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Brief

The Washington Post has an official fact-checker, Glenn Kessler, who rates the veracity of politicians’ statement. The worst possible lie gets a “four Pinocchios.” The fact-checker has counted more than 6,000 lies by Trump during his brief time in office.

But there was a problem. What about the lies that he tells repeatedly, even after he has been corrected?

So the fact-checker invented a new category: The Bottomless Pinocchio.

Glenn Kessler writes:

It was President Trump’s signature campaign promise: He would build a wall along the nation’s southern border, and Mexico would pay for it.

Shortly after becoming president, Trump dropped the Mexico part, turning to Congress for the funds instead. When that, too, failed — Congress earlier this year appropriated money for border security that could not be spent on an actual wall — Trump nevertheless declared victory: “We’ve started building our wall,” he said in a speech on March 29. “I’m so proud of it.”

Despite the facts, which have been cited numerous times by fact-checkers, Trump repeated his false assertion on an imaginary wall 86 times in the seven months before the midterm elections, according to a database of false and misleading claims maintained by The Post.

Trump’s willingness to constantly repeat false claims has posed a unique challenge to fact-checkers. Most politicians quickly drop a Four-Pinocchio claim, either out of a duty to be accurate or concern that spreading false information could be politically damaging.

Not Trump. The president keeps going long after the facts are clear, in what appears to be a deliberate effort to replace the truth with his own, far more favorable, version of it. He is not merely making gaffes or misstating things, he is purposely injecting false information into the national conversation.

To accurately reflect this phenomenon, The Washington Post Fact Checker is introducing a new category — the Bottomless Pinocchio. That dubious distinction will be awarded to politicians who repeat a false claim so many times that they are, in effect, engaging in campaigns of disinformation.

The bar for the Bottomless Pinocchio is high: The claims must have received three or four Pinocchios from The Fact Checker, and they must have been repeated at least 20 times. Twenty is a sufficiently robust number that there can be no question the politician is aware that his or her facts are wrong. The list of Bottomless Pinocchios will be maintained on its own landing page.

The Fact Checker has not identified statements from any other current elected official who meets the standard other than Trump. In fact, 14 statements made by the president immediately qualify for the list.

The president’s most-repeated falsehoods fall into a handful of broad categories — claiming credit for promises he has not fulfilled; false assertions that provide a rationale for his agenda; and political weaponry against perceived enemies such as Democrats or special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.

Some of Trump’s regular deceptions date from the start of his administration, such as his claim that the United States has spent $7 trillion in the Middle East (36 times) or that the United States pays for most of the cost of NATO (87 times). These were both statements that he made repeatedly when he campaigned for president and continues to make, despite having access to official budget data.

Another campaign claim that has carried into his presidency is the assertion that Democrats colluded with Russia during the election (48 times). This is obviously false, as the Democrats were the target of hacking by Russian entities, according to U.S. intelligence agencies. (The assertion, also spread widely by Trump allies in the conservative media, largely rests on the fact that the firm hired by Democrats to examine Trump’s Russia ties was also working to defend a Russian company in U.S. court.)

On 30 separate occasions, Trump has also falsely accused special counsel Mueller of having conflicts of interest and the staff led by the longtime Republican of being “angry Democrats.”

A good example of how objective reality does not appear to matter to the president is how he has framed his tax cut. When the administration’s tax plan was still in the planning stages, Trump spoke to the Independent Community Bankers Association on May 1, 2017, and made this claim, to applause: “We’re proposing one of the largest tax cuts in history, even larger than that of President Ronald Reagan. Our tax cut is bigger.”

He reinforced that statement later that day, with similar wording, in an interview with Bloomberg News.

From the start, it was a falsehood, as Reagan’s 1981 tax cut amounted to 2.9 percent of the overall U.S. economy — and nothing under consideration by Trump came close to that level. Trump’s tax cut was eventually crafted to be just under 1 percent of the economy, making it the eighth-largest tax cut in the past century.

Yet Trump has been undeterred by pesky fact checks showing he is wrong. He kept making the claim — 123 times before the midterm elections — and still says it. “We got the biggest tax cuts in history,” he told Chris Wallace of Fox News in his Nov. 18 interview.

I had my first day with kids this past Thursday. We had only 30 minutes with each of our classes, so I went back and forth about what I wanted to do. Some years, I like to get them in their groups and we start right away. I have a compelling question or *something* that starts the first unit, and we charge ahead. When I do this, I’m thinking “I want kids to see what we do every day in class. We do math. We work together. We don’t waste time.” [1] Kids seem to enjoy that. They are usually revved up and excited to start, even though we’re all a little sad that summer is over. (Okay, very sad.) But there’s energy in the air.

