The Renaissance Arts school and the Esperanza school have but one goal… by Bill Lacey

With some fondness, I remember leafing through the magazines and periodicals my parents had accumulated from decades before I was born. Tucked neatly away in the lower-price back pages were advertisements for wondrous products I could only imagine. Their promises of instant success through the purchase of their offerings seemed perfectly sensible to the 8 year old in me. Miraculous headache powders guaranteed to relieve my worst day’s stress were but a coin or two away. They came with strange, but magical, names… Elixirs, liniments, balms, salves and preparations. Surely when I grew older and had the stress in my life my parents must certainly have, I, too, would have use of these potions…

Little did I know that these were simply the last vestiges of “puffery” in advertising. Or were they? You understand puffery. Dictionary.com cites, “publicity, acclaim, etc., that is full of undue or exaggerated praise.” Puffery will occasionally sneak from the advertising world into poorly written op-ed pieces and into the opinion sections of local print media, too. On occasion it is thinly-veiled, but far more often it is used as authoritative measure. When it comes to puffery in advertising, most of us know well enough to take it with a large grain of salt. There are times, however, when it is the baseline for a product, barely tested, with no proof of validity or repeatable success. Spend a moment watching latenight TV and you will find a wealth of products adhering to my assertions. Have you read the fine print beneath the “Western Sky” commercials that tempt the populous with promises of instant money? I have. Here is what I have found~ Individuals who are at a point of last resort may sign a loan for $1500 on these terms: paying the money back over two years will cost you $4000. Over a four year term the payback is approaching $14,000 and if you need to stretch out those payments that payback amount can go as high as $40, 872. But it is the puffery that draws the client in… The promise that with one quick action all your worries are over.

In fact, your worries have yet to begin…

Now that you’ve read some 360+ words in my thought process today, let me illuminate the puffery…and danger…of the false advertising that is swirling about you, even as you prepare your classrooms for a new year. If you have followed my work here, or reposted on the NBEA Blog, you know I am anything but a fan of the Innovation (read: Charter) schools that have been proposed for our school system. Let me, for the first time, call them by name:

They are parasites.

There, I’ve said it. “And the truth shall set you free” (John 8:32). Y’know? I feel better… I’ve hemmed and hawed all ‘round this topic without calling it by name for the last six months and it just “feels right” to name it, shed light upon it and begin the battle…

The Renaissance Arts school and the Esperanza school have but one goal… to pander their Snake Oil through the continued puffery of countless salespeople, continuing, I’m sad to say, with the writings of a retired NBPS second grade teacher who I had the privilege, yes privilege, to teach with… In her piece, published by the Standard-Times on August 22, 2012, my former colleague paints a much different version of the recent vote to forward discussion on the two proposed Innovation Schools housed respectively at Gomes Elementary and Roosevelt Middle. I say that with some conviction because, you see, I too was there. And while both Mr. Shea, the interim superintendent of the NBPS and Jon Mitchell, mayor of the City of New Bedford, did indeed agree to allow a future vote on these schools by the entire sitting School Committee, neither were without more concerns than praise. Both the mayor and superintendent expressed great concern at some of the most troubling issues that would face the entire budgetary process surrounding Renaissance and Esperanza beginning with obvious doubt that they could be held to a zero or cost neutral bottom line. After all, how could a school educate its students for the same cost that a classroom of disproportionate size do? In other words, in order to open the Renaissance school with its proposed class size of approximately 15 students per group, there would be displacement of a similar number from the existing Gomes class sizes. That means that 10-15 students would have to be absorbed into other classrooms and educated at a cost minus their previous ratio. In order for Renaissance to operate within its projected class size, every other classroom would have to educate MORE students with LESS… Beginning with less manpower.

You won’t find that in the fine print on the magic elixir label… But such is the way with puffery.

http://www.facebook.com/groups/369720229723737/permalink/488223477873411/