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Sunday, April 25, 2010

Schools Matter: "The Cartel" Concludes Public Schools Greater Threat Than Terrorists

Schools Matter: "The Cartel" Concludes Public Schools Greater Threat Than Terrorists

"The Cartel" Concludes Public Schools Greater Threat Than Terrorists

If there is any narrative the Boston Globe loves to push more than charter schools and corporate education deform, it would be someone who truly hates public education and public school teachers as much as the Boston Globe. A new corporate propaganda fear film entitled "The Cartel" fills the bill on both counts, and the Globe's drooling hyperbolic review by Brian MacQuarrie reads like Eli Broad playtime fantasy:
When “The Cartel’’ opens Friday in the Boston area, it will take aim at what its creator calls the most important story in the country, one that the last person featured in his 90-minute documentary says is a greater threat to American civilization than terrorism.
It’s not the implosion of the financial system, the runaway national debt, or ideology-driven paralysis in Washington. The threat, instead, is the state of the nation’s public schools, and the powerful teacher unions that “The Cartel’’ believes are sabotaging the future.
It’s a subject that is familiar to countless parents, public officials, and even casual observers of the sausage-making of municipal government. But in “The Cartel,’’ a debut film by former television


Colorado's SB 191

With lots of attention being paid to the Perkins hearings, the Florida SB6 fiasco, and Duncan's "Race to Nowhere," a merit-pay bill in Colorado is slowly working it's way through the legislature. The Senate Education Committee on Friday passed Senate Bill 191 and will now head to the Senate Appropriations Committee. The bill has support from a number of groups - the Colorado branch of Democrats for Education Reform; the state's branch of Stand For Children; Education Reform Now; Colorado League of Charter Schools; and various other