genuine education—accompanied by a widespread terror that education will change minds and hearts.

Because education has the power to do that. It’s not automatic. But if you have absorbed the habit of being curious and interested in things, education has the power to change your mind. Not always in predictable ways.

When I went off to Central Michigan University, in 1969, I thought I understood what was true and correct in the world. I thought there was a good reason why we were in Vietnam (to stop communism, which I naturally believed was evil). I thought that men in Congress (and they were pretty much all white men) knew more than I did about war and the economy and the rule of law, and were best positioned to make important decisions about war and peace.

I saw my high school classmates and guys who graduated a year or two earlier go off to ‘serve their country’ and saw parents proud of those sons who (like the previous generation who fought in WWII or Korea) ‘did the right thing.’ I saw a couple of them come home in a box, too. We were supposed to be really proud of them because they ‘gave’ their lives, at the same age I was, before having a chance to work, own a home or start a family.

All of those were a result of norms, ethics and civility.

During my freshman year, I started listening to people other than my parents, Walter Cronkite and local politicians. I stopped believing that there was one right way to look at everything. My sociology prof introduced me to Margaret Mead, and I went to lectures, to see Jane Fonda, and William Kunstler. I also went to church.

My professors started pushing on my thinking in both liberal AND conservative directions–after the Kunstler lecture, my philosophy professor called him a ‘greasy ambulance chaser.’ I started to understand the structure of argument and evidence, and to read and talk about things that were wildly divergent from the middle of the road, white, working-class, church-going discourse I’d been surrounded by. Cracks started to form in my mental model of what was true and correct.

The big issue then was, of course, Vietnam. I began to wonder what good it had done for the neighbor kid–Joey Hoeker–to have gone to war and been killed. I grew up with him. He was a big, goofy guy, a couple years ahead of me in school. I found it difficult to believe that he went to Vietnam to fight communism. He went to Vietnam because he was 18, had a low draft number and wasn’t (as they said out loud, back then) ‘college material.’ And he died.

For the first time, it occurred to me that tens of thousands of boys who were killed were just like Joey–kids who didn’t have big plans for their lives, and so were sent into harm’s way. I started showing up for anti-war demonstrations on that basis alone—long before I read about Robert McNamara and the politics of war, I was playing ‘Fortunate Son’ on my little two-speed record player.

I started questioning pretty much everything and reading all the time, including a lot of stuff that wasn’t assigned, like MS. Magazine, newly available in the CMU library. Having access to a top-flight university library was key to any transformative impact on my character. In case you think I was a flaming radical, I also dropped out of school and got married at age 20.

All this happened to me at mild-mannered CMU which was hardly a hotbed of revolutionary thought. I would have to say that most of the students in my music classes or my dorm did NOT go to demonstrations and were uncomfortable with anti-war, anti-government rhetoric. Some of their brothers were serving. Some of them were academically rootless, only in college to avoid the draft and because their parents could afford it. Their dads and moms were Republicans. They claimed to be apolitical.

Norms, ethics and civility were the order of the day.

But–for me–it was education, my first opportunity to soak in diversity of opinion, to dare (and dare is the right word) to think that maybe what I’d been taught, and believed, was mostly whitewash. It was where I learned that a call to ‘unity’ is often whitewash, too, and that norms are not necessarily moral or fair, even though everyone agrees to abide by them.

We’re now looking at the after-effects of Trump’s end game. It will take years to erase the illiberal, undemocratic policies and we’ve suffered unimaginable losses. And the percentage of people willing to believe his con is larger than it was before. Calling for civil behavior before untangling the moral questions that emerged from this election is silly. We have some educating to do.

by nflanagan

Ten Things I Used to Think

I Used to Think was a writing and thinking prompt developed for students, part of the work done by Project Zero. Lately, we haven’t been all that interested in what students think, or how their thinking might change, given more information, dialogue and cogitation. Instead, we’ve been interested in raising their test scores by asking them to simply reproduce knowledge–or keeping them six feet apart and masked until they’re tested again.

The last four years have radically changed a lot of what I think. For example:

I used to think that choosing the right Secretary of Education was the first critical key to strengthening public education across the nation. I really enjoyed the game of proposing/comparing people who, from various perspectives, would be great Education Secretaries. My standard of excellence was always Richard Riley. Riley was Governor of South Carolina, where he did a great deal to recruit teachers of color and address poverty in public education, before being tapped by Bill Clinton as EdSec. He was not, however, an educator, and he presided over a time when education reform was considered a good thing.  But now—I am uninterested in digging up years-old board memberships and former jobs of prospective candidates for EdSec. I am not convinced that being a long-time educator is a prerequisite for success on the job. Experience in the political and policy realm really matters. I’m not even interested in writing a blog about it. Heresy, I know. But there it is.

I used to think that bipartisanship was a good thing, that moving government forward necessitated both collaboration and compromise. I thought policy creation was sausage-making—everyone gets to put in a little something. I thought having a broad range of opinion, from progressive to conservative, was how the country remained stable, and loyal, and patriotic.  But now, I agree with Rebecca Solnit: We shouldn’t meet criminals and Nazis halfway. (Read the link—it’s fantastic.)

