Sep 16, 2007
Posted | 13 comments
Education blogs and loads of traffic tend not to mix - that’s just a reality an education blogger has to deal with. Technorati, blog carnivals and liberal linking bring a few here and there, but unless we throw in the odd post about Lindsey Lohan or Apple’s latest technology release, 10,000 unique visitors a day is a pipe dream.
We’ve got to grab opportunities to generate a tiny bit more traffic whenever we can.
This weekend brought the launch of BlogRush, a free widget designed to share links to your content with blogs in your category [ie., Education]. It’s a simple setup:
- Sign up, choose your category, type in the address for your RSS feed and paste the BlogRush code on your site [~3-5 minutes]. You’re done.
- Every time one of your pages is loaded, you earn one ‘syndication credit’ that displays one of your posts on another blog’s widget. If you have 500 pageviews in a day, that means links to your articles will be displayed 500 times on other blogs.
- They’ve got an automatic referral system, so you also receive syndication credits each time your referral’s widget is loaded on his page.
You can see how the widget looks and works - I’ve put it on my left sidebar. BlogRush has been endorsed by Darren Rowse at problogger.net and Yaro Starak, both of whom provide continuously-reliable content and judgment regarding all facets of blogging for hobby and business.
Give it a shot - at the worst, we’ve got a good-looking widget that brings in a few more visitors a day. At the best, we’ll get a lot more of the traffic we deserve.
I’d sign up for BlogRush sooner rather than later. It takes about 5 minutes from start to finish and if it’s half as good as it seems, it’ll be a welcome addition to your site. I’m already getting some new visits.
Sep 16, 2007
Posted | 1 comment
As we found out last Sunday in a throwback to 1893, no milksop can be a football player.
This week I noticed the cover image from the October 1957 issue of Boys’ Life. Artist Harold Eldridge, whose resume includes illustrating books such as The Black Stallion, painted a colorful fall scene in which the procession to the football team’s pep rally has stalled on account of a vehicle breakdown. Two players have jumped in to lend a hand, but they don’t seem to have a handle on the situation - and the majorette-passenger’s expression seems to agree.
The editor’s explanation for the breakdown is simple - Eldridge likely forgot to paint in the engine under the hood.
DOESN’T LOOK LIKE there’s going to be much pep at the rally, unless the young football players can figure out a way to get their vintage auto going again. Artist Harold Eldridge probably forgot to paint in the works under the hood of the classic model. However, with a honking car behind, a throng of enthusiastic well-wishers, and a pretty, but rather skeptical majorette, it seems that they could hold the pep rally right on the spot.
Sep 13, 2007
Posted | 24 comments
Like it or not, the United States is in the midst of a 2-year political campaign to determine a 4-year Presidency. Such a long, drawn-out campaign cycle has afforded many groups a unique opportunity to expand awareness of issues and their influence on the debate. The Ed in ’08 campaign has taken advantage of this singular chance to occupy time and relevance.
The Ed in ’08 campaign is a project of Strong American Schools who, by their admission:
“… is a nonpartisan public awareness and action campaign offering a voice to every American who supports “ED in 08.†Our goal is to ensure that the nation engages in a rigorous debate and to make education a top priority in the 2008 presidential election. We hope that candidates will offer genuine leadership rather than empty rhetoric and tell voters how they intend to strengthen America’s schools so all students receive the education they deserve.”
Non-partisan awareness is a reasonable thing to advocate; public education is one of the few issues where radically different perspectives generally have the same goal: the well-being of our children and the institutions that educate them. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Broad Foundation have provided financial backing for Strong American Schools/Ed in ’08 and, even though these Foundations have pushed for specific education reforms in the past, the campaign appears to be committed to awareness, straight questions and straight answers.
Roy Romer, former governor of Colorado and former Superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, is the face of the Ed in ’08 campaign. So far he has blogged extensively about the campaign’s efforts and encouraged the public to treat education with the urgency it deserves.
Like many education bloggers, I supported Ed in ’08 - and the broadening of the education debate as a whole - and displayed their campaign graphic in my sidebar. Based on heatmap analysis, a surprising number of readers of this site show an interest in the ad. I decided to contact Ed in ’08 to find out some details about the campaign so I could write up a bit to put on my site.
On Wednesday, September 5, I called the Ed in ’08 campaign to ask questions about education bloggers’ responses and support. After a short game of phone tag, I spoke with a member of Ed in ’08′s Press Room. They confirmed Ed in ’08′s penetration of the blogosphere and cited writeups on popular edblogs like EduWonk, Democrats for Education Reform and NYC Educator; they confirmed that over 70,000 had signed up to receive e-mail updates, 25,000+ had requested endorsement kits and petition signatures were piling up at live events. I asked about advertising on blogs and was told that ads had been placed on sites from DailyKos to BoingBoing and across advertising networks.
But the more I thought about Ed in ’08 and poked around the web, the more I was dissatisfied with some of what I saw.
