Readers of Saturday’s New York Times may have noticed thisthis piece (10/16/10):
Despite Image, Union Leader Backs School Change
By TRIP GABRIEL
In “Waiting for Superman,” the new education documentary, the union leader Randi Weingarten is portrayed, in the words of Variety, as “a foaming satanic beast.”
At a two-day education summit hosted by NBC News recently, the lopsided panels often featured Ms. Weingarten on one side, facing a murderer’s row of charter school founders and urban superintendents. Even Tom Brokaw piled on.
The article actually doesa pretty good of explaining how Weingarten and others in the union movement have, contrary to the message of Davis Guggenheim’s hit documentary, pushed for real reform efforts across the country. The article even points out thatone union-backed charter school in New York was left out of the film:
Yet one scene that the director filmed, but left on the cutting-room floor, showed Ms. Weingarten signing a contract on behalf of teachers at Green Dot, which has had impressive results since it opened in 2008.
Steve Barr, who founded the Green Dot charter school network, lamented that the film ignored examples of charters and unions working together. “It doesnâ┚¬Ã¢”ž¢t help to take the one true open-minded union leader and bash her,” he said.
All in all, it’s a pretty helpful article for understanding some of the nuances of the “reform” debate. But a better headline (though a totally unlikely one) would have been “Despite Message of Biased Media Coverage, Union Leader Backs School Change.” The truth is that it’s fairly routine for the press to bash teachers unions, as FAIR documented in this article.
“Even Tom Brokaw piled on” makes you think there’s something surprising about a major media figure bashing a teachers’ union.In reality, it’s pretty common.
Here’s a really good article on the whole debate in the latest NYR:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/nov/11/myth-charter-schools/?pagination=false
Lots of myths surrounding charter schools (increasingly these myths also seem to grip Australian minds) shattered in a well-written piece.
Thank you, Helga F. The article you link to is absolutely required reading for anybody who’s thinking about watching that movie, or anybody who’s already seen it. The review was written by Diane Ravitch, someone who has deep and intimate knowledge of the public school system of the USA. Like all the malignant, anti-democratic dreams of the Right, the dream of a union-free private for-profit school sytem will be closer than ever after deluded “liberals” (like President Obama) throw in with the forces of privatization. It happened with welfare “reform” and President Clinton, and it’s happening now, with public education. Ravitch, in her review, writes, “Waiting for â┚¬Ã…“Supermanâ┚¬Ã‚ is the most important public-relations coup that the critics of public education have made so far. Their power is not to be underestimated. For years, right-wing critics demanded vouchers and got nowhere. Now, many of them are watching in amazement as their ineffectual attacks on â┚¬Ã…“government schoolsâ┚¬Ã‚ and their advocacy of privately managed schools with public funding have become the received wisdom among liberal elites.”
I heard one of those elites, Rob Reiner, on The Stephanie Miller Show this past Thursday. He was crowing about what a great movie “Waiting For “Superman”” was, and how it was possible to “go around the unions” and still get great benefits for our teachers (!). It was revolting to hear this fool happily drone on, oblivious to the fact that he and others are doing what the Right could only dream about a few years before. A real outrage; it’s the Rob Reiners and the Rahm Emanuels and Arne Duncans who are going to destroy public education; carpet-baggers and money-grubbers like Newt Gingrich will just come along for the ride, ready to pick up the spoils. Thanks again, Helga F.
Helga. Thanks so much for that link. The article was extreemly well researched and written. Confirmed what I’ve felt about the Charter School movement for years and mirrors my experience throughout my life. I’m a product of public schools in the 40’s and 50’s (as almost all of us were back then). My kids received a very good education in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s, also from public education. the article confirmed my gut understanding that Charter Schools are mainly promoted for one or two reasons, changing cirriculum to make the Rapture more plausable, and grabbing some of the taxpayers money doing it. Throw in the fact that even Public Schools today don’t teach civics and the social sciences today like they did (back in my day) and no wonder there’s such an anti-union, anti-government backlash. all part of the dumbing down of america by those who hate everything about it except for the money part. My grandkids are now in public schools and seem to be learning read’n writ’n an’ ‘rithmatik real good. The worst part for the future is that with the tremendous increases in higher education since even my kids time (part of what’s set back my retirement to “never”), they, (even with professional carreers) will have an even tougher time helping their kids get a head start on the future. that’s OK though. These days it’s already a disadvantage to be well informed and educated. in another generation it just might be dangerous.
