What a word actually means can be less important than the way it’s commonly used. If the original intent of the word has been corrupted, you can ironically set yourself up for misunderstanding by using it as it was originally meant. That’s especially true of education “reform.”
Be careful when messing with words. Be even more careful when not messing with words. You can incur the wrath of the dictionary revisionists.
Mayor Bill de Blasio and the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) President Michael Mulgrew both believe in true “reform.” Neither is pretending. Both are sincere. They have a vision that is genuinely united or at least aligned. Neither needs to sacrifice conviction to have a meeting of the minds with the other. It is actual, not stage-managed.
But the most unscrupulous enemies of true reform are the wolves in sheep’s clothing who dub themselves “reformers.” They just want to annihilate public education. The champions of true reform will fight them. It’s war. And Mulgrew said so.
For that the habitual snipers in the press and their lackeys in the charter sector blasted him. They said that after hoodwinking the City to get a contract, the UFT is thumbing its nose at the mayor. Of course the mayor knows better and said so.
Mulgrew prefers the word “innovation,” used properly, rather than the word “reform,” used improperly. That makes perfect sense. It’s necessary to avoid the word “reform” because it lends itself to being twisted.
Years ago I asked a bus driver in Munich, Germany, whether his route went to the Dachau Concentration Camp. He glared at me with eyes that could have pierced concrete. Well, I needed to know the directions, and in Roget’s thesaurus there’s no synonym for “concentration camp,” (though there is for “reform”) so how could I have dodged the term?
Thirty years later I asked an official of the Consulate how I could have avoided offending the bus driver. He said that maybe I should have preceded “concentration camp” with the word “former.”
We should all say what we mean and mean what we say, if we can. The teachers union knows how to use “reform” correctly and does so. The enemies of public schools could use it correctly but don’t because they don’t want to. They have hijacked the word and taken it hostage. The teachers union is fed up with that misappropriation.
Philosophically and in the field, they are the real deal reformers. Or should we say what was “formerly” known as reform?
Ron Isaac
Fresh Meadows
