Do public schools need to cultivate their “brand?
” A: Absolutely. In fact, we have branding. They’re called magnet schools and charter schools. The whole charter school movement is a way of branding. Whatever works, works. We’d do these events called Martinis & Magnets (for the Burning Moms group), where we would explain the magnet system to frightened L.A. parents and ply them with cocktails to relax them, if need be, and they would go, “OK, I guess we should do a charter school.” They don’t actually know what a charter school is. They’ve visited no local public schools, but they have this word “charter” and that’s a brand. And as long as that gets them into public schools, I think that’s fine. Q: You say much of the middle-class angst about school comes from Realtors and marketers — say more about that. A: Some of the most horrendous things I’ve heard about public school were from Realtors: “No one goes (to that school)” in kind of that whisper. “That’s why you have to buy in the something-something beltway.” There’s a lot of bad i
