Does the media HATE public Education?
============================================Again and again, in one newspaper and magazine article after another, Public Education is skewered mercilessly.
Criticism is heaped upon criticism, as if the Public Education system is such a dismal failure that the prospect of improving it seems utterly hopeless.
And we seemingly never get any positive suggestions or new ideas from the same self-righteous press which is so unrelentingly hostile in its
neverending attacks.
It is true that many Educators in Public Ed, including this writer, are frequent critics of Public School systems' faults and often misguided solutions and policies. But such criticisms come from people who nonetheless still believe in the idea of public education and feel it needs to be overhauled and re-tooled for a changing world in a new millenium in order to meet the needs of a free society in flux.
It is easy to speculate that the almost totally corporate-controlled media is attacking Public Ed for far more sinister and deliberate reasons (i.e. a total discrediting of Public Ed in order to facilitate a future takeover perhaps?).
Sounds like a plan.
Billions of dollars and the future of Public Education in America are at stake.
This article from the Daily Howler Blog
(with a link to a sample article from the Washington Post) calls attention to a classic example of this persistent media habit
of negativism about public schools,
which seems epidemic in
America's Media today:
(note--Article starts about 1/3 down the pg)
http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh041006.shtml
Excerpt:
“ 'Baltimore schools need urgent attention.' But omigod! The state itself has no plan for these schools; it will turn them over to unnamed third parties, and let those parties figure things out! Our question: Is there any reason to think that these unnamed third parties will get better results at Douglass? The editors don’t show the slightest sign of having tried to figure that out. They don’t say who these third parties might be. They offer no information—none at all—about the track records of such third parties. They simply prefer to thunder and roar—to pretend that they care about these matters. They trash the people who now run these schools—although they don’t offer the slightest sign that they themselves have any ideas about how to solve Douglass High’s problems.
What should change in Baltimore’s classrooms? The editors have no suggestions—not one."
And:
"What’s happening inside those charter school classrooms? [reporter] Gootman didn’t bother to check. What’s happening in those endless Sacramento reading classes? Dillon didn’t check that either. Meanwhile, what are Deasy and Janey’s ideas? In each case, the Post didn’t bother to ask. Upper-class editors—like those at the Post—don’t soil gloved hands with questions like that. Instead, they thunder loudly, pretending to care about what goes on inside Douglass High. They insist on “urgent, even dramatic action”—then admit that they’re willing to settle for something which is likely quite different.
So it goes as our upper-class news orgs pretend to cover low-income schools. They rarely soil their dainty hands by stepping inside real low-income schools. (Have any of the outraged editors ever set foot inside Douglass?) In part for that reason, they have zero ideas—none; not one—about the way such schools should be run. But then, no one seems to have such ideas."
Ultimately, it's not actually about "hate" (although the visible symptoms look the same).
It's probably not even personal
at all.
In truth,
the attacks are about power, and especially,
as one might expect,
money.
===========================================
posted by Da Manijment @ 2:52 PM
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