This year I decided to do something different. A colleague of mine did this for a class we both co-taught years ago, and I really thought it would be a great way to start this year.

Part I: The Initial Card Sort that Sorted My Kids Into Their First Groups

I said hello for literally only one or two minutes, and then I shared the activity we were going to do for 15-20 minutes. We were going to do a puzzle-y card sort to figure out who was grouped with whom. But in order for the class to be successful, they all needed to work together. I projected a sample card. I said anyone is allowed to use a calculator. But some of the cards might require some laptop assistance. So they had a little laptop symbol on it.

So in this case, for example, I knew almost none of my kids would know what binary numbers are, but using google they could find a converter online that would say this was actually “170.”

Each card had a kid’s name written on back. So each kid got “their” card. And their goal was to find others who were in their group because their cards formed a logical group. Here’s a sample group to show you what the cards looked like and how they link:

See if you can tell what the link is among these four cards…

I’ll give you a second.

I will reveal the answer in the next line, so don’t keep reading until you are sure you want to know.

Okay, the link is the number “ten.” So 10! is the number of seconds in six weeks. When the kids type those equations into desmos, they will see the number 10 show up. Neon is the 10th atomic element. And “X” is 10 in roman numerals.

You can see why kids are going to need each other and the class is going to have to work together. Because until someone recognizes that “ten” is a category, these all seem very unconnected. But as soon as you know someone’s card represents “ten,” then things like the neon symbol or the “x” make sense.

I’m kinda proud of these, so I’ll show you another:

The theme? “Pi.” The first one is circumference over diameter, the second is a recipe for pie crust, the third is an approximation for pi, and the fourth is a world record holder for reciting the digits of pi.

(If you want to download my cards, here you go: Group Card Sort! And the explanations are Group Card Sort Explanations.)

I only had allotted 15-20 minutes for this. I had no idea if this would go quickly or take forever. In all four classes I did this in, I was able to get them to finish in 20 minutes but only through some careful prodding/help. If I were a bit more hands off, I could see this easily taking 40 minutes and it being time well spent. But alas, I didn’t. Here’s how I intervened:

1. After 7 minutes, I stopped everyone. I asked who knew what they had. A few people did.
2. Throughout the time, I gave a “few” hints where I could, but mainly I was acting as facilitator to help others help each other. So for the pie crust recipe one, I had the person go around asking if anyone was a baker (or I would shout out to the room if anyone liked to bake, and had them come to us).
3. When someone wasn’t doing anything, I had them go help others. They might have been confused about their card, but they could help others (and get help from others).
4. Sometimes when a kid “got it” but still had some uncertainty, I would put them out of their frustration and tell them they got it. If I didn’t have time pressure, I wouldn’t have done this, but it didn’t ruin the activity or anything.
5. After 15 minutes, with my proddings and connecting, kids were doing pretty well. So I stopped everyone and had people who knew what their card represented be quiet. There were always three or four people who were stuck. So I had them share their card or write their puzzle on the board and see if anyone could figure it out in the remaining few minutes. (We wrote the different “solved” categories on the board, so sometimes they could figure out their card by seeing what it might be.) They gathered, talked, and some classes barely finished in time and others didn’t. I didn’t focus on that. For the ones that didn’t get them all in 20 minutes, I quickly went through the explanation of the remaining few cards.

It was really fun for me to watch, and I saw kids really getting into the puzzle-aspect of things. The first time a kid figures out their card and finds someone else with the same thing, it’s just a wonderful feeling. It honestly feels impossible to kids at the beginning. They literally start looking for anyone with the exact same card as them, or if they have a picture they’re looking for other people with pictures. But as soon as they realize it’s more challenging and more interesting, I get to see how they react and what they do. Do they sort of back down? Do they go help others? Do they hope someone comes to them? My big goal was having kids realize they can’t do this alone and most cards won’t tell you what they are so you need to hear about others and help others.

Oh! One big thing. I realized in the first class that kids were just kinda sitting with their cards. So I made a rule that until the card sort was over and everyone in the class figured out their cards, no one was allowed to sit down — not even when using their laptops. This actually got kids up and moving. It was a small thing, but I know it was super helpful to making this a success.

I wish we had time for kids to say hi to their first group and do a little group norm setting, but alas with only 10 minutes left, I had to transition.

Part II: New Years

So I totally saw Howie Hua’s first day post and was in love. It was positively inspired. Often times, people post awesome things they do in their classrooms that are awesome but just not me. When I read this, I felt: “OMG THIS IS ME!” He celebrated new years with his classes. Here’s one of his students’ videos/tweets:

And it really got me thinking. The first day IS my new years. My life doesn’t go in January-December cycles. It goes in September-August cycles! And it was the perfect time for kids to make a new years resolution. They had 90 seconds of thinking to come up with something.

