Don't let Jeb Bush deceive parents on your network!
Kathleen Finch, President, HGTV; Marjorie Kaplan, President, Animal Planet; Anne Sweeney, President, Disney-ABC Television Group
Many American moms and dads look to channels like Animal Planet, HGTV and The Family Channel for trustworthy, family-friendly programming. That’s why it’s disturbing to see organizations like Jeb Bush’s Foundation for 'Excellence' in Education (FEE) abusing that trust, by running misleading ads promoting misguided policies that could hurt their children’s opportunities to learn at school.
In an ad campaign launched this week, FEE makes a number of unsubstantiated claims as part of an effort to promote high-stakes testing and Common Core. In particular, they claim that testing helped Florida become a “top ten state” according to the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).
But NCES doesn’t even rank states in this manner, and Florida’s mediocre scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress wouldn’t push them to the top of the rankings if they did.
The ad currently running on Florida television is misleading. Tell the networks to pull this ad!
The truth is, officials promoting test-and-punish education policies have hurt students in Florida and nationwide, by pressuring schools to teach to the test at the expense of critical thinking. Meanwhile, testing companies like Pearson, McGraw-Hill and ETS continue to profit off of kids and taxpayers, while funding FEE and other groups that promote more testing.
Don’t let FEE continue to mislead families. Please tell the networks: “Don’t run this deceptive commercial.” Don't let Jeb Bush deceive parents on your network! - The Action Network: