Appendix 3: Example of Coordinated Repetition of a Framed Message through Multiple Channels
Note: Bold font within quotations or quotation reference sources is emphasis added by the authors.
Tracing use of the frame, “Children trapped in failing public schools”
“Children will no longer be trapped in failing schools. If a school continues to fail some children will be able to transfer to higher-performing local schools, receive free tutoring or attend after-school programs.
-- Bush 2004 Campaign Website[150]
The term “children trapped failing public schools” is a well-constructed and oft-repeated frame, and is based on the earlier used frame “public schools are failing.” A Google search of the term “trapped in failing schools” yields more than 3,300 uses. This framing was pushed successfully for years, until it was incorporated into law as the justification for the No Child Left Behind Act.
The term originated in the think tanks:
“That offers hope especially to those who need it most- poor children trapped in failing inner-city schools.”
--
And moved out into use by the Right’s spokespeople:
“Hundreds of thousands of them [children] are suffering from educational malnutrition. They're trapped in under-performing schools that stifle ambition.”
-- California Gov. Pete Wilson, State of the State address, 1997[152]
“Public Schools Have Been Failing For Years”
-- Eileen Spatz, Orange
“House Speaker Newt Gingrich said, ‘I find myself wondering, what are liberals afraid of?’ He said Mr. Clinton ‘is keeping the children of our nation's capital literally trapped in failing schools, where they can't learn…’ ”
--
“The impetus for these radical changes is not coming from complacent suburbs," says
-- Education Week, Quality Counts 98[155]
“It will allow people of modest means to spend their tax dollars directly on the worthy cause of decent education for youngsters currently trapped in failing schools. Instead of having bureaucrats decide how best to spend the funds, donors may now decide for themselves. It is their money, after all.”
-- Calvert Institute for Policy Research, Winter 1998[156]
“… reconstituting schools which are not getting the job done and providing new options for parents whose children are trapped in failing schools.”
--
“..where schools are unsafe and a child is trapped in a failing school, the state should provide [a voucher] to help pay for education elsewhere.”
-- Elizabeth Dole, April 1999[158]
“Gov. Tom Ridge today said the leaders of the education establishment continue to find new lows in their effort to keep children trapped in low-performing school districts.”
--
“We cannot prosper - we will not prosper - in this New Economy if we leave millions of our children trapped in educational wastelands smothered by Big Government bureaucracies. [. . .] Today, we find big government politicians standing in the school house door to keep children trapped in dangerous, failing schools.”
-- Steve Forbes, to the National Baptist Convention, September, 1999[160]
“…George W. Bush waded into it in
-- PBS Online NewsHour discussion,
“
-- Pacific Research Institute Press Release, September, 1999[162]
“The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has long enjoyed a reputation among many people as a watchdog of freedom, but critics say the group is abandoning that role on school choice, a reform favored by many poor minority families trapped in failing public schools.”
--
“For those students trapped in failing schools, home schooling may be the way out.”
--
“Increased emphasis on teacher credentialing, higher teacher salaries, and more peer review and mentoring programs are popular with politicians and teachers alike. But they have yielded few results in the classroom, particularly those serving low-income children trapped in failing schools.”
-- Thomas Dawson of the Pacific Research Institute,
in the Orange
“The provision states that students who are trapped in a failing Title I school must be given the option of transferring [. . .] We urge you to direct the Department of Education to act quickly to issue the appropriate guidelines so that all parents have the necessary tools to ensure their children are not trapped in a failing school.”
-- Rep. Bill Goodling (R-PA), House Education and the Workforce Chairman,
“
-- Pacific Research Institute Press Release,
“Now, both Gore and Bush are stressing education and making schools accountable as a campaign theme. One key difference is Bush's support for vouchers to ease the cost of sending children to private schools, a move that could offer relief to students trapped in low-performing inner-city schools and reduce public-school attendance.”
-- Insight Magazine,
(Insight is published by Moon’s
“He added that he supported vouchers only as a temporary measure, seeing them as ‘a way out for poor kids trapped in failing schools.’ ”
-- Joseph Lieberman on School Choice, in Issues2000[169]
“A strong majority supports charters schools, and a similarly strong majority supports voucher programs targeted at low-income students or students trapped in failing schools.”
