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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, @02:39PM (4 children)
Cooperatives depend upon conflict resolution with respect to access to assets same as anyone else. If they're doing it within the framework of private ownership, regardless of cooperative figleaves, it's not an argument against private ownership.
In fact, technically, it's an argument for private ownership because of the way that you can use it to emulate other structures.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 20 2017, @07:37PM (3 children)
When you have presented an example of a co-op voting to send their jobs overseas, we'll have something to talk about.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 22 2017, @02:21PM (2 children)
So you're OK with private ownership as long as it supports nice, virtuous cooperatives.
Fair enough.
This also allows for the accumulation of capital. In fact, people working for cooperatives can accumulate their pay, invest it in side jobs or their family's activities or whatever, and potentially end up filthy, stinking rich capitalist pigs.
In fact, those same capitalist exploitation skeksis can even use them to found other cooperatives. For shame!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 22 2017, @07:04PM (1 child)
The system that I advocate only values labor.
Someone sitting on his ass, waiting for a dividend check plays no part in it.
In a Socialist system, (Group) Entrepreneurship by The Workers has value.
Idle Capitalists who attempt to profit via exploiting the labor of others are unnecessary.
There are tons of examples globally.
Your attempt to draw parallels between bottom-up collective ownership and top-down concentrated wealth and power are an old trick of The Oligarchs.
That doesn't hold water.
The 2 aren't anything alike on any real level.
Unless a system empowers The Workers and adds stability to the community, it's still the same old exploitive thing.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 23 2017, @05:33AM
Good try at avoiding the point.
Conflict of interest with respect to access to assets. Decided how? Cooperatives such as Mondragon use the system of private ownership. You have yet to propose another, unless "The system that I advocate only values labor." means something that is as yet unclear.
Private ownership allows for the creation of cooperatives. Case in point: your favourite Mondragon.
And, quite frankly, if only valuing labour means that a bunch of people can suddenly decide that they don't like what I do, and remove all access to assets from me, well, I've lived in that society before. It sucked immense dick. I left it.
Anyway, the good news is that the bulk of people in the world don't really seem to agree with you, so I guess you'll have to keep grabbing at that golden apple.