Social media illuminates some truths about school reform 

 

Social media is playing a major role as parents seek to have their voices heard in the current debates about testing, teacher evaluations, and the Common Core. 

 

Social media has become a potent player in cultivating political activism among parents and others concerned about testing, teacher evaluations, and related reforms. In Montclair, N.J., social media played a crucial role in enabling parents to learn information more quickly, stake out an alternative position, and inform many people fast enough to generate a speedy and widespread response to district actions.  

The parental activism rose up in response to a new superintendent’s plans to address the achievement gap and “reshape Montclair schools” by implementing quarterly student assessments and a new teacher evaluation system. 

At the heart of the parent response was a Facebook page, Montclair Cares About Schools (MCAS), created by Regina Tuma, a mother and professor of media psychology, and Elana Halberstadt, a mother, writer, comedian, and artist. MCAS used Facebook, emails, and online petitions to inform and organize citizens to communicate a persistent counter-narrative to the superintendent’s framing of the district’s “problems” and her calls for particular education reforms. MCAS used digital media to make visible how teachers and students were experiencing these reforms to challenge the superintendent’s view and mobilize community members. 

Ultimately, the increased parental activism facilitated by social media led 47% of the parents in Montclair to refuse to have their children tested during the second round of the 2015 standardized testing. It also may have played a role in Supt. Penny MacCormack’s abrupt resignation after just 28 months on the job. 

The battle over education policy in Montclair reflects a larger national  debate. MacCormack’s controversialplans to reshape the Montclair schools stem from her experience as a participant in the Broad Academy, which encourages a more data-driven approach to school leadership, as well as her support for the Common Core State Standards and the federal Race to the Top initiative. Although tensions in Montclair over the Common Core are similar to those in many other school districts, Montclair’s history created a unique breeding ground, which led to disagreements that were particularly acrimonious. 

A liberal, integrated town, Montclair has a history and a reputation as a suburb that, in the words of Montclair’s NAACP president James Harris, “is highly educated, [and] deeply committed to a racially integrated, high-quality education” (McGlone, 2013). In 1977, Montclair Public Schools implemented a choice system as a voluntary desegregation plan, which now includes all seven elementary and the three middle schools. The Montclair Public School District’s web site boasts, “No one school is better than another; they are equal but different . . .  The magnet schools bring people from diverse backgrounds together to work collaboratively toward the common goal of high expectations and academic excellence in an integrated environment. In Montclair, children are our future, diversity is our strength.” 

Another distinctive aspect of Montclair is its proximity to New York City, where many Montclair residents work. Montclair is home to concerned and powerful citizens on both sides of these education issues. Education reformers, such as board members of charter school consortiums, former architects of Race to the Top, executive directors of foundations and philanthropies involved in education reforms in New York and New Jersey, and journalists who enthusiastically cover recent educational reforms are on one side of the issues. On the other side are longtime civil rights activists, directors of advocacy networks, the coeditor of a progressive education magazine, former teachers and principals, and education professors. The cultural and professional prominence of figures on both sides provided the setting for a vigorous, two-year debate among citizens. 

Birthing MCAS 

MCAS was born on March 5, 2013, when Tuma noticed that a Montclair Patch article about the proposed reforms had stirred an animated online discussion. Tuma started a community Facebook page to encourage discussions about education. Halberstadt met Tuma through their comments to the Patch article, and joined in facilitating the Facebook page. On May 20, 2013, Tuma and Halberstadt created their first post and continue to curate the page as coadministrators today.  The pair grew into a group of about 10 core members — concerned educators, parents, and community members, including internationally known education scholar and activist Michelle Fine.  They began meeting every two weeks to strategize about how to react to the proposed district reforms. They grappled with a variety of questions such as: How can we do this without opposing the standards? How can we speak against the reforms without sounding like members of the Tea Party? How can we help people, particularly school board members, feel comfortable dissenting from the superintendent and the board majority? 

They concluded that requesting a delay in adopting the proposal for quarterly assessments was the least radical approach and one with the best chance of success. This would allow the superintendent to save face by deciding to slow down the adoption of the policy. Their idea was to open space and time for broader community conversation. 

In June 2013, MCAS created a petition at change.org seeking a one-year delay in the implementation of the Superintendent’s Strategic Plan, which included a provision for new district quarterly assessments in grades K-12. The petition spread quickly on the Internet, and volunteers also went door-to-door on the south side of town to reach families who might not have access to the Internet petition. Although 400 parents and 500 students signed the petitions in the four days available before the school board’s vote, the board of education unanimously approved the strategic plan while community members chanted “shame, shame” through the announcement. 

