But he wonders why his group is only now coming under fire, given its recent aggressive efforts on bills and fundraising. In his words, “We’re already in Republican-leaning states. We have a track record. Why are they suddenly so angry?”
Why? When you sell a product or program, you’re selling a solution. But when you promote policy or do advocacy, you’re offering something entirely different: a vision, full of agendas, worldviews and values.
It’s the difference between setting up free health clinics on the one hand and promoting a vision of Medicaid reform on the other. It’s fair to say that if free pediatric care were voluntary, there wouldn’t be as many complaints. But when that kind offer of help turns into something bigger, more coercive, and more intrusive, things get much more complicated.
Now we move from talking about products and services to talking about what should be mandated, whether public funds should be spent, and how the rules should be written. Entering this fray creates a lot of conflict and requires a lot of trust. That’s why skeptics and corruption seekers who haven’t paid much attention before will (rightly) start scrutinizing what you say, write, and tweet, and who’s funding you.
It’s easy for people who have built great programs to stick to their guns. The accolades and funding come in when they’re successful. They believe in their model and are confident that they can solve problems “at scale.” The problem is that they quickly abandon what they know and move into territory where they no longer have a solid foundation.
This distinction is important. I’m not saying their success is fake or their expertise is fraudulent. What I am saying is that there is a tendency to confuse one kind of expertise (running individual programs) with an entirely different kind of expertise (changing rules, regulations, funding, and policies).
This kind of dynamic happens all the time in reading and math programs. Entrepreneurs and CEOs explain, often with great frustration, that they don’t want to get caught up in the reading and math wars. They decry the political aspects of it and say, “I just want to do what works. I’m not going to take sides.”
OK, but when you move from selective, individualized programs to deciding what standards, textbooks, curricula, or instructional methods will (or won’t) be required in your school or state’s classrooms, these “differences of opinion” are nearly inevitable. It’s okay to hate “politics.” Politics is just a label for how these (inevitable) disagreements play out.