I used to think that churches, in spite of their many flaws, were trustworthy organizations that, on balance, did good in their communities. But now, even though I work at a church that is a beacon of kindness and acceptance in a small town, I am horrified at how far astray from core, all-religions wisdom—the universal, do-unto-others stuff—that many Evangelical Christians have wandered. They say there are no atheists in foxholes—and we’re all living in a kind of viral foxhole these days—but I am heartily sick of driving around and seeing God’s Got This! signs in my neighbors’ yards. I think everyone—believers and non-believers, all creeds and traditions—needs to wear a mask, stay home, wash their hands, and stop pretending to be compassionate or ‘saving’ people.

I used to think that racism springs from acute flaws in human character—hatred, and ignorance, likely instilled early by family and community. But now—thanks to Ibram X. Kendi—I recognize that what has held deep-rooted racism in place in America for 400 years is not a continuous stream of benighted people, but policy. White people stole, platted out, and sold land that Indigenous people lived on, hunted and fished, for centuries: policy. Majority-White public schools have always had far more resources and advantages than the schools Black children attended—and policies that nominally have been established to increase equity have also increased segregation.  A country that was literally founded on diverse expression of thought has built its own caste system, through layers and layers of interwoven policy. The good news is that it’s possible to change policies.

I used to think that free and fair elections were the cornerstone of American democracy, and that most people saw election day as a kind of Norman Rockwell tableau, a cherished opportunity for everyman to have their say. I thought the peaceful transfer of power was inviolate. But now… I don’t even have to finish this one. Turn on the television.

I used to think that teachers, in spite of their lousy pay and lack of control over their own work, were regarded as community heroes and helpers. But now—there’s this. This. This. And thousands more. Today, I read an outrage-inducing piece claiming that yeah, teachers are getting sick and dying (isn’t everyone?) but there’s no way to prove they actually caught the coronavirus at school—so hey, everybody into the water. The negative repercussions on this entitled attitude—teachers are so selfish when it comes to their own health!—will last for decades.

I used to think that voluntary academic disciplinary standards were a useful way of organizing curriculum, and the occasional standardized test (say, three or four between kindergarten and graduation) didn’t hurt anyone, and provided some valuable baseline information. But now, I think that standardization, and the widespread belief that more data will improve public education, is pure folly, an illustration of the old saw that a man whose only tool is a hammer sees every problem as a nail. Rewritten: To a man with a computer, every problem looks like data.  

I used to think bootstrapping was a real thing, taking out loans to get a college degree would pay off in the end, and there was a future for deserving and ambitious students. But now, I believe we have outrun this concept of social mobility through more education, which may have once been true. If you’re rich, or your family is rich, those advantages will hold. If you’re trying to catch up economically, the odds are so seriously against you that your smarts, moxie and good character mean pretty much nothing.  The only possible hope (see above) is major policy change. 

I used to think that I was a pretty good music teacher–way above average, in fact. But now, watching music teachers struggle, every single day, with how to teach music online—and, incredibly, succeeding, I am humbled. Even more important, I’ve witnessed them forming communities on social media to help each other tackle these challenges and share resources and innovations. I’ve seen them have in-depth conversations about core pedagogical issues and the future of their profession. Humbled, I say. Seriously humbled.

I used to think putting up a Christmas tree before Thanksgiving was sacrilege, part of the ugly, metastasizing commercialization that has spoiled a once-simple holiday.  But now—this year—I think that, in this season of kindling light against darkness, any cultural or religious tradition that brings joy is spot on, and the sooner, the better.

by nflanagan

Public Schools. Public.

[Many years ago, at my husband’s class reunion]: Inebriated classmate starts rhapsodizing about the extreme superiority of the education they all got at their well-regarded co-ed Catholic high school in the suburbs of Detroit, back in the day. His monologue derails (did I mentioned he was sloshed?) and he turns to yammering at ME (a public school teacher) about how terrible schools are today (he has no children) and that the public schools—well, they’re the worst of all. Everybody knows that.

I bite my tongue.

I’m used to people assuming that private and religious schools are, somehow, automatically better than public schools. On the face of it, if ‘you get what you pay for’ is a truism, private schools ought to be better than public schools. Depending on your definition of ‘better,’ of course.

Part of the cachet of privately funded education is exclusion. You’re paying for the privilege (a carefully chosen word) of sending your child to a school that other people can’t afford, and having them taught using a set of values (religious and otherwise) that your family has chosen, not been assigned to by location.

You are making the decisions, finding a school with a socio-economic level close to yours, probably, in the hopes your children will make friendships with similar children. There may be scholarship money for students with fewer economic resources, but that involves a different kind of screening and exclusion.

A religious school or an independent private school may be the right choice for your child, and however you get them there, knowing you support the school you chose  (financially and values-wise) will help your child understand that you are committed to their education. And that–is huge.

However. I would have to say that the cause dearest to my heart right now is saving public education.

By saving, I don’t mean preserving a nostalgic, return-to-the-past version of public schools where the curriculum was homogenized, the Common Core a distant memory, and everyone sat in straight rows.

I mean saving public education from going under, totally, being dismantled and sold for parts.

Lots of truly ghastly things have happened to public education in the past couple of decades, the pandemic merely being the worst. Teachers have had large chunks of their professional discretion taken away, and their salaries remain in the basement. The accountability movement has turned the mission of public education from citizenship and job training to improving test scores.

