Last night (6/4/12) the PBS NewsHour launched “a series about teachers, testing and accountability in public schools.” And while I’m sure there will be some bright spots, the rollout was a reminder of some of the big problems in media coverage of public education.
At the top of the show anchor Jeffrey Brown announced, “Our first part includes the views of one of the more outspoken reformers and players in this debate.” That terminology, so prevalent in the schools debates, should be avoided. If the corporate-minded, pro-charter test-obsessed are the “reformers,” then what does that make someone who disagrees with them? An anti-reformer?
The views shared in the report came courtesy of Melinda Gates of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Which meant that NewsHour reporter Hari Sreenivasan had to make this disclosure up front:
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, along with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, both funders of this program, are sponsoring the American Graduate initiative to help improve nation’s high school graduation rates.
It’s slightly awkward to launch a series on anything with a soft interview with one of your program’s funders–particularly one that has funded reporting on your program that lines up with the foundation’s goals.
The Gates Foundation, of course, is heavily invested in education policy. But does that necessarily make them education experts? Or are they treated as such because they have money to promote their views on schools?
Those fundamental questions comes into focus when we hear Gates answer a question about “what is working”:
If you look back a decade ago, when we started into this work, there wasn’t even a conversation across the nation about the fact that our schools were broken, fundamentally broken. And I think that dialogue has changed. I think the American public has woken up to the fact now that schools are broken.
The panic over America’s supposedly failing schools goes back at least to 1983 and the publication of A Nation at Risk by Ronald Reagan’s education commission. The crisis argument was brilliantly debunked by David Berliner and Biddle in their 1996 book The Manufactured Crisis. The Gates Foundation cannot plausibly argue that it ushered in a “conversation” about how our schools are “fundamentally broken.”
Not to worry, though–as PBS anchor Brown says at the end:
We get a different perspective tomorrow from Diane Ravitch, a former assistant secretary of education in the George H.W. Bush administration.
That’s media balance for you: On one night, an expert whose education expertise seems to consist primarily of funding (mostly) one side of the debate over public schools. And for balance: the nation’s preeminent education historian.
In the name of national security, all subsidies and funding of professional sports teams must be abandoned immediately so local taxes can be used, instead, to fund free public education.
It is about time the idle rich be required to carry their own weight and get off the teat of the corporate welfare state. Make the funding of sports stadiums follow the exception to the rule used by the Green Bay Packers. Make Green Bay’s operation as an exception to the rule, the new rule of sports team funding.
The big money initiatives are very good at negotiating money away from the support of the public good but have a terrible record in support of the public good.
CPB
Well, the “P” may be a misnomer
But the “C” is spot on, isn’t it?
Difficult to say whether this is significant, but the Gates interview is 30 percent longer than the Ravitch one. Note also how carefully stage-managed the Gates interview with with lighting, color, etc. Note that the only spot of color in the scene is the calm, professional blue of Gates’s shirt in the see of grays and dark tones. (There is a small spot of color in Sreenivasan’s tie.) The Gates interview was calculated to create a response that the Ravitch interview was not.
This educational privatization push shows up in the most unexpected places. While watching the 2008 election returns on (ostensibly progressive) Free Speech TV, a segment from their Denver network headquarters spent its time advocating target charter schools, without rationale, responsive opinion or apology. There was no ballot issue under discussion; apparently it was just a good opportunity to schmooze one of the year’s largest audiences. They made their point and lost a contributor.
Good slogans: we need more scientists, and engineers, and teachers; we need to fix our education system, for our children. Now for the cognitive dissonance: we start by ignoring the teachers that actually work in the classroom, and then compound our faulty start by insisting tenure is a bad idea, even as we lament that there aren’t enough good teachers, and oh by the way, isn’t it tragic we can’t afford our current staff of teachers, but hey, let’s build some new school facilities, and then all will be better, if not excellent! What’s really unfortunate, is that we solve so many of our problems this same way: ignore the frontline facts, and, throw money at the visible parts of the problem, hoping it fixes itself or goes away. Locally, we are funding a stadium for a major sports franchise, which was approved as a measure to “help fund our education system”! Such blatant nonsense!!
Reagan commissioned the Sandia report and then when it showed that the public schools do as well as private schools with similar demographics, Reagan suppressed the report.
