Brenda Ortega's Falsehood Files To Push For Profit Schools

Brenda Ortega’s ‘Falsehood files’ to Push for Profit Schools presents a witty and fully deconstructive response to the Fordham Institute’s study on teacher absenteeism in public schools and news outlets reporting on it without proper political context. She accomplishes this through skillful construction of the ethos of her argument and logical counterpoints and explanations for each fallacy presented in the report. Ortega’s construction of ethos through metaphor, combined with her logical arguments and guiding diction choices, create a strong argument discrediting the Fordham Institute report through demonstration of public opinion and the statements other authorities in education. Ortega constructs her authority over the topic by assuming the most direct role possible, pulling from her experience as a teacher. She hooks the reader through expressions of exasperation, plainly showing how aghast she is …show more content…
This initial argument, which she delivers using a Jonathan Swift quote “Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it,” attacks the news outlets propagating the Fordham Institute argument, rather than attacking it directly, carving a the politically irrefutable hole that these news outlets are being dishonest by not disclosing the true nature of the Fordham Institute (hence the title, fliers of falsehood), and giving any potentially skeptical readers a bias towards her argument. She also makes use of the opportunity of addressing the news outlets first to establish herself as not just a teacher authority figure, but as an authority figure in journalism, demonstrating that this argument is also unacceptable in that arena, saying “Even at the small daily where my career began, I could not have written up a ‘study’ without reporting its source nor delivered its conclusions without seeking expert