And now, teachers are caught in the squeeze between the challenge of teaching students well, using uneven connectivity and tools they’ve not been trained to use—or exposing themselves to a deadly virus. It’s like the worst dystopian plot ever, set in the most prosaic setting: an ordinary classroom.

And the conflicting parties are not red or blue, conservative or liberal. They’re public and private.

There are some things that need to belong to all of us, be cherished and tended and utilized by all of us, each chipping in as they can, because we understand these things are best accomplished by communal resources and effort: Parks. Libraries. Roads. Hospitals. The Post Office. Museums, theatres and auditoriums. Schools. The people who keep our food supply safe and put out forest fires. And of course, things we must have, like the military, police and prisons.

Public things.

Most pushback against public initiatives and investments stems, as far as I can see, from two impulses:

  • It’s my money and you can’t have it.
  • I don’t want to share anything with them. [Fill in your own personal ‘them’– people who don’t ‘deserve’ to enjoy ‘our’ parks, libraries, hospitals, etc. People who don’t belong.] 

For many people, public funding for things like recycling or early childhood services or a new library represents taking away their right to choose. If you don’t read, recycle or know anyone with small children, maybe It feels like money out of your pocket, your ‘right to choose’ overridden.

You take care of your own, right? You shouldn’t have to meet the needs of others. That this is a profoundly anti-democratic idea doesn’t even occur to you. Selfishness and power-mongering are featured, every night, on the TV news. Its us vs. them—freedom!–not all of us, together.

I would posit that one of the few places a wide range of citizens, including those who are Red and conservative, can find common ground is in support for public schools. I find it interesting (and also annoying) that while nearly all public schools are on a grotesque anxiety merry-go-round academically—open, close, re-open, close again, in-person/online/hybrid—football season went on.

Of course, many games were cancelled, championships will forever be listed with asterisks, and there are literally hundreds of stories about how teams played without positive-for-COVID stars (or with them, accidentally–or surreptitiously).

But schools, parents and players were absolutely unwilling to relinquish a sports season. Back in June, when the second (or third) wave was just a far-off possibility of horror, the Republican Legislature in Michigan tried to put their (fairly worthless) policy recommendations for what would happen to public education on a one-pager. It was vague and propagandistic and did not anticipate the widespread transmission that actually happened in the fall. But they were adamant in the one-pager that sports would go on.

At the time, it just seemed like pandering to special groups of parents. But I think, now, that it might be another sign that even the most adamant proponents of phony, gun-toting rugged individualism might not want to give up public education entirely. They just want to control it, squeeze all the profitability out of it, while still enjoying the great gifts (including Friday Night Lights) it has provided to small communities, for more than a century.

We are at a tipping point with public education—either it is recognized as one of the most useful institutions of community-building and progress, or it becomes just another example of scare-labeled ‘socialism.’ Ironically, we used to use public schools to advance public goals—an educated citizenry, training everyone to be productive and innovative, places to vote and be immunized against disease, places to learn the basic concepts of our American government, a genuine melting pot.

It’s time for that national conversation we keep talking about, but never have: What is the real mission of public education? Forget the over-under on who will be the new Secretary of Education. Let’s clearly define the purpose of public schools and stop supporting exclusion with our tax dollars. It’s well worth the fight.

As Roger Cohen said, today, in his final NYT column:

Exclusion precludes belonging. Racism is a close cousin to nationalism, as America has been reminded. They both depend on scapegoating or persecuting “the other”; on the idea, as Kipling put it, that: “All nice people, like us, are We, and everyone else is They.”

by nflanagan

In Some Ways, This is Worse than 2016

My friends remember, vividly, waking up after Election Day in 2016. The shock. Their personal emotions, from disbelief to outrage, the sense of betrayal. Who voted this racist, sexist joker in? What can we do?

What was born that day, and later refined, by a vast web of progressive people, media and organizations, has been a big driver of my life for the last four years, beginning with the Women’s March in January of 2017. The Trump presidency daily impacts my beliefs and my actions—so much worrying about the country I love. Maybe it’s the retired teacher in me, but I want to help. I want to live in a more just and peaceful world.

I would have sworn, until yesterday, that all that Indivisble-ing and anti-gerrymandering and election challenging was going well in my state and in the country, in general. The Democratic listening tour, the inspired improvised campaigning during a pandemic, the fact that our candidate was mainstream and inoffensive—it all felt like it was going someplace.

A better place.

I’m writing on Thursday morning, so the election is No Sure Thing, although there’s reason to hope, and to be glad that Michigan shifted roughly 80,000 ballots—a paltry amount– in the right direction over four years. There may be other very modest but pleasant surprises, as the week wears on, but essentially, what I’m experiencing today feels most like grief.

In 2016, it felt like you’d just gotten the shocking, painful news that the country was sick—so you immediately went to work to heal it, with lots of energy and political expertise and innovative tools. In 2020, you realize that the country might actually be sick for a long, long time. Perhaps forever.

Then there’s this (per my friend Mitch Robinson):

When they write about this election result in Michigan in the history books–and they will–let the record show that the state was saved for Joe Biden by black voters in the state’s largest cities–Detroit, Flint, Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids.