Can’t let facts interfere with a juicy opinion.
I wonder how the Folks on this sight feel about the “A Plus act”?A conservative alternative to no child left behind?Also too many people feel this is strictly a funding issue.It is not.We need direction, not truckloads of cash.
We have problems as the dynamic has shifted away from parental involvement.Especially in the African American population.We have problems with the teachers union.As a conservative I believe in choice.This article asks the question, is there a problem at all.In my city we have 1500 tenured teachers.ONE got fired last year.SAT scores are down.Teachers are striking because they never have payed anything into healthcare ,make 100 grand,and want raises.Yeah Houston we got a problem.
I would certainly like to know where Michael E lives, where teachers make $100,000 per year and where they do not have to contribute one cent to their own health care. My wife has been teaching in public schools for nearly four decades, has been nominated for many outstanding teacher awards, and makes only slightly more than half of that amount. All teachers in my wife’s district are required to pay a significant amount toward health care coverage (the cost of which goes up every year even if salaries don’t), even if they are totally covered by their spouse’s health care plan. By the way, her school district is unionized, and teachers are dismissed every year for lack of adequate performance.
Sometimes I think that conservatives make mendacious claims which support their political viewpoint, with little regard for the veracity of what they claim.
Richard Rothstein reveals some information in his commencement address to UC Berkeley, May 15, 2011, that conflicts with most of the “US broken schools” dogma.
Not only do the conservatives want public schools to fail and disappear, they want to make even more profits for themselves with privatization of same. Propaganda is what is breaking the schools, indeed, if there is anything broken at all. Testing and statistics can be bent for almost anyone’s conclusions, but there’s nothing like making an open-minded visit to an actual school, its students and teachers, before drawing conclusions for the media. And if you really care about it, take a few minutes and talk to the people working there.
I saw both interviews, and, frankly, I thought the Ravitch interview pretty much debunked the Gates interview. So, to me, that was a pretty good balance.
Melinda Gates says, “If you look back a decade ago, there wasn’t even a conversation across the nation about the fact that our schools were fundamentally broken.”
Um, maybe that’s because they WEREN’T. In trying to “fix” this manufactured crisis (with the disastrous NCLB), we actually made it worse… and into a real crisis now.
No wonder public schools are failing. They were set up to. And continuing to cut funding ensures their failure… all for the ultimate goal of privatization.
Fortunately, people are starting to wake up to this fact. Hopefully, it’s not too late to do something about it.
“Sometimes I think that conservatives make mendacious claims which support their political viewpoint, with little regard for the veracity of what they claim.”
SOMETIMES?!?!
It dawned on me recently that conservatives/Republicans are actually proud of their lies. Their lies usually work. And even when the lies are widely and credibly debunked, they just keep on telling ’em. Because they know that a large portion of our electorate are very much uninformed and more than ready and willing to believe whatever they’re told. It’s what they learn to do in training to be Republican leaders. It’s very Ayn Rand. Very Machiavellian. They rejoice in their triumphs over the truth, and the media often congratulate them.
Yeah, I would like to know where michael e. lives too, George F. He’s lying, as usual, and can’t back up his lies by telling us just what school district in the US pays teachers $100,000, and where these same teachers “never have payed (sic) anything into healthcare.” C’mon, dude: tell us in what school district this is happening.
Tim I grew up in Pennsylvania primarily,though I am not there as much these days.The school district is the Neshaminy school district.They are as we speak on strike- as of last week.Check also the salaries of the council rock teachers in lower Bucks.They i believe, pay something into their health care.Certainly nothing near what you do ,but something.At least they seem to be doing a good job.Not so much Neshaminy.
So, they make $100,000 a year? You made a wild claim, and can’t back it up–as usual. Any unionized teacher is paying into their health care.
Tim the Neshaminy school teachers are among the highest paid in the county.Same with council rock.I personally know a council rock teacher.She made 90 thou last year minus perks.And remember that is with the summer off!Neshaminy teachers do not pay anything into their healthcare.Zero….nada…..not a cent.Clean out your ears chum.That is damn well going to change….. and damn soon.
Like I said . . . lies. Ninety thousand? That’s a lie too–and it’s not $100,000, and you know one teacher . . . how convenient. Name this person, and I’ll call her. Liar.