Most disturbing was Ed in 08′s decision to use Kanye West as spokesperson in their latest advertising campaign. West, the college dropout turned rapper, created The Kanye West Foundation which, according to its website, focuses on discouraging high school students from dropping out. This is a noble goal.
Unfortunately, West’s nobility ends with the rhetoric on his site. He is a notoriously inflammatory social critic who has:
- Suggested that HIV/AIDS was deliberately created and introduced into the African-American community; ["man-made diseases placed in African communities," Live 8, July 2, 2005]
- Blamed the spread and use of crack cocaine in urban centers on Ronald Reagan; ["How [did] we stop the Black Panthers?/Ronald Reagan cooked up an answer,” lyrics from his song “Crack Music]
- Declared that, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people” [September 2, 2005 during NBC's televised Concert for Hurricane Relief]
- Claimed racial discrimination for not receiving music awards, most recently on Sunday, September 9, 2007; “That’s two years in a row, man … give a black man a chance,” after being passed over for an award, as well as rapping, “I gotta get my money right/ Or maybe I gotta get my skin white” in regards to Justin Timberlake opening the MTV Video Music Awards in lieu of West.
Ed in ’08 seems to think that West is a fine representative of their campaign; I don’t. I find their decision offensive to education professionals - public school teachers, employees, administrators, researchers and private advocates - and a blow to the dignity of public education, all for the sake of unhinged, unstructured awareness. Ed in ’08 may think that all publicity is good publicity, but such a move can’t be at the expense of the professionals who dedicate their lives to delivering quality education.
I wasn’t surprised to find a lack of scruples in Ed in ’08′s advertising outlets. Ms. Brown from Ed in ’08 did some research within 2 hours of our phone conversation and relayed via e-mail the following:
“I spoke with a couple members of our web team regarding your inquiry. We advertised on a long list of political sites in August, mostly through blog ad networks, so it’s hard to pull an exact list. I know we did have a prominent spot on Daily Kos that did very well, but mostly we run on a variety of conservative and liberal blogs. I know that’s not detailed info, but hopefully it gives you a better picture.”
She neglected to detail that Ed in ’08 paid $399 per week to advertise on Amanda Marcotte’s pandagon.net, likely via the BlogAds network. Marcotte, an unyielding feminist blogger, gained notoriety in February, 2007 when she was hired to blog for John Edwards’ presidential campaign - and then fired before the sun set. Some of her offensive comments include [via her Wikipedia page]:
- “Also, EC is necessary for rape victims, and god forbid a teenage rape victim get hung up trying to get permission to use EC from parents when time is critical. Needless to say, if the rapist is a parent, this becomes even more desperate. And, needless to say, the Catholic church is not about to let something like compassion for girls get in the way of using the state as an instrument to force women to bear more tithing Catholics.”
- In a post about Catholic theology on Limbo (October 9, 2006), Marcotte wrote: ‘But it’s sort of a balancing act, as far as I can tell, because as most people understand it, unbaptized children go to limbo but when Jesus returns, they all get to go to heaven. So it’s a way to guilt trip women who have abortions without casting god as such an uncruel monster as to throw souls into hell that never even had a shot at sinning. So that’s limbo: it sucks enough to make women feel guilty about abortion, but it doesn’t suck so much as to run people off. I suspect Pope Ratz will give into the urge eventually to come out and say there’s no limbo and unbaptized babies go straight to hell. He can’t help it; he’s just a dictator like that. Hey, fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, the Pope’s gotta tell women who give birth to stillborns that their babies are cast into Satan’s maw. The alternative is to let Catholic women who get abortions feel that it’ll all work out in the end, which is just not doable, due to that Jesus-like compassion the Pope is so fond of. Still, it’s going to be bad PR for the church, so you can sort of see why the Pope is dragging ass.’
- In a post describing a Catholic seminar presenting inaccurate information on birth control (June 14, 2006) she used as a caption to the photo illustrating the article: ‘Q: What if Mary had taken Plan B after the Lord filled her with his hot, white, sticky Holy Spirit? A: You’d have to justify your misogyny with another ancient mythology.’
- In another post that gained her notoriety, about the 2006 Duke University lacrosse case, Marcotte wrote: “Can’t a few white boys sexually assault a black woman anymore without people getting all wound up about it? So unfair.”
You can view a screenshot of the ad on Marcotte’s site which has since either been taken down or run its course.
When it settled that Ed in ’08 is comfortable touting West as spokesperson and paying offensive personalities like Marcotte to represent them, I returned correspondence with Ms. Brown at Ed in ’08.
I sent the following letter on September 10, 2007:
Rachael,
Thanks for the candid chat the other week - you answered my questions as directly as possible and I appreciate that you followed up.
I haven’t published my take on Ed in ’08 yet because, unfortunately, there are some things that I find distasteful about the campaign and I am thinking that over. The first is Ed in ’08′s willingness to bring on board as spokesman Kanye West, a man who is everything but a gentleman, and has on several occasions - yet another one yesterday - made unnecessarily inflammatory comments about race.
