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posted by n1 on Sunday June 18 2017, @11:08PM   Printer-friendly
from the telling-half-the-story dept.

Diane Ravitch, a top public education advocate, reports via AlterNet:

This month, the Public Broadcasting System is broadcasting a "documentary" that tells a one-sided story, the story that [Trump's Secretary of Education] Betsy DeVos herself would tell, based on the work of free-market advocate Andrew Coulson. Author of "Market Education", Coulson narrates "School, Inc.", a three-hour program, which airs this month nationwide in three weekly broadcasts on PBS.

Uninformed viewers who see this slickly produced program will learn about the glories of unregulated schooling, for-profit schools, teachers selling their lessons to students on the Internet. They will learn about the "success" of the free market in schooling in Chile, Sweden, and New Orleans. They will hear about the miraculous charter schools across America, and how public school officials selfishly refuse to encourage the transfer of public funds to private institutions. They will see a glowing portrait of South Korea, where students compete to get the highest possible scores on a college entry test that will define the rest of their lives and where families gladly pay for after-school tutoring programs and online lessons to boost test scores. They will hear that the free market is more innovative than public schools.

What they will not see or hear is the other side of the story. They will not hear scholars discuss the high levels of social segregation in Chile, nor will they learn that the students protesting the free-market schools in the streets are not all "Communists", as Coulson suggests. They will not hear from scholars who blame Sweden's choice system for the collapse of its international test scores. They will not see any reference to Finland, which far outperforms any other European nation on international tests yet has neither vouchers nor charter schools. They may not notice the absence of any students in wheelchairs or any other evidence of students with disabilities in the highly regarded KIPP charter schools. They will not learn that the acclaimed American Indian Model Charter Schools in Oakland does not enroll any American Indians, but has a student body that is 60 percent Asian American in a city where that group is 12.8 percent of the student population. Nor will they see any evidence of greater innovation in voucher schools or charter schools than in properly funded public schools.

[...] This program is paid propaganda. It does not search for the truth. It does not present opposing points of view. It is an advertisement for the demolition of public education and for an unregulated free market in education. PBS might have aired a program that debates these issues, but "School Inc." does not.

It is puzzling that PBS would accept millions of dollars for this lavish and one-sided production from a group of foundations with a singular devotion to the privatization of public services. The decision to air this series is even stranger when you stop to consider that these kinds of anti-government political foundations are likely to advocate for the elimination of public funding for PBS. After all, in a free market of television, where there are so many choices available, why should the federal government pay for a television channel?


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by AnonTechie on Monday June 19 2017, @08:19AM (1 child)

    by AnonTechie (2275) on Monday June 19 2017, @08:19AM (#527809) Journal

    Read something interesting related to this discussion. I do not know who wrote it but it is insightful:

    One of the University lecturers wrote an expressive message to his students at the doctorate, masters and bachelors level and placed it at the college entrance in the university in south Africa.

    And this is the message " Collapsing any Nation does not require use of Atomic bombs or the use of Long range missiles. But it requires lowering the quality of Education and allowing cheating in the exams by the students.

    The patient dies in the hands of the doctor who passed his exams through cheating.

    And the buildings collapse in the hands of an engineer who passed his exams through cheating.

    And the money is lost in the hands of an accountant who passed his exams through cheating.

    And humanity dies in the hands of a religious scholar who passed his exams through cheating.

    And justice is lost in the hands of a judge who passed his exams through cheating.

    And ignorance is rampant in the minds of children who are under the care of a teacher who passed exams through cheating.

    The collapse of education is the collapse of the Nation"

    http://www.wazua.co.ke/forum.aspx?g=posts&t=35336 [wazua.co.ke]

    --
    Albert Einstein - "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19 2017, @06:19PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19 2017, @06:19PM (#528070)

    All true, but the collapse of the educational institutions is way on the way in the U.S., started with Affirmative Action (Which is a backdoor to Marxist ideology, starts off with Equality of Opportunity and turns quickly into Equality of Outcome). Look at the Liberal Schools in most top universities. The shit coming out of them is UNREAL. I feel like my diploma is losing value with every Patel in the Masters program who cheats on their exam (and there are 25 out of 30 students who do this).

    On a sad note, South Africa is done as a nation. Incoming Zimbabwe within 10 years. There will be war, there will be famine, there will be an International intervention to disarm their nuclear arsenal, after which point no one will want anything to do with that country, and it will revert to a tribal society of hunters, who will most likely hunt each-other. I just hope Europe takes in those poor White refugees before they all become victims of the current genocide.