-- James Peyser at
“The article lists several examples of how the schools-of-choice law has positively impacted children who were otherwise trapped in failing, often violent, public schools. [. . .] Educational freedom, as illustrated at
-- Acton Institute --
“However, the threat of losing it [federal money] can be an incentive for failing schools to change their behavior.”
-- George Will –
“The idea behind the proposal was to offer parents of kids trapped in failing schools an opportunity to send their children to other schools, including nonpublic schools.”
-- Failing Schools in
“Why Are the Public Schools Failing and What Can Be Done?”
-- Title of A Forum at The Independent Institute,
“Bush touched on a political battle over the issue of proposed government-funded school vouchers. Vouchers would allow students attending failing schools to attend more expensive private schools. ‘If after three years nothing changes for students in a failing school, their parents must be given other options, like a transfer to a better public school or private tutoring.’ ”
-- News report, CNN,
“Before the NAACP, well-known for its opposition to education reform, Mr. Paige asked, "Do you want a government that flatters you, but traps our children in failing schools? Or do you want a government that is candid, but ensures that your children will get a good education?"
-- Education Secretary Rod Paige,
“The status quo has but one beneficiary: the public school monopoly. Failing public schools stay open and receive more funding every year. [. . .] Failing, sub-par public schools would have been forced to improve or suffer the consequences as students transferred to better private alternatives. [. . .] But if the Bush administration is serious about leaving no child behind in our failing public school system, it should urge school choice reformers and advocates on both sides of the aisle to deliver school choice to the students in the nation's capital.”
-- Dan Lips, Cato Institute,
“The supplemental services portion of the bill would give parents with children trapped in consistently failing schools the opportunity to secure grants to pay for after-school tutoring, summer school programs or other educational materials. [. . .] The education bill will provide immediate relief for children who are trapped in schools that are deemed as failing under the terms of the 1994 Elementary and Secondary Education Act. [. . .] The federal government's foray into school choice falls short of President Bush's original proposal that would have allowed children trapped in failing schools to receive the entire amount of their federal Title I as a scholarship to another school or for educational aids.
-- Opinion Editorial,
“Now, we need to expand parental choice – program by program – with a continual focus on urban kids trapped in failing schools.”
--
“All children deserve a quality education, and have the right not to be trapped in failing schools.”
-- Leaving No Child Behind, Congressman Ed Bryant (R-Tenn.), January, 2002[180]
“Giving parents this choice will broaden the escape route for students trapped in failing schools.”
-- Hon. John Boehner (R-Ohio) at the Heartland Institute,
One Americans for Tax Reform (Grover Norquist) “Talking Points” document uses variations of term “trapped in failing schools” four times, as follows:
“children currently trapped in failing public schools”
“students trapped in chronically failing schools will have meaningful options”
“offer parents-particularly parents of poor and minority students-alternatives to failing schools.”
“offers students currently trapped in failing public schools a refundable tax credit”
-- “Talking Points” Americans for Tax Reform,
“There is little doubt that the public school system in the
[. . .] To the extent that schools within a district compete with one another for enrollment and revenue, the choice provisions will increase competition. In districts with limited school-level autonomy, the choice provisions may offer little more than an escape hatch for some of the children trapped in failing schools.”
Lori L. Taylor, Federal Reserve Bank of
(
“Now Washington will also leverage choices for students trapped in failing schools, either by mandates or direct grants to families to pay for tutors or after-school programs.”
-- “A step toward school choice, ready or not.” Gail Russell Chaddock[184]
“Unfortunately, no one is talking about the plight of the more than 70,000 students still trapped in
-- Editorial --
“…Bush decried a public-education system that allowed "our children to be trapped in schools that won't teach and won't change."
-President Bush,
“The new law reflects a remarkable consensus – first articulated in the President's No Child Left Behind framework – on how to improve the performance of
-- From a Department of Education Summary of NCLB act,
“The education reform bill passed by the Republican Congress and signed into law reflects the President’s principles of accountability and testing, flexibility and local control, expanded parental options for children trapped in failing schools, and additional funding for programs that have been demonstrated to produce results.”
-- National Republican Congressional Committee [188]
The Supreme Court decision was immediately applauded by Republicans and many inner-city parents as an important escape hatch for children trapped in failing schools.