Then after 90 seconds, I threw up this screen, obliquely referencing the Maurader’s Map from Harry Potter (but opposite-ish) and I had them recite this pledge:

Then I gave each kid a baggie that I prepared. In it was a super fancy piece of origami paper, a mardi-gras necklace that someone had a zillion of and was throwing them away, and a noisemaker I bought from amazon. It mabye took me 45 minutes to put these all together. But totally worth it. For some reason, I believe that being given your own personal goody bag is way more exciting than having someone pass out necklaces, noise makers, and origami paper individually.

I then handed out party hats too (but those had to be returned to me). I actually always keep a stack of party hats in my office, and when it’s a kids birthday, I give them a hat, candy, and we sing a short birthday song. As I said, this idea of Howie’s fit me!!! Anyway, kids had to write their name and their resolution on the origami paper which I collected. (Later that day, I put them together in a ziploc bag and hung them visibly in the room so this doesn’t become a thing we did but wouldn’t return to. I was thinking I’d give them back to kids after the end of the first semester so they can see how they’re doing on their resolution. But I might have another brilliant idea. Who knows!) As soon as the bags were out, the noise makers were making noise. And that was a lovely cacophony of BWWWAAAPP and BAAAAAAAA noises. (That was also why I had kids pledge to do no evil with what they were given… *grin*)

In any case, I was standing at the front of the room when they worked on writing their resolutions. When they were done, they had to bring up the resolution to me and wait at the front of the room with me (with the necklace, hat, and noisemaker). After 2-3 minutes everyone was up. And then… we took a class picture, all decked out, blowing on the noisemakers and just being amazing. And oh yeah, we also took a class boomerang (which is an app that lets you take a 2 second video and plays it over and over).

The boomerang was my favorite part because kids were jumping up and ducking down and doing fun things. And I kind of am obsessed with boomerangs. So there’s that.

I think I’m going to get these photos printed and framed, and hang them up in the classroom. I don’t know what to do about kids who were missing  (there were a few) or who transfer in after some schedule change, but maybe I’ll list them missing on a caption instead of some awkward photoshop job?

Our first day together. (I did post the boomerang video and our class photograph on the google classroom site in case any kid wanted it.) [2]

And then it was the end of our first 30 minutes together. I was really happy with how it went. I like the feeling that I left each class starting the year with good vibes. Thanks go to my chemistry teacher colleague and friend for the card sort idea which I made into something my style (with my kind of clues!), and to Howie Hua for helping me make a memorable moment to start the year.

***

[1] We do a lot of the logistics things in the following week. They read the course expectations at home and fill out a “get to know you” google form which also asks them questions that require the expectations to finish. And then each day or day, I talk about one or two things I want to be explicit about (like how to write me an email, or that’s it’s okay to go to the bathroom and they don’t need to ask, but they do have to discretely let me know they’re leaving if I don’t see them, or that they need to bring a waterbottle to class because they can’t leave to get a drink).

[2] I just realized this photo could be fun to have up on the screen on parent night, when parents/caretakers come in two weeks to hear me talk about our class.

Last month, the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) sought feedback on proposed standards that would raise the bar for college oversight agencies. These agencies, known as accreditation agencies, serve as the gatekeepers to more than $130 billion in federal student grants and loans that flow to more than 6,000 colleges and universities each year. Yet they have been widely criticized as the “watchdogs that don’t bark” due to their failures to hold problematic colleges accountable. As a national voice for accreditation and quality assurance, and the only entity aside from the U.S. Department of Education that formally recognizes accrediting agencies, CHEA’s role in creating higher standards will be critical to improving quality in higher education.

CHEA recognition of accreditation agencies matters for the colleges they oversee and in ways that are not always apparent to the public. Colleges approved by CHEA-recognized accreditation agencies often have the ability to more easily transfer credits between colleges, and they can factor into the decisions of state authorities, specialized accreditation agencies, licensing boards required for employment, hiring managers, and—to a certain extent—even institutions abroad. When an accreditor fails to adequately oversee a college, however, CHEA recognition can give a false sense of prestige to both the accreditor and the colleges it oversees. Given this significance, strong standards are imperative to ensuring quality in higher education.

Last week, the Center for American Progress submitted public comments on CHEA’s proposed changes. While the council’s new standards are a significant improvement upon existing ones, they can be strengthened in several ways. Below are four important recommendations for furthering quality assurance in higher education.*

1. Deferral of action on recognition

Limiting recognition decisions to only one deferral is a welcome change, without which CHEA has been able to continuously punt on decisions and enable troubled accrediting agencies to maintain recognition when they may not meet CHEA standards. As part of this change, CHEA should limit agencies that have already been deferred in their current recognition cycle from any additional deferrals, pending a decision from the council’s board. CHEA should no longer delay; it should rule quickly on a decision determining whether the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools (ACICS) and any other outstanding agencies meet CHEA standards.