TimN.
And here I ‘ve been thinking Rob Reiner was one of the good guys. What was Stephanie’s reaction? She’s usually pretty up on social issues but everything up is down today and it’s hard with all of the framing for anyone to untangle the reversa talk (end of Welfair is “Reform”). Republicons are masters of making the destruction of policy look like “enhancements”.
Ya Know, the more I think about it, I can see where a good Progressive (in his or her own mind), wealthy ones in particular, might see a film like Waiting for Superman, be swept up by it, and, without further research as in reading Dian Ravich’s searing review and comments, decide that everyone should have the benefit of a private education, just like their kids have had. If that’s the case, how easily we are lead down the primrose path, into the briar patch. We’ll continue to be played for fools until we wise up to how the game is being played.
What is educational reform? That is what FAIR should look into. Unfortunately the term, “reform” has been stolen from the REAL Reformers. The people who the national media call reformers are actually trying to privatize public education. Real Reformers have been trying to fully fund urban public schools, reduce class sizes, make a more socially cultural curriculum that emphasizes critical thinking, NOT test taking, to name just a few. The national media calls reformers people who support charter schools (receive public money, but are run PRIVATELY), support more and more testing (which leads to a very narrow curriculum), closing low performing schools (instead of helping them), the hiring of many young untrained teachers (who leave after only a few years), and the evaluation and pay of teachers based on test scores. These are not reforms that will help our public schools, but they will lead to the privatization of public education. Randi Weingarten has unfortunately been willing to sign on to some of these “so-called” reforms instead of standing up for what our schools really need. FAIR, please look into what real reform is needed for our public schools.
I totally agree with the educator who was interviewed on Democracy Now. He stated that using children’s tears and fears in the lottery game for a good education was child abuse, pure and simple.
We have handed our democracy over to corporate control. We are privatizing prisons and putting our children in jail with judges paid off by the industry that wants to make money. Why wouldn’t we now hand over the rest of the kids to corporate “benevolence”? Bye America, it was nice while it lasted.
Well, nellevad, Stephanie gushed with praise for her friend Rob Reiner, but her and the Mooks said that they had not seen the movie yet, so couldn’t comment on it. Stephanie’s funny, but she often takes the Corporate Democratic side in things–she agreed with that clown Robert Gibbs when he assailed the “professional left,” only to have her friend Alan Grayson come on and absolutely ream Gibbs (“utterly incompetent” was what he said, among other things, if memory serves).
In many ways liberal talkers like Stephanie epitomize what I talked about above. Point out the awful truth about the President’s cozying up to the Corporate world, or his Neo-liberal plans for education (the “Race To The Top” and his embrace of Charters), and you’re a troublesome, complaining member of the “professional left.” Same goes if you mention the President’s terrible record on civil rights (pertaining to detainees, spying, the prosecution of Bush administration war crimes).
Now that you mention it, Stephanie specifically mentioned Reiner’s whip-smart kids, and Reiner wondered why all kids can’t have a first-rate education. I’m sure Reiner means well, but he doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about. He and others like him are simply enabling the Right in their long-awaited plans to privatize public education, destroy the teacher’s unions, and, like “health-care,” make it something it should never be: a profit-making enterprise.
P.S.: I can’t wait to hear another of Stephanie’s in-frequent guests, the horrifying Howard Kurtz, come on to slander Julian Assange and Wiki-leaks for having the nerve to do Kurtz’s and the Major Media’s job; revealing the truth about the Iraq war. It’s embarassing to the Obama Administration, so I’m guessing Stephanie’s going to have a hard time with the whole thing. Not that toad Kurtz though. He knows that the real villain is Assange, not the liars and criminals who started the illegal war in the first place, along with his sychophantic friends and colleagues in the Beltway press. Go here to read Glenn Greenwald’s excellent analysis of the New York Time’s very bad, anti-journalistic behavior (and other’s, including Kurtz): http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/index.html
You’re right, Carol. Truly vile stuff. But I wouldn’t give up just yet.