The same people who have had their drinking water poisoned, their public schools de-funded and emergency managed into disrepair, their cities gentrified. In general, these voters have been abused by their state’s former Republican governor and a Betsy DeVos-funded and directed state legislature who has never treated the African American community in Michigan with even a modicum of respect or common human decency.

It won’t be the first time Black voters have saved white Michiganders from themselves. Thank you.

In my county, three overtly bigoted County Commissioners were all handily re-elected, even though only one of them even bothered to answer questions from citizens about a major dust-up over openly racist language in countywide offices.Even though the County went blue, overall, for the first time since 2008, finding out that my neighbors are fine with Commissioners who think racism is somehow tied to abortion rates, and deeply respect a sheriff who refuses to enforce a Governor’s pandemic restrictions? That’s sobering.

None of this is a matter of win-some/lose-some politics. The proverbial pendulum.  We’re used to that—and 2016 was an upside-the head reminder that turnout and voter enthusiasm are always the issue. The difference between 2016 and Tuesday night was the bitter knowledge that MORE of the people in your state, not fewer, think Donald Trump is a better choice.  That his four-year reign of incompetence, lawlessness and even death is preferable to whatever mild-mannered Uncle Joe is selling.

I live in a state where this was a (factual, non-Onion) headline, a month ago: Republican leaders join anti-Whitmer rally outside Capitol after FBI reports murder plot against her.  So yes, I was hoping for some kind of repudiation of Republican candidates and tactics. And yes, I am frightened about what the next two months will bring.

I’m also worried, now, about future elections. The vote-suppressionists have been developing an effective ground game under Trump. Even if he goes down tweeting in 2020, the people who are happy to see low turnout and unquestioned, careless lying (and I know who they are, locally anyway) got a good grip on how to screw with elections, in perpetuity: De-fund the Post Office. Phony drop boxes. Refusing to mail absentee ballot applications to every voter, even when they were legally ordered to do so. And so much more.

Rolling back suffrage gains that have been hard-fought, in American history.

Garrison Keeler: For the first 50 years of American elections, only 15 percent of the adult population was eligible to vote. Thomas Dorr was one of the first politicians to argue that poor people should be given voting rights. As a member of the Rhode Island legislature, Dorr argued that all white adult men should have the vote, regardless of their wealth. He incited a riot to protest the governor’s election of 1842 and went to prison for treason, but most states began to let poor white men vote soon after. Women won the right to vote in 1920, and many African-Americans were prevented from voting throughout the South until the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. Widespread voter suppression still happens today, sometimes against specific groups or with specific political motivation.

No kidding.

My biggest worry? What students are learning, right now, about free and fair elections, core democratic values (which are included in the Michigan Social Studies standards, by the way)– and the peaceful transfer of power. I think back to 2000, when we were instructed not to talk about What Is Happening In Florida—and to the teachers, bless ‘em, who are coping with this electoral craziness AND the pandemic, right now.  

So what did I do to support the cause? I was an Election Challenger who was sequestered with the Absentee Vote Counting Board in my (rural, red) township. I arrived, with my badge, on Tuesday morning. The Township Clerk met me at the door and—in front of the 2R/2D counting board—loudly proclaimed that I would be sequestered with the counting board until 8 p.m. when the polls closed. But I would not be able to use the restroom at any point during that time.

The counting board’s heads went up—wait, what? Did you say we couldn’t use the bathroom? No, said the Clerk—not you, just her. One of the Dems asked why. Because you’re a hired, trained board, she said (that turned out to be not completely true, vis-à-vis the training). But she’s just a (air quotes) ‘volunteer.’

That was not my first encounter with an in-person lie from a local Republican official. I had the Secretary of State’s full description of what I could and could not do, printed out, in hand. Township Clerks can’t prevent sequestered observers from using the bathroom at breaks in the action. I sneaked out once, unnoticed, when the whole group took a bathroom break—but wondered about why local officials felt it was OK to leave me alone in the counting room, with opened ballots laying on the table, but not to use the restroom. Where did they learn to be petty and punitive?

In 2018, all indicators showed a modest ‘blue wave’ which I assumed was the slow turning of the great ship. I am doubtful about that now, as I have witnessed armed militias and kidnapping attempts.

As Republican groups began posting anti-Trump media in 2020 (sharper media than the Democrats’ media, BTW), I have been convinced that they were just trying to get out ahead of the actual free and fair election and establish a Republican beachhead for 2022. I am no fan of Tom Nichols, one of the aforementioned anti-Trump Repubs. But this morning, I find his words true:

No matter how this election concludes, America is now a different country. Nearly half of the voters have seen Trump in all of his splendor—his infantile tirades, his disastrous and lethal policies, his contempt for democracy in all its forms—and they decided that they wanted more of it. His voters can no longer hide behind excuses about the corruption of Hillary Clinton or their willingness to take a chance on an unproven political novice. They cannot feign ignorance about how Trump would rule. They know, and they have embraced him.

Sadly, the voters who said in 2016 that they chose Trump because they thought he was “just like them” turned out to be right. Now, by picking him again, those voters are showing that they are just like him: angry, spoiled, racially resentful, aggrieved, and willing to die rather than ever admit that they were wrong.