2. Student achievement

CHEA’s proposed changes call for putting student well-being—both in and beyond school—at the center of accreditation judgements, using reliable data and external verification of data. Furthermore, the changes specify that effective performance includes evidence of whether students complete their courses, graduate, and have success after school. CAP has long agreed that how students fare should be at the center of accrediting agencies’ decision-making. In its revised standards for accrediting agencies, CHEA should clearly state that accreditor decisions should be based primarily on student achievement, use reliable data, and include evidence of completion and success—which is currently only mentioned in the background section of the proposed changes.

Additionally, CHEA should require that accrediting agencies have clear performance benchmarks. If agencies are to base accrediting decisions primarily on student achievement, they cannot take timely action against underperforming institutions without establishing clear performance benchmarks that define what constitutes an acceptable level of performance. Furthermore, CHEA should require that accrediting agencies include equity as a measure of student achievement and data collection. Lastly, in order to ensure colleges are serving all students well, agencies should ensure that any reliable data they collect are disaggregated by student demographics, such as race and ethnicity, income, and gender.

3. Transparency

It is important that the proposed changes establish standards requiring accrediting agencies to be transparent about their decisions and the reasons why actions are taken. Students and the public should not be kept in the dark when a college or program is not performing up to standard. Therefore, CHEA should set standard terms for actions taken. Clear terms and definitions could help students and the public understand the seriousness and implications of an action.

To this end, the proposed standards should require that institutions and programs of CHEA-recognized agencies publicly disclose their accreditation status and any actions against it, so that current and prospective students are not blindsided by institutional shortcomings such as financial instability or poor student outcomes. CHEA should be more transparent about its recognition procedures, open public comment periods on agencies up for review, provide reasons for its own actions, and post alerts when it makes a decision.

4. Accountability and enforcement

CAP commended CHEA for its focus on accountability and performance, specifically highlighting the new requirement that accreditor standards provide a procedure for the agency to take timely action in order to prevent underperforming institutions from achieving or maintaining accredited status. As mentioned above, CHEA should require agencies to have standards defining acceptable performance—particularly on student achievement. It cannot know that an agency is taking action on underperforming institutions unless that agency first defines acceptable performance.

Additionally, CHEA should require agencies to have standards on the specific actions they will take when there is evidence an institution has misrepresented itself to students or when there are state or federal investigations or lawsuits against an institution. CHEA should add to its definition of deficient performance requiring review by the council’s board any evidence that an institution has misrepresented itself to students, as well as the presence of state or federal investigations or lawsuits.

Conclusion

Accreditation is an important quality control that provides a safeguard for the nation’s students and the taxpayers’ investment in federal student aid programs. Strong standards for college accreditors and the colleges they oversee are essential to improving college quality and oversight. Changes that focus on student success, transparency, and accountability will help bring about needed change in accreditation.

Antoinette Flores is an associate director for Postsecondary Education at the Center for American Progress. 

*Author’s note: CAP’s full comment can be found here.

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Our son’s wedding in Europe last week gave us the perfect excuse to visit some of the world’s most spectacular museums and view masterpieces up close that I’d only ever seen in books.

As an Art teacher who had never experienced Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa in person, the Musee du Louvre in Paris had to be our first stop! Many people warned me that I’d be surprised when I finally saw her…. and I was. But not for the reasons they expected!

For years, I’d heard people say how surprised they were to see the Mona Lisa in real life and discover that the world’s most famous painting is actually quite small (30″ x 21″ or 77cm x 53cm). But I was prepared for Mona’s diminutive size…. I usually mention the size of the artworks I teach my students about. So, no surprise there!

I’d also heard people say they were surprised that the Mona Lisa, frame and all, is completely encased in bullet-proof glass and that the crowds of people waiting to catch a glimpse of her make it hard to even get close. So, again, no surprise when I found this also to be true! We saw the best and worst of humanity in that crowd, with a few people politely saying “Excuse me” in whatever was their native language while others just pushed and shoved to gain a more premium piece of real estate for their photo op. (Really, people…. where are your manners??!)

What did surprise me, though, was the amount of photography going on in that room!

From cameras held high above heads and zoomed in to the max, to selfies with Mona in the background, nearly everyone there was all about taking pictures. They were not staring awestruck at this work of legendary artistry as I expected they would…. really, they were just focused on getting a good picture of it.

I guess this surprised me because photography is often forbidden in exhibits of far less importance.

But the Mona Lisa was being photographed with abandon and the security guards were obviously okay with this.

I came prepared to buy a postcard in the gift shop, but instead I surprised myself and followed the crowd…. and left with a selfie!

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