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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 20 2017, @02:22PM (2 children)
Here's a heads-up: there's a huge divide between the unions and the workers that they represent.
Ever noticed how many of the staunch, grizzled workers wiped the sweat from their brows, the grease from their hands and voted for Trump?
Maybe it wasn't so a hundred years ago, but these days it's a growing divide, and more and more workers are abandoning unions at the first opportunity.
So ... yeah. I guess the donkeys get to rejustify their existence to a fragmenting workers' community. The unions do as well.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 20 2017, @07:20PM (1 child)
...and how's that going for them?
Most people of that ilk were woting -against- Neoliberal Hillary.
A bunch more didn't cast a vote because they thought what both the GOP and the Donkeys had to offer sucked.
Too bad Donkey elites stacked the deck against Bernie.
If that hadn't happened, we'd be talking about President Sanders (who would have gotten those folks' votes).
...and after Bernie got stabbed in the back by "his own", those lazy Rust Belt folks didn't make the effort to discover JILL STEIN, who was still on the ballot in almost every state (and could be written in in the rest), and whose platform had major overlap with Bernie's.
a huge divide between the unions and the workers
Again, lazy people who don't get involved and CAMPAIGN and VOTE for better representation.
A union is a democracy; One worker==One vote.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 22 2017, @01:47PM
... and here we have again, the blaming of the proletariat because the poor, deluded, benighted (oh, and lazy too!) fellows just don't get it.
If only they would trust the guidance of the intelligentsia who are so much smarter and better-informed (and diligent!) than they are, then we'd have good government!
They are just too ignorant, or (dare I say it) stupid (bless their little hearts!) to "discover" a nationally advertised candidate with a widely published set of policies. Or maybe they just could not comprehend how her ostensibly anti-industrial policy was really all for their benefit!
Oh, well. That really highlights the problem: we need a new proletariat. The old one is broken. Until then, they just need to be disenfranchised, so that they stop voting against their own class interests (what rubes).
Seriously, as a blue collar worker myself, your kind of sneering condescension is very hard to interpret as anything but hostile. So find the nearest available powerwasher and stick it into your left ear until the shit pours out of the right. The world will thank you.