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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?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Monday June 19 2017, @12:50AM (1 child)
No-one does propaganda quite like the US Government.
When I was a teenager I remember being quite worried about the Soviet Navy, after watching a TV Documentary about how much stronger than the US Navy they were, and how they were beginning to move to a war footing.
Several years later it came out that the US Navy had lost badly in a funding round against the Airforce, and had created the documentary to scare up some money.p.
The Soviet Navy was more or less confined to port because of a lack of trained sailors at the time, and didn't have the money to train any new ones anyway. Less than 10 years later the US was giving the Soviets money to help dispose of the broken down nuclear reactors from the broken down Soviet Navy.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Monday June 19 2017, @09:26PM
That's an old game in gaining support for funding. It was typical to count every ship the Soviets had, from garbage scows and tugboats on up to aircraft carriers, whether seaworthy, mothballed or not. Then our side would only count ships in action and of course the numbers would pale in comparison. I'm sure the reverse is true, and that sort of thing has probably gone on since the Phoenicians.