The controversy surrounding the prominent display of the confederate flag and other relics of the confederacy has accelerated enormously in the wake of the mass murder of nine members of the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina by a racially motivated terrorist.
There are several lessons as it pertains to the power of narratives and the agenda setting process that can be gleaned from the emergence of this controversial debate and transferred into the education policy arena among other areas. Among them are these four:
1.Drama is Important
The drama and passion that the debate over the confederate flag has engendered combined with the emotional impact of the shootings catapulted and sustained the issue being on the agenda in multiple states. Drama is often essential to the successful navigation of the agenda setting process and on to social action. The process of getting education policy issues on the agenda often involves the use of different media platforms and organizing techniques to lift an almost unknown or lightly supported issue into the spotlight and increase the number of people who deem the issue as important enough to push policymakers into action.
There is a need in the education policy arena to dramatize the disparate impact that policies such as inequitable school funding formulas have on low income and minority students. Likewise, policy issues in other arenas significantly impact educational opportunity and educators should be vigorously engaged in the debate and efforts to dramatize the importance of these issues.
The issue of Medicaid expansion in states like South Carolina and Florida is an education issue because if children and families don't have access to quality healthcare then that affects their ability to learn. Jobs and infrastructure bills are education issues because the economic vitality of a community is directly linked to its educational opportunity and performance. The restoration of the Voting Rights Act is an education issue because votes elect politicians that then decide where resources go. Politics are a means to an end.
2.Symbols Turn into Narratives
Public policy scholar John Kingdon wrote about the manner in which symbols impact events and the interpretation of those events. These symbols are then able to gain different meanings and connotations as time progresses. The usage of the confederate battle flag since the Civil War has morphed from being a symbol of an army fighting to maintain the institution of slavery to resistance to civil rights advancement to a symbol that embodies both hate and heritage to different people simultaneously.
South Carolina began flying the confederate flag at their state capitol building in 1961 in opposition to efforts to desegregate the South. Other states like Georgia and Mississippi, that had the confederate flag incorporated into their state flag, used the flag as symbols to undergird a narrative of oppressive and exclusionary policy. Symbols like the flag capture in a nutshell a broader view of reality that a segment of people share.
The flag and the connotations and narratives attached to it have been used to galvanize large segments of the white southern electorate for decades by politicians who fed off of narratives. Examples of this are Richard Nixon's use of the "Southern Strategy" and Ronald Reagan's selection of the Neshoba County Fair, a few miles from Philadelphia, Mississippi where civil rights workers were slain in 1964, as a war to promote "states' rights."
Complex policy discussions in the educational arena like the reauthorizations of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and the Higher Education Act (HEA) that are currently taking place in Congress are often difficult to organize around because many people outside of the beltway don't have time to go through every aspect of the proposed legislation if they even know that the discussion is going on at all. These are issues that are rarely in the national media or gain widespread attention but they will impact millions students and families in the United States.
The skillful use of symbols and narratives to crystallize different parts of the legislation would aid in getting important aspects on the agenda and mobilizing people to push for its ultimate passage and implementation.
3.Winning Narratives Guide Policy
Political discourse is often a battleground of competing narratives. The dominant narrative is ultimately solidified and institutionalized into policy and habitual patterns of behavior. The winning narrative in many parts of the South for generations has been one that celebrated and elevated the Confederacy and the "heroes" that fought against the "northern invasion". This view conveniently ignored the fact that the main premise for the establishment of the Confederate States of America was to maintain their "right" to enslave other human beings.
Political theorists Marteen Hajer and Hugh Miller asserted that when narratives get repeated often enough it comes to eventually feed into the day to day meaning systems that policymakers operate in. Political and social action is often guided by deeply embedded stories and narratives that may not result in policy that is based on a "rational" or "scientific" thought process. This may partially explain the charge that many Southerners consistently vote against their own economic interests based on cultural ideography.
Dominant narratives in the educational arena such as "failing public schools" have detrimental policy consequences such as the financial starving out of school districts and a hyper-accountability movement that has prioritized high stakes testing and sanctions over support for teachers and students.
Ninety percent of the students in this country attend public schools so the current public education disinvestment and demonization strategies are not a viable option if the United States seeks to have an adequate and equitable education system.
4.Pressure Leads to Change
The intense pressure and national outcry to take down and reduce the commercial sale of confederate paraphernalia changed the politics around the issue and resulted in swift action in some areas. The pressure changed the political calculus of many Republicans who reversed their previously long held stances. Likewise, if the weapon of powerful narratives is deployed for the cause of access and equity in educational opportunity for all students then it can also be a catalyst for positive change.
The effective usage of multiple media platforms and discourse coalitions, groups of people that utilize storylines to transform political and social discourse, have the power to guide policy change through pressure. We need resurgence and a revolution in organizing around the issue of education using every tool that is at our disposal. Education must become a voting issue in the 2016 election and maintain a prominent place in the national political discourse. People and organizations at the grassroots level have immense power to influence the public policy process and can be catalysts for sustaining a movement for social justice, economic opportunity, educational excellence, and a better way of life.
Marcus Bright, Ph.D. is a political and social commentator.