Messaging - Still The Stone Age - An Open Letter

Since the 14 May diary on messaging, we've had some word of mouth information passed along at a staff meeting and some word of mouth information in the staff lounge. We've had NO hard hitting message to advance any agenda, redirect misconceptions, or defend against any lies.

Whatever the excuses for the absence of information, or, for its primitive dissemination style, we the SEA are the largest branch of 1 of the largest unions in the state, and without effective messaging we are going to defend nothing and advance nothing. If you don't believe me, please consider what lame messaging did for Mondale in 1984, for Dukakis in 1988, for the Clinton health care attempt in '93/4, for the Monica /Starr nonsense, for Gore in 2000, for the Democratic party in 2002, for Kerry in 2004 - they all lost! Oh, by the way, what has happened to job security, retirement security, healthcare security in those last 29 years of losing ? (Ask AHIP or AIG or GM workers or Boeing workers!)

The SEA is the largest branch of the WEA, and the WEA gets $72.50 * 12 months * 50,000? 70,000? teachers a year, which is between $43,000,000 or $60,000,000 a year. There are tens of thousands of communication major graduates every year*. There are no legitimate reasons for our messaging failure.

I urge you to hire people who can implement messaging practices detailed in the 2 diaries on Dailykos last weekend. I think it is fitting that on Memorial Day weekend there were concrete ideas on how to win the messaging battle against the forces of darkness and the allies of regression. There was a day and there was a time when the ideas and the messages and the actions were on the side of progress. Let's make future Memorial Days times for recalling the start of successes, instead of days long gone.

The first diary is from someone telling people how to behave when going on t.v. - it applies all the time when dealing with the media.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/5/23/111157/247

The second diary is analysis of analysis of analysis. A dkos front pager deconstructs what paul begala is saying about what frank luntz wrote. Luntz is messaging for the liars on how to kill health care, again. Luntz is the evil genius who came up with gems like 'death tax' and other right wing zingers.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/5/24/977/03832


(*table 291, Statistical Abstract of the United States.)

WEA: Way Too Polite

As reported in the P-I, in a recent speech before the WEA in Spokane, Gov. Gregoire informed union members that everyone is in pain:

Gov. Chris Gregoire told the state's largest teachers union Thursday night that everyone in Washington is being hurt by the national recession that blasted a big hole in the state budget.

Gregoire offered verbal support for teachers, but little else during a speech before the Washington Education Association's annual convention. The speech came as thousands of teachers across the state are receiving layoff notices for the next school year.

"The fact of the matter is, everyone has felt the pain," Gregoire said. "It is devastating."

Gregoire apparently didn't feel the pain enough herself to do anything about the budget. She opposed any form of tax increases, even on high income earners, and after signaling that she would support expanding the bond limits, she changed her mind and opposed Rep. Dunshee's proposal that would have raised $3 billion in school construction.

Gregoire and her fellow Democrats, in the end, enacted an all-cuts budget that will protect the wealth of the privileged and balance the state coffers on the backs of the poor. Those of us who teach academic support classes that help struggling students--most of whom come from poor families--understand this as much as anyone. The truth is that Gregoire and the Democrats in the legislature constitute a political elite that is insulated from the consequences of their actions.

And how does the WEA respond to Gregoire's excuses?

WEA President Mary Lindquist, in introducing Gregoire, noted the union understands these are difficult economic times. But the union hated the budget that came out of the Legislature, she said.

"It will take us years to climb out of the hole this economic recession created for public education," Lindquist said.

Lindquist noted that the relationship between the Democratic governor and the WEA has been "challenged at times," and reminded Gregoire that the union was a "powerful political force."

"We recognize the only path to resolving the chronic underfunding of education requires us to continue to work together," Lindquist said.

Gregoire said she was at a loss to make teachers feel better in the present economic climate.

"You deserve my thanks and the thanks of six million people," she said.

The governor got a polite response from delegates.

Polite response? The governor sells out teachers and public education to protect the wealth of the privileged, and she gets a "polite response"? WEA representatives should have booed and hissed her, and Ms. Lindquist should have leveled hard words at the governor. In case anyone hasn't noticed, being nice hasn't worked.

The Unbearable Lameness Of SEA WEA Messaging

To be direct and to be blunt, we're getting our butts kicked in messaging. Excuses are NOT acceptable. Getting our butts kicked will equal more ridiculous demands on our teaching time, which, by the way, equals less effective time helping our kids.

The messaging on our side has been not had the best effect, to use the obtuse language of obfuscation preferred by policy makers of the relatively affluent social classes controlling too much of education policy.

In the last week, we SPS teachers have been fired or not fired by letters which didn't exist and which now exist. The maybe 79 cert rifs or maybe 300 cert rifs (recall Dr. G-J's email of Wed. 22 Apr) turned into the Tuesday Tsunami, and on Thursday we the peee-ons still don't know exactly what happened, except that many of our friends are on the street come End Of Day 19 June.

I've had so many snippets of water cooler chat in the last week, and there is a lot of confusion and there is a lot frustration amoung us working high school teachers. Regardless of whether people completely distrust the JSCEE, or people figure the last week's events are just the latest song and dance from a hugely dysfunctional bureaucracy, or people are somewhere in between, MOST people are scratching their heads over the SEA/WEA messaging.


I do NOT know what is the best messaging.

I do know that I wasn't hired to do messaging.

I do know that since I was a 20 year old 4 buck an hour cook in 1980, my political side's approach to messaging has been to whine that unprincipled corrupt monied interests are ... corrupt and unprincipled.

I do know that, according to the Statistical Abstract of the United States, table 291, there are tens of thousands of communication style graduates a year. (*)

I do know that some kind of effective message SHOULD be front and center, daily, or whoever is in charge of messaging should be looking for a new job.

We're losing, and when we lose, our hard to do jobs are harder to do, and the kids we're hired to serve are served even worse.

I have 2 more observations which I'll put into comments so that this diary isn't too long. The comments detail the hodgepodge of 'communications' from the SEA, and a recommendation for some of the mechanics of messaging.

beatrice



(*) http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/cats/education.html

SEA WEA SPS Issues

There are a lot of issues happening with the current bargaining session between the Seattle Education Association and the Seattle Public Schools.

It seems that, given the events of the last weekend, things could have and should have been handled differently by the union.

Please see the following diary from the blog Save Our Seattle Schools for a good overview of the events, claims, counter claims.

http://saveseattleschools.blogspot.com/2009/05/goodloe-johnson-fires-first-shot-in.html

Our union - the SEA and the WEA - must do better managing these kind of events.

Anon-0