At the time, monthly school board meetings lingered into the early morning hours as the public signed up for opportunities to speak (obeying a strict three-minute time limit) to voice opinions both for and against changes being implemented in the district. The school board curtailed public participation at the meetings and moved the teachers’ union representation and the PTA Council from unconstrained time slots to three-minute slots before the public comment (Akersten, 2013). This action sparked citizens to share their outrage at the meetings (Klein, 2014).  

Soon supporters of the superintendent’s plan began circulating their own petition, which said the proposed changes were needed to close the achievement gap and make other improvements in the district. “We call for civility, respect, and patience as we move forward implementing the strategic plan to improve our schools. Let’s give this a chance. This isn’t the end of the process but the beginning,” the petition said. The online petition collected 450 signatures over a number of months.     

The MCAS Facebook page quickly provided a counter-narrative to the district message, promoting the value of public debate and reframing “civility” as a buzzword that meant silencing disagreement. “We’ve been accused of being uncivil for asking questions. Yet only one side presenting strong challenges has been called uncivil. Interesting. I will continue to ask my reasonable questions and expect answers,” MCAS commented on Facebook on Oct. 31, 2013.  

The MCAS Facebook page also posted a letter on Nov. 28, 2013, to the editor of a local newspaper, which said, “This call for respect and patience may simply crush dissent. Let us not worry so much about civility that we quell the voices of opposition.” 

Facebook became a place where MCAS encouraged the community to become more involved in democratic debate by providing information about board procedures and bringing to light various perspectives on the superintendent’s proposed changes. They alerted followers about the logistics of upcoming school board meetings, such as changes of location and time and changing procedures for signing up to speak. They also suggested the types of questions citizens might ask the board. 

“We’ve been accused of being uncivil for asking questions. Yet only one side presenting strong challenges has been called uncivil. Interesting.” 

After board meetings, MCAS posted videos, particularly of teachers voicing their concerns about the new assessments. Teachers described how the assessments kept them from working with the most vulnerable students. For example, on May 6, 2014, MCAS posted a video with a caption: “Last night’s board meeting part 1. Northeast Teachers on ‘What is’ and ‘what is not working.’” In the video, a teacher stood at the podium surrounded by colleagues from her school and read a statement: “In these monthly meetings at the Board of Education, our colleagues across the district have raised concerns about the amount of testing, and we want to add our voices to this concern . . . our district currently is still focused on testing. Testing isn’t teaching. We need to be cognizant of the fact that when we test children too much, it takes away from valuable teaching time. Also if we are concerned with keeping up with the testing calendar, it interferes with responding to the educational needs of our students.” 

Support for MCAS grew over the year as more and more parents learned how teachers and students were experiencing reforms on the ground. 

Since many parents and community members were often too busy to attend monthly board meetings, MCAS provided more information about district events to make it easier for residents to be involved and to enter the dialogue. In addition to using their Facebook page to publicize teachers’ remarks at board meetings, MCAS sponsored community meetings in people’s homes. At one meeting, a parent explained why she changed her position on the strategic plan after reading what teachers posted on the Facebook page. “I was on the other side, I wanted to support the superintendent and thought we should give her more time, but then something shifted when I saw the video of the Bullock teachers posted on the MCAS web site and when I read the updates. I thought this is not what I want for our schools.”  

Support for MCAS grew over the year as more and more parents learned how teachers and students were experiencing reforms on the ground.   

In addition to providing a space for dialogue, MCAS used its Facebook page to help readers see connections between what was happening in Montclair and similar controversies in New York state, across the country, and internationally. For instance, they shared information about the New York State Senate bill to halt the Common Core. They provided links to national and local newspaper articles, and blogs, such as those by Diane Ravitch, Jersey Jazzman, and local Montclair blogger Assessmentgate. They linked to graphics and charts showing information related to student learning and reforms. They shared information about issues related to education and the state government, such as Gov. Chris Christie’s State of the State address, materials about the New Jersey Education Commissioner Christopher D. Cerf’s recommendations, and Cerf’s resignation letter.  