So—yes. It’s grief I’m feeling.

by nflanagan

‘Twas the Week Before the Election

People sometimes ask me if I struggle to find things to write about. The answer is no. Essentially, never. But this week, I have three unfinished blogs about education sitting on my desktop. Blogger block.

I’ve been blogging pretty much since blogging become a thing—and started getting paid for doing it in the early aughts, which made it feel more like reality and responsibility and less like some cool edu-techie thing, where—look!—you’re on the World Wide Web!

Before 2000, I wrote an occasional column for the local daily newspaper—perhaps once every couple of months. I got this gig because I was Michigan’s Teacher of the Year in 1993, and I also was friends with the paper’s Editor. I was highly circumspect in my opinions and wrote about ordinary classroom issues, but my getting published in the newspaper made administrators at my school exceptionally nervous. To the point where I was finally directed to cease and desist with the op-eds. I complied.

I didn’t have a regular writing gig in 2000 (which is probably good; we were directed not to ‘dwell on’ the craziness going on in Florida, post-election, with our students). By the time I had a blog for a national education nonprofit, we were past 9/11 and into the 2004 campaign. Because I was writing for organizations (and being paid by those organizations) and because I was in the classroom for most of the next 15 years or so, my election-time blogs in 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2016 were also…circumspect.

I went back to look at some of those pieces.

I was surprised to see how heartbroken I was in 2004. I was hardly a huge Kerry supporter, but the very ugliness of the campaign—Swift-boating an actual decorated veteran—was dismaying. It seemed like a new and disgusting level of dishonesty. We went to a concert at the Wharton Center for Kerry—Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, Guy Clark—and while hanging around with other 50-something Boomers, thought for an evening that yeah, we might actually get rid of Bush. Good times.

I wrote several blogs in the Fall of 2008, more than any other election season. I was writing a lot about hope and change, and the building certainty that we had a paradigm-shifting election on our hands. We were definitely getting rid of Bush and there was this great Democratic candidate. It was time. So much optimism.

We pictured Margaret Spellings taking her mandated tests and mean-spirited ‘accountability data’ and getting out of Dodge. We pictured a new focus on equity and social justice in public education. So many pictures.

Yeah. That optimism and those pictures… As much as I admired President Obama, not much useful policy-making happened for MY goals, as a teacher and public school advocate, in the Obama years. I wrote only one election blog in 2012, and it was about what a weasel Mitt Romney was—just another rich white kid, hazing other students in his HS years here in Michigan.

I was blogging for a national publication in 2016. Although I wrote a few tepid blogs about the race, they were mostly around the prospect of our first female president, another paradigm-shifting moment.  I also wrote about how the Trump we saw during the campaign (!) was a bad role model for kids.

But those 2016 blogs were tempered by a bad feeling that we weren’t seeing the whole picture. I thought about Bernie Sanders winning the Michigan primary (I voted for him). And the Tea Party, which hadn’t gone away, in the white Midwest where I live.

I went to the Women’s March in D.C. in January of 2017, and wrote about that. And discovered, over that year, that I could no longer blog about school issues only, divorced from politics, because everywhere you looked, public education was being pummeled by terrible policy-making (and policy destruction, misinterpretation and flouting). Sweet freedom whispered in my ear, as someone once said.

Basically, I started my own blog in 2018 because I was sick of holding my political opinions in a separate suitcase, under control. I wrote gleefully about the midterms, where the five top elected offices in MI went to Democratic women, all of whom have done a fine job of governing, and a couple of whom have had their lives threatened for their trouble.

I wrote about the jammed field of teacher bloggers and politics. I was tired of teachers saying that talking about racism or sexism or equity or justice in the classroom was not allowed. I was tired of pretending that the future of public education didn’t depend, 100%, on who gets elected and runs the show. Time to stop being pushed around by people who have no respect for the common school. Or the kids and parents who rely on public education.

I wanted to write for myself. To advocate freely. So here I am.

This year feels most to me like 2008. There’s a big change coming. And rolling into it will not be easy. In 2008, I worried about violence. And I’m worried now, about violence. In my state. At my tiny little Township Hall. Toward my governor. And throughout the lame duck session, and beyond the Inauguration. You can see what’s coming, every night, on the news, as tens of thousands are lined up to vote, masked, and carrying hand sanitizer and a lawn chair.

Voting is what makes this nation progress, or stall, or go completely off the rails. I’ve written plenty about terrible things this administration has done to public education, and which Democrat I wanted to be President. I’ve also written about Joe Biden, whom I believe may be able to hold the country together, perhaps even better than my first choice.

If I’m having a hard time writing about this election, it’s because it feels surreal, more dissected and more consequential than any other election in my lifetime. In 1968, my father vociferously voted for George Wallace and my mother quietly voted for Nixon and I watched cops beat up college kids in Chicago. That one seemed pretty consequential, as my life goal at that point was moving out of the house to become a college kid, who could say what she thought.

In the meantime, like many of you, I’m having a hard time letting go of the daily doomscrolling and cable news addiction. But let go we must. The election is happening, around the clock. Time to protect all those votes.

We need to save our strength and smarts for after the election, too. There should be little 10-second TV spots saying: Make a Plan for all the days after November 3, too! 

