The Owl Newsletter

ISSUE 40 | OCTOBER 11, 2001

As the Owl flies from one back-to-school night to another, I see many furrowed brows, puzzled faces, and clenched teeth. When principals are talking about their work to parents, they are uttering buzzwords and acronyms that leave their public in the dark. This "ed-speak" phenomenon is so prevalent, I have to consider it an occupational hazard.

Martin Mozloff, a sociologist from the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, has studied the creep of ed-speak into teacher training programs. He calls it "unmatched twaddle, unbelievable bilge, absolutely staggering nonsense."

An article in the August 16 issue of the Los Angeles Times took aim at the perpetrators of what the reporter called "a blizzard of buzzwords." He concluded that ed-speak serves a nefarious purpose: "It allows teachers and administrators to insulate themselves from scrutiny and maintain a grip on power."

An education historian cited in this article, Jeffrey Mirel of the University of Michigan, said, "It's a way to underscore the message that, 'I'm a professional, so give me your kid and leave me alone.' All professional language is turf language."

API RELEASE NEXT WEEK REQUIRES PLAIN SPEAKING

With the new API scores due for release on October 16, now is the time to prepare for some old-fashioned plain speaking. Forget quintiles, rubrics, and national percentile ranks. Banish the festival of acronyms your public doesn't know, and won't to memorize. Forget the spin. Just get to the heart of your schools' API results, and show your public where you see progress Ñ and the lack of it. When you point to curricular areas or grade levels that are lagging, explain in plain English what you intend to do about it.

Data is not information. To make the numbers mean something, you have to find the meaning in the numbers, and then convey that meaning to your public. If astronomers can explain black holes and solar flares, surely educators can explain the measured progress of learning that occurs in classrooms.

Above all, have faith in your public's ability to make sense of real things measured wisely. If parents are making sense of their team's baseball stats and their 401-K's financial performance, they're certainly capable of following your explanation of your schools' API results. Just refrain from indulging in ed-speak, and you're likely to win big points with your audience.

A LITTLE HELP EXPLAINING API RESULTS

The API, like all indexes, has its limits. It also has its flaws. For background on both, take a look at this summary of the API's weak points.

Jim Cox and Pat Puleo's column on the School Wise Press website, "Measuring Up," often touches on API issues. Read their current column.

And their archive of prior questions is also accessible.

RELATED REFERENCES

George Orwell is perhaps the most articulate observer of the ways in which language betrays thought. Consider this quote from "Politics and the English Language."

"The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink."

Finally, if you want one reference to help you "translate" your own in-house terminology into English, take a look at the glossary built by the editors of Education Week.

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