I take education seriously and regard myself as a professional as I’m sure you, Gov. Romer and the rest of Strong American Schools do, too [my observations/experiences would back up any such claims about the Ed in '08 campaign]. And while non-partisan awareness is the goal of the campaign, I lament that we would rely on the advocacy of such an abhorrent, offensive personality as West’s - a man whose popular art includes a propensity for variants of ‘fuck’ and ‘nigga,’ a man whose view of democratic participation includes disrupting ceremonies to parade his dissatisfaction at not receiving awards and, most disturbingly, a man who continually blames problems on racism and points fingers inappropriately at everyone from the President to, as we saw on Sunday, those rabid racists who schedule the MTV Video Music Awards. If you’d like me to detail West’s outrageous history, let me know.
And this is in conjunction with Ed in ’08 paying $399/week to place an ad on Amanda Marcotte’s website, an inflammatory blogger who, as we saw many months ago, shamelessly pushed herself out of the Edwards campaign when several authorities published litanies of her gaffes which included, “Q: What if Mary had taken Plan B after the Lord filled her with his hot, white, sticky Holy Spirit? A: You’d have to justify your misogyny with another ancient mythology.”
These offensive personalities are exceedingly poor choices to advocate such an important issue. My dissatisfaction with the Ed in ’08′s PR campaign stems from the regard in which I hold its members; I know that all involved are aware enough to consider these factors and yet they still chose to move ahead. It is sad commentary on the state of the debate when one needs awareness so badly that one is willing to enlist abhorrent individuals as advocates. Seeing this makes it very difficult to take Ed in ’08 seriously when the related PR campaign shows so little respect for the issue and the professionals who dedicate their lives to advancing it.
I am more than willing to lend my time and services to a campaign that upholds basic values of non-partisan respect. Though Ed in ’08 has committed a serious gaffe, there’s still time. I have not published the views I just shared with you because I don’t want to damage the potential value that Ed in ’08 can deliver throughout this political cycle. If the campaign is to reach this potential, it will have to take a hard look at how it represents itself to the public eye and especially to education professionals.
If a representative from Ed in ’08 would like to discuss this further, my contact information is listed on my website and in my signature. Thanks again, Rachael and others, for the time you’ve put in so far. I hope sincerely that you continue to make progress and do so with a commitment to professionalism and dignity.
Best,
Matthew K. Tabor
[email protected]
607.435.8354
www.matthewktabor.com
I was - and still am - more than willing to discuss these issues with anyone at Ed in ’08. It is imperative that we make progress in education without spurning the dignity of those who work tirelessly. Ed in ’08 doesn’t seem to understand that dignity, respect and professionalism make a solid foundation on which progress is built.
Despite their willingness to return my calls, do some research and get back to me with all deliberate speed on September 5, I didn’t get a response to my e-mail.
I did, however, see in my Inbox this morning a press release from Ed in ’08 in which Mark Lampkin touts proudly that Kanye West “Gets it”:
Kanye Gets It (Mark Lampkin on Kanye West)
Sunday night I watched Kanye West’s killer performance on the MTV video music awards, and now I’m watching the number of views climb for his new public service announcement for us here at the ED in 08 campaign.
Kanye West has made it. He has achieved the kind of success in his chosen field that we all wish we could achieve, and with a new album dropping today, he isn’t showing any sign of slowing down.
So he could spend his time, his money, his effort any way he wants, and yet he’s choosing to put his name behind a great cause – getting kids to stay in school, to get an education, to prepare themselves for whatever next step they choose in life … whether it’s more schooling, a job, whatever. The important part is making sure teens get to make that choice.
Half of all black and Latino high school students never finish school. Kanye can speak to those kids … and because of his fame, he can speak to a much broader audience, including the presidential candidates who can make something happen. They can make our schools an issue … just like Kanye is making an issue of staying in school.
He’s putting his name and his image behind ED in ‘08 – helping to make our schools and America’s students an issue in the 2008 presidential election. Kanye gets it – I just hope the presidential candidates (and voters) do too.
To learn more about the Kanye West Foundation, visit www.kanyewestfoundation.org. To learn more about Strong American Schools, log onto www.edin08.com.
Ed in ’08 should be ashamed of itself for ignoring the dignity of education professionals, not responding to or recognizing concerns and then following up that intellectual and moral malfeasance with a preemptive strike on potential criticism. It is unlikely, though, that the PR darlings at Ed in ’08 - who are comfortable with purveyors of racist and religious hatred to represent their campaign - are capable of such shame.
Though Ed in ’08 claims to advocate non-partisan awareness, they’re awfully adept at playing politics. Let’s hope - for the sake of education in the 2008 campaigns and for the sake of all involved in education - that Ed in ’08 changes its priorities.
UPDATE at 8.14.07, 6.45am:
Shakira might’ve been a better choice, but she was too busy taking classes at UCLA.
At District Administration, Gary Stager has weighed in as well: Bill Gates and Eli Broad Go Gangsta.