The superintendent’s office had its own information blitz. The office emailed the biweekly Straight from the Superintendent newsletters to parents, had parent meetings at every school, and published a column, “Have You Heard?” on the district’s web site. One of those columns appeared to refer the MCAS Facebook page in a statement by the superintendent: 

With today’s smartphones and social media, the “grapevine” can sometimes make our heads spin! Despite the district’s best efforts to disseminate accurate, timely information, sometimes things are misunderstood, misheard, or taken out of context when background information is missing. We think it’s important to address critical misinformation and will do so in this column (MacCormack, 2014).  

Tuma and Halberstadt believe the superintendent’s newsletter was, at least in part, a response to their Facebook page. In this way, the Facebook page encouraged more communication in the district. 

Social media has provided Montclair Cares with an opportunity to have an alternative position that it can publicly air, to react quickly, and to inform many people at once. Sometimes their stories go viral, or their postings lead to in-person meetings with district staff. 

“Some people look at our page and think it should be as factual as a newspaper, and you can’t state an opinion. I always say to people, social media is a different animal. It’s not a newspaper,” Tuma said. 

Although social media may share elements of a newspaper, “it’s also about stating opinions, about organizing,” Tuma said. Social media plays a particularly important role now since mainstream newspapers are focused on the benefits of the educational reforms, she said. “There’s an underground discussion in social media, Twitter, all these bloggers. This is where social media as an organizing tool is really wonderful. Part of the promise of social media is I put something up, and someone responds to it, and you can provide a social reality,” she said.  

Tuma pointed to the recent work of education historian and activist Diane Ravitch, founder of the Network for Public Education, who believes social media is going to save public education because the parents, teachers, and community members have better numbers than the reform movement has, even if they don’t have as much money as the reformers. The victories for MCAS include their longevity, their size (the Facebook page had 1,154 followers as of press time), and accuracy (their predictions about quarterly assessments came true as it was revealed that the district was spending more time on test preparation, detracting from meaningful learning experiences). 

What’s happened? What’s ahead? 

A committee of administrators and teachers was created to look at the quarterly assessments and eventually agreed to pare down the assessments to make them more in line with what schools had been doing before the quarterlies were imposed.  

Influenced by MCAS, many nearby towns began their own Cares About Schools versions, including East Brunswick, East Windsor, Highland Park, North Arlington, Nutley, Ridgewood, South Brunswick, and Verona. These sister groups link to the MCAS Facebook page and reach out to them for advice. MCAS challenged and disrupted the taken-for-granted assumptions forwarded by the former superintendent that educational equity will be achieved through testing, standardization, and accountability measures by making visible a variety of voices and experiences of different constituencies in the districts.  

Since the superintendent’s resignation in February 2015, a new interim superintendent has been hired, and the school board has some new members. These newly appointed leaders appear to be concerned with keeping lines of communication open with the district’s constituents. The new superintendent immediately released the district’s data on the numbers of students opting out of state-mandated standardized tests, and the new board appears more willing to debate issues in the open during its public meetings. Yet while MCAS and its use of digital media have been successful in rallying the community, the work of public activism is far from over. For instance, a well-funded anonymous group has emerged that favors the corporate-style reforms once spearheaded by the former superintendent. This group has sent mailers to families in town describing their beliefs, and has instigated legal actions with the school district, actions whose costs the town will have to share. Through social media, MCAS alerts the community about the district’s financial obligations as a result of this group’s legal actions.

Although a victory has been won, the struggle to maintain an open debate and a progressive orientation in education continues. MCAS persists, using social media to contextualize the struggles in Montclair within the tensions over school reform across the country and energizing the community to stay informed and involved.  

References 

Akersten, T.  (2013, September 24).  Montclair school board president makes case for controversial agenda change. Baristanet.  http://patch.com/new-jersey/montclair/montclair-school-board-president-makes-case-for-controversial-agenda-change

Klein, E. (2014, September 24). Unraveling at the Montclair board meeting. Baristanet. http://kids.baristanet.com/2013/09/unraveling-at-the-montclair-board-meeting/

MacCormack, P. (2014). Have you heard? Montclair Public Schools web site. www.montclair.k12.nj.us/WebPage.aspx?Id=2177

McGlone, P. (2013, November 3). Montclair divide over new assessments, a key part of controversial school plan. NJ.com.  www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2013/11/montclair_divided_over_new_assessments_a_key_part_of_controversial_school_plan.html

 

Citation: Blumenreich, M. & Jaffe-Walter, R. (2015). Social media illuminates some truths about school reform. Phi Delta Kappan, 97 (1), 25-28.