-- “Target vouchers to help kids,” USAToday Editorial,
“ ‘No longer are these children trapped in failing schools,’ said Katie Muñiz, communications director for [Gov. Jeb] Bush.”
-- News report,
“… Sen. Kennedy's role in marking up the president's "No Child Left Behind" legislation to make sure that children trapped in failing inner-city schools would not be given a private-school option.
…
Now the executive and the legislative branches, with the blessing of the judicial, can unite to create a pilot voucher program aimed at poor minority kids trapped in the capital's failing public schools.
…
There are many caring and hard working educators teaching in the public schools, but they too are trapped in a dysfunctional system in which merit goes unrewarded and incompetence and cold-hearted callousness are never punished.
…
We must allow families whose kids are trapped in perennially failing schools the same kinds of educational choices”
-- Sol Stern, Wall Street Journal,
“And rather than continue to fight it, teachers’ unions and other opponents should see school choice for what it is -- a chance to help poor students trapped in failing schools and let competition encourage our schools to improve.”
Jennifer Garrett, Capitalism Magazine,
“Brady suggests that NCLB may expect too much improvement (as gauged by results) too soon. Given that many interventions are unlikely to yield improved schools, he urges policymakers to consider additional options for children trapped in failing educational institutions.
[. . .] And because even the strongest interventions specified in No Child Left Behind are not likely to turn some schools around, policymakers need to consider other options for children trapped in such places.”
Thomas B. Fordham Institute,
(Chester E. Finn Jr. is the president of the Thomas Fordham Foundation in Washington and a senior fellow at the Indianapolis-based Hudson Institute)
“This law also gives new options to parents whom have children trapped in failing schools.”
-- Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) January, 2003[194]
“School choice in public schools has provided that option to students of limited means who otherwise would be trapped in failing schools.”
-- Editorial – The Post and Courier,
“Those who want to empower parents see the Act as a way to force states to provide choices to families trapped in failing schools.”
-- Accountability to Parents Is Best, Marie Gryphon, March, 2003[196]
“The irony, according to Navarette, is that the main opposition to school choice, which could enhance the lives of millions of minority children trapped in failing schools, are the teachers unions, which are 84% white.”
Children First
“Legislation like the Children's Hope Act can make a real difference between realizing the hopes of those parents or having them remain unfulfilled as their children remain trapped in failing schools.
[…] Even seemingly modest donations of $50 or $100 to a scholarship fund can be very helpful for a family struggling to send a child trapped in a failing public school to a private or religious school.”
Paul M. Weyrich Free Congress Foundation,
“…particularly African-American and other minority children trapped in failing schools.
… And, is there any group suffering more than the African-American children trapped in failing public schools?
, “Leave no district child behind”, September, 2003[199]
“… the Bush administration's attempt to get a federally funded demonstration scholarship program, or vouchers, that would allow students trapped in failing government schools…”
-- James P. Lucier, Rev. Moon’s Insight Magazine, September, 2003[200]
(Moon also owns The Washington Times)
“Today in
-- M. J. "Mike" Foster, Jr., Governor of
“There are over 1.1 million kids in NYC public schools, which means over 750,000 students are trapped in failing schools.”
Paul Breckner, Citizens for a Sound Economy,
“The Great Lakes Education Project seeks to effect such change on behalf of
The frame, “Failing public schools,” without the children trapped in them:
Voucher Threat Spurs Turnaround of Failing Schools
- Heartland Institute’s School Reform News,
“President Bush today joined Secretary of Education Rod Paige today on the No Child Left Behind Tour Across America in
US Dept of Education Press Release, May 8, 2002[205]
“U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige told a
Some “Top” Public Schools Are “failing”
- Title of article, Daily Policy Digest,
Giving Our Schools a Failing Grade
- Title of article by Chester E. Finn Jr. in Hoover Institution’s Hoover Digest,
“Are Vouchers the Solution for Our Failing Public Schools?”
- Speech, Hon. Ron Paul of
“Gov. Mark Sanford will soon unveil a proposal for improving
Op-ed, Charleston Post and Courier,
Scenes from a
- Title of article by Chester Finn Jr., FrontPageMagazine.com,
Failing schools underreported
- Title of an article in The Washington Times,