view” in Figure 1. Using that method, the $217 seems rather small in a total tax bill of $2,385.
What happened to the numbers on the president’s chart? “The chart we sent over to the White House had all the numbers on it,” said Marlin Fitzwater, then a press officer in the Treasury Department. Senior White House spokesperson David Gergen said, “We took them off. We were trying to get a point across, not the absolute numbers.” So much for honesty.
Figure 2
Misleading graph from the Department of Education, showing school spending relative to SAT scores.
In 1988 the Department of Education issued a graph that seemed to prove that there was a direct connection between the rise in elementary and secondary school spending and the decline in scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (see Figure 2). The Reagan Administration had been arguing that spending more money doesn’t improve education and may even make it worse. But the chart was doublespeak. First, it used current dollars rather than constant dollars, adjusted for inflation. Because each year it takes more money to buy the same things, charts are supposed to adjust for that increase so the measure of dollars remains constant over the years illustrated in the chart. If the Department of Education had figured in inflation over the years on the chart, it would have shown that the amount of constant dollars spent on education had increased modestly from 1970 to 1986, as Figure 3 on page 51 shows.
Figure 3
Elementary/secondary education spending in constant dollars (billions).
Second, scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Test go from 400 to 1,600, yet the graph used by the Education Department (Figure 2) used a score range of only 800 to 1,000. By limiting the range of scores on its graph, the department showed what appeared to be a severe decline in scores. A properly prepared graph, shown in Figure 4, shows a much more gradual decline.
The Department of Education’s presentation is a good example of diagrammatic doublespeak. Without all the information you heed in order to understand the chart, you can be easily misled, which of course was the purpose of the chart. You should always be skeptical whenever you see a graph or chart being used to present information, because these things are nothing more than the visual presentation of statistical information. And as for statistics, remember what Benjamin Disraeli is supposed to have said: ‘There are three kinds of lies—lies, damn lies, and statistics.”
Figure 4
More Education Doublespeak
In 1977 the Houston Chronicle reported that the father of a high school student received the following note from the school principal, inviting him to a meeting:
Our school’s Cross-Graded, Multi-Ethnic, Individualized Learning Program is designed to enhance the concept of an Open-Ended Learning Program with emphasis on a continuum of multi-ethnic academically enriched learning, using the identified intellectually gifted child as the agent or director of his own learning. Major emphasis is on cross-graded, multi-ethnic learning with the main objective being to learn respect for the uniqueness of a person.
Two more paragraphs of similar language followed.
As noted in Chapter I, the doublespeak flows pretty thick in the world of education, where it is used to make what is pretty ordinary—teaching children and running a school—sound very complex and difficult. Doublespeak in this realm can also be used to avoid some harsh realities and to soothe some hurt feelings.
The Parkway School District of West St. Louis County, in its Report to the Community 1987–88,
expresses the belief that the success of its students can be maximized through the development of a comprehensive Wellness Program targeted toward assisting the total community—employees, students and parents—in maintaining optimal wellness. The Wellness model is a comprehensive program that includes the physical dimension (fitness and nutrition), the social dimension, the intellectual dimension, and occupational, emotional and spiritual consideration.
I would be surprised if anyone in that school district had the faintest idea what all this verbiage meant, but it sure sounds impressive, doesn’t it?
Sometimes it seems as if schools are competing with each other for the thickest doublespeak. The St. Vrain Valley School District in Longmont, Colorado published a booklet titled Blueprint for Excellence, in which it announced, “Our mission is to educate students so they may approach their full potential in: Pursuing post-secondary educational endeavors. Achieving economic self-sufficiency. Continuing their personal pursuit of learning throughout life. Relating successfully to people, institutions and value systems in all aspects of life.”
Once they had impressed everyone with this education doublespeak, the writers of the booklet translated it for their readers. In clear language, they stated that what their schools-tried to do was make sure that “Students were prepared to succeed in college, business or vocational school. Students are able to support themselves financially. Students are eager to learn wherever they go. Students are able to get along with people.” Now, why didn’t they just say that in the first place?
Simple, clear language just isn’t impressive enough for many people in education. It seems they want to impress others with how hard their jobs are and how smart they have to be in order to do their jobs. After all, if anyone can understand it, then it can’t be very special. So the doublespeak flows, especially when it comes time to write a grant proposal. After all, in order to get the government or a foundation to give you money, you’ve got to convince officials that what it is you’re going to do with their money is worth doing and only you can do it.
As part of its proposal for a Title III grant from the federal government, a community college in Washington stated this as one of its major goals: “To organize a comprehensive process of assessment, teaching strategies, learning support, and intervention which effectively promotes student success in acquiring the skills and knowledge leading to satisfying and productive lives.” Of course, they would never have gotten their grant if they had written something like, “We’re going to teach these kids so they learn what they need to know to get along in life.”
Education doublespeak, especially among academics who want to impress everyone with how intelligent they are, has been around for a long time. Even W. S. Gilbert (of Gilbert and Sullivan fame) commented on it, as you can see in these lyrics he wrote in 1881 for a song in the opera Patience:
If you’re anxious for to shine in the high aesthetic line as a man of culture rare,
You must get up all the germs of the transcendental terms, and plant them everywhere.
You must lie upon the daisies and discourse in novel phrases of your complicated state of mind,
The meaning doesn’t matter