This one matters.

by nflanagan

No More Debates. For the Good of the Country.

It’s been another tough week in Teacher Land. My music teacher buddies in Michigan are writing about coming inside from the cold, after a few weeks of humming softly in a circle on the grass, playing ukuleles or meeting under a canvas canopy with tubas and flutes.

How to make music safely, indoors: a challenge I never had to meet, but creative teachers are figuring out, on the fly, every day. Kudos, and more kudos, to every teacher struggling to make whatever form their instruction is taking effective. Y’all rock.

But imagine you are the 8th grade Social Studies teacher who assigned watching the Presidential debate, asking for a one-paragraph response or trying to discuss it via Zoom. You anticipated lots of fireworks, and actually hope that your students get hung up on the bad behavior. Because otherwise you’ll have to explain who the Proud Boys are–and the fact that a serving president has already falsely deemed the election a fraud, five weeks in advance. Try being ‘neutral’ and pro-civic engagement after that.

There have been lots of jokes today about needing a middle school teacher at the next debate. Ha ha and all that, but as a veteran, 30-year middle school teacher, let me lay down the law: No more debates.

Media outlets and sponsoring organizations don’t need mutable microphones or better rules. (Better rules and guidelines are a feeble solution to a much bigger problem—something every classroom teacher comes to understand, eventually.)

 It’s not about Chris Wallace’s failure—and it was a botched job– to control Donald, either. It was clear to anyone who watched Wallace’s credible interview with him, a few weeks back, that the president was getting his revenge on Wallace and Fox, in a deliberately crafted (and rehearsed) strategy: Dominate. Flood the zone.  Humiliate your opponent.

Trump openly abused everything: His opponent. Family loyalty. Voters’ intelligence. Norms of civility.

Turning off the president’s microphone is the political equivalent of making him write ‘I will not interrupt’ one hundred times on the chalkboard. It also opens up the possibility that he would walk offstage, as is his habit during ‘briefings’ at the White House. None of this is something children of any age should witness, if we want to preserve a democracy and civic dialogue.

What we need is a consequence with teeth that also protects the whole country from the harm: No. More. Debates.

There’s enough time for media outlets and sponsoring organizations to make other plans. Maybe they’re just done. Maybe they offer Town Halls around policies, with candidates appearing separately. Whatever. But what our children and our country saw last night on television should not happen again. It wasn’t rough-and-tumble, bare-knuckle politics. It was, instead, obscene.

Six in ten observers believed Biden ‘won’ the debate (a word that doesn’t really apply—we all lost, last night). Only 28% thought Trump prevailed. If the voting ends up roughly the same way—two to one—we have reason to hope that we will survive this horrible experience.

Biden, in what I thought was one of his best moments last night, turned to the camera and assured us that we could use the institution of free and fair elections to save the republic. Just vote, he said. Trump followed up by declaring the election a fraud and a joke. That’s another thing we don’t want our children to see or believe.

One more teacher story: An award-winning teacher I know in Mississippi started a post today by saying ‘I really need you to read this.’

She said that as a first grade teacher, she had a student whose mother had a blog. After ‘Meet the Teacher’ night, blogging mama wrote about my friend’s ‘weird’ (and ethnically Asian) last name and what she thought about her child having a teacher with that last name.

It was incredibly hurtful, my friend said. Mama ended up pushing to remove her kid from the class. When administration wouldn’t remove him, she withdrew him from school.

I think this is the first time I’ve talked about this, my friend said. It is hard to do. A lot of people never experience racism and xenophobia themselves, so they just aren’t aware of it. I get it. That was me when I was younger too.

She said: I unequivocally denounce white supremacy. I ask that my friends and family join me. I want to see all of my friends and family come out strongly against white supremacy to show love and support of me and my children, as well as love and support of our brothers and sisters who occupy this wonderful planet with us.

She posted two hours ago, and her post has dozens of ‘I denounce white supremacy’ comments, and commiserations from other teachers about dealing with racism in the classroom.

What if every public school teacher said to their class today, in developmentally appropriate language, I unequivocally denounce white supremacy. I denounce it in this classroom. I denounce it in this town. I denounce it in this great nation. White supremacy is—and always has been—wrong.

Parents, teachers and citizens of all stripes should not have to witness abusive, abhorrent behavior and listen to bald-faced lying. We wouldn’t allow our students to do this. We shouldn’t allow our elected leaders to do this, either. For many, many reasons, including that thing you study in school: the lessons of history.

No more debates. Let’s not let Trump destroy discourse, in favor of domination. We all lose.

by nflanagan

1619

When I was a junior in HS, my American History teacher was in a serious car accident in the fall, and did not return to teaching. This was 1967, and Social Studies teachers weren’t thick on the ground. The situation was personally worrisome: I had somehow persuaded this history teacher to let me take his required class as an ‘Independent Study’ so I could take both band and choir (which were infinitely more important to me than American History).

As rounds of fill-in teachers appeared, I was basically living in fear that my arrangement with Mr. Gilbert would be uncovered. He apparently left no record that I was even part of his class load. I might have to drop out of the choir—and I loved the choir—being coerced to return to conventional, one-chapter-a-week-test-on-Friday American History. It could go on my permanent record, or something.

Then fate smiled. My school district hired a young, spanking-new graduate of Western Michigan University, in December. She was cool with my studying American History on my own, added my name to the official grade book, and offered me her college history texts. Assignments would be short papers—and conversations with her. She recommended paperbacks I might enjoy.

In one of those conversations, I mentioned that her college Am-Hist textbooks presented things differently from our HS text. Things like the smallpox-infested blankets and how Andrew Jackson might not be a totally upright guy.

She smiled her praise. Good work, she said. You now understand that the people who write about history are usually the ones who benefited from the outcome. There are many ways to interpret the events of history—the ones you’re getting here in high school are pretty sanitized and one-sided.

This was a revelation to me, and made me vastly more interested in (and suspicious about) reading history. Most of my teachers seemed to regard their anthologies and textbooks as gospel truth, and thought we should, too. A fact is a fact.

Learning that there are lots of reasons to argue with the bland, evasive rhetoric found in textbooks was a great gift. I am still friends with that teacher—Marjorie Foster Trapp—and we still poke at each other’s thinking on social media. I got lucky.

As I said, this was 1967, the first year I ever saw those black and white diagrams of how enslaved African people were shackled, head to foot, in ships’ holds. When the Detroit race rebellions were still in the headlines, and in the thick of the Civil Rights Revolution, American students (at least in my school) were reading columns of sterile information about Whigs and Custer’s Last Stand. Has there been significant change in the teaching of our nation’s history?

Let’s hope so.

We’ve got vastly more resources at our fingertips now—the Library of Congress, in fact. A well-read teacher can serve as expert guide to artifacts and stories about important historical events and issues, across the developmental spectrum. History could be engaging, even fascinating; more importantly, students could understand what can be learned from mistakes made in the past. We might even teach them to be suspicious of believing much of what they hear or see on Instagram. To be informed citizens.

I believe this is happening in many, if not most, American classrooms. And I also believe that the teachers in front of those classrooms should be able to select the right materials to challenge their students.

The 1619 Project is not, as some have suggested, a curriculum. It’s a set of digital materials—essays, photo stories, editorial pieces and features—on the impact of slavery on all people and institutions in the United States. Nikole Hannah-Jones’ essay, America Wasn’t a Democracy until Black Americans Made It One, would be a great assignment to tackle at almost any point in the traditional HS Social Studies chronology. A little close reading, even; there are easily a dozen provocative ideas about American history in this one piece.

Naturally, Mike (Fordham) Petrilli had to weigh in. The Fordham folks think Trump’s proposed anti-1619 response, the 1776 Commission curriculum (as yet mostly unwritten, but absolutely going to be chock-full of real patriotism and heroes), is our window of opportunity to craft an all-American curriculum that does the impossible: pisses off nobody but instills reverence for our exceptionalism, with all the usual Important Dates and lots of winning. Petrilli has several nit-picking critiques for a contemporary media series on the legacy of having been a slave-owning country for 250 years, and other sources:

‘Take the famous Howard Zinn textbook, A People’s History of the United States. Central to its narrative is the premise that the world is, always and forever, divided into oppressors and the oppressed. This is a deeply cynical idea, though resurgent today in discussions of “anti-racism” and “critical race theory.” Do its adherents expect conservative-leaning parents—scratch that, most parents—to welcome this ideology into their children’s schools with open arms?’

First–anti-racism is real, not a word you put in quotes.

And what is Petrilli’s big idea? He is going with Trump’s 1776 Commission. No, seriously. He wrote that Trump was right to question the too-liberal teaching of social studies in our public schools. We need a commission.

You have to wonder what Fordham thinks high school history teachers do all day.  

What pedagogical and philosophical errors could they be making, that would somehow be fixed by a Commission? A Commission inspired by Donald Trump’s petty rage over a successful media launch involving the NYT and a topic critical to the health and progress of the nation—dealing with our racism problem? A topic of high interest and importance to teenagers, as well.

To all American History teachers: hang in. Teach your students to embrace America, ugly warts and all, and to vote as if their lives depended on it. Our highly imperfect democratic republic is worth saving, and they’re going to be in charge some day.

by nflanagan

The Post Office, the Election and Social Media—Four Lessons

This isn’t a blog about Our Beloved Post Office, or DeJoy the Impaler or even How to Vote. At its core, my ultimate point here is that Americans are terrible—godawful—media critics. And, consequently, our students–whom we frequently, jokingly label our on-site tech support–are floating in a sea of toxic TikTok spin and political sludge with no paddles and no anchor.
While young people are often fearlessly intuitive about using social media tools and platforms, the wisdom that comes from analysis, evaluation, fact-checking–and simply being mature—is not necessarily in place. True, I have, in 30+ years of teaching, met 7th graders I would trust with my life. But one look at 17-year old Kyle Rittenhouse’s social media presence ought to give anyone pause.

On the other hand—well, here’s a story about a viral FB post and adults who ought to know better.

This narrative is just one illustration of how misinformation is spread. I have my own theories about how this particular blot on the truth may have happened, but no proof.

It’s kind of like what’s happened to the Post Office this summer—moving from citizens’ early observations about the mail being slow, to a loose accumulation of facts and accusations, with people becoming more informed (or misinformed).

This week, we moved into Congressional hearings that have convinced many people that a critical, constitutionally mandated service is being deliberately destroyed by a guy who knows bupkis about delivering the mail and has an economic stake in shutting it all down.

Many people–but not all people, of course. Because others have read memes and posts and seen tweets that say the USPS has always been second-rate, and it’s time to put this money-losing federal service in the hands of a businessman.

We’re losing our grip on truth.

Around August 14, a post began to appear on my friends’ Facebook pages. Lots of friends—at least three or four dozen close buddies or acquaintances, some of whom have graduate degrees and respected voices in their communities. I won’t quote it all here—but it began with these words:

Good advice for people who feel unsafe about voting in person but now fear the USPS will be unable to deliver a “mail-in” ballot in a timely fashion.

There is a way around it:

1. Request a mail-in ballot.

2. Do not mail it.

Look familiar?  This is not good advice.

There are a number of potentially concerning things in the rest of the post. It suggests that your drop box is probably not at/in your polling place (not true—many are). It says you can google your ‘election supervisor’ and find out where the drop box is (not true—and not all states use the same terminology to describe the elected authorities who oversee local elections). It says you can track your ballot—just like an Amazon package! —but neglects to say what to do when the tracking system says your ballot has not arrived, and you can’t track it through the mail’s bar codes.

There’s a lot of happy-talk language in the post: Your ballot gets in on time no matter what happens to the USPS! You don’t have to worry about standing in long lines and risking infection! Just drop it off!

In Michigan, if you drop your ballot into a handy drop box that isn’t in your voting jurisdiction, your ballot will not count. So there’s that.

And, it says (in capitals): ALL STATES ALLOW THIS!! As a matter of fact, the Trump re-election campaign sued the state of Pennsylvania and county elections officials in June, saying that drop boxes were unconstitutional. The case is still tied up in the courts. Are we going to see more such lawsuits across the country, negating or muddying the use of drop boxes?

All states that have mail-in voting of any type got there via a policy shift, at some point, applicable to that state alone. In Michigan we had a ballot initiative in 2018 to use the mail for absentee voting for ALL Michigan voters, no reason needed. Lots of confusing policy proposals and policy changes around voting have been proposed, adopted and rejected, across the country, as a result of the pandemic. There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to ensuring that everyone gets the chance to vote.

It would be easy to think this post was from a well-meaning GOTV advocate, quoting advice applicable to their state or locale, thinking it was helpful everywhere. Its folksy tone makes you think you’re talking to a friend about your worries that USPS won’t be able to do its job.

It might make people who put off getting their ballots in the mail think—hey! I’ve got time! There’s got to be a drop box around here, somewhere! Or people who requested absentee ballots and find out too late there’s no box, go to the polls without the absentee ballot they requested (which needs to be ‘spoiled’ by a clerk, to free them up to vote in person). Etc.

At the very bottom of the post, it says this:

***This is very important, and I would appreciate everyone who sees this to copy it on their page. (Press and hold until the copy option pops up)***

This was the point at which I started wondering just who had written this (there was no source, not even ‘a friend wrote this’ on any of the re-posts I saw). Could it be a viral bot-post? Not shareable—one of those ‘cut and paste, so we can get the word out quicker,’ scammy posts?

I went looking. The first place I found it (on August 14) was Reddit, shared (but not authored) by ‘Joe in Canada.’ Two big spreaders were FB pages for ‘Spiritual Surrender’ and ‘The Professor is In’—but I couldn’t find a named author or credible source anywhere. Weird.

I did start pushing back every time I saw it posted, with a set of bulleted facts, similar to what I’ve presented here, only shorter. A couple of people said thanks, and took it down. A half-dozen more edited the post, to fit their city, township or voting jurisdictions and added cautions (that felt good).

But most people argued back, with ‘I know where my drop box is—I always use it’ or ‘I didn’t read the whole thing! Check with your local authorities!’ (leaving the incorrect information in place). One former student deleted my comments and left the post up (that felt bad).

Worse, there’s a similar meme making the rounds today—white text on a dark blue background. Be looking for it.

Lesson: People don’t like to have their random re-posts challenged. In fact, they hate it.

Second lesson: There’s a lot of unverified, even dangerous, garbage floating around out there as citizens try to navigate holding an election during a pandemic. Remember Steve Bannon’s maxim? Flood the zone with shit?And the best kind of, umm, shit is stuff that looks, at first glance, like it might be true.

Third lesson: Check for sources. Don’t ever put faith in an uncredited, my-friend-said post or video. (This is important for our students to know—here’s one great resource to help teachers with that.)

Fourth lesson:  There’s good information out there for all of us. AARP (go figure) has excellent non-partisan guides for all states. It’s our responsibility to inform our friends when something they have posted is wrong. Knowledge is power.

Coda: I learned that my voting jurisdiction does not have a drop box by asking my County Clerk. She told me I could drop off my absentee ballot or vote early (another perk we supposedly got in the 2018 ballot initiative) by making an appointment at my Township Clerk’s home. Since our Secretary of State offered a free drop box to every township in Michigan, I expressed disappointment. Later, the SOS website showed that there now was a drop box, at the Clerk’s home address.  There’s a photo of it, in her unlit, unsecured front porch, below.