BLOGS ARE CRITICAL TO RE-ESTABLISHING PUBLIC SCHOOLS
 |
| What was once Harding High School in Okla. City Public Schools is now Harding Charter Preparatory High School, authorized by the district. |
Over the last ten years, bloggers have kept the issues of who controls schools at the forefront when so many big money interests want desperately to have us look the other way.
One advantage that school raiders have in taking public schools away from the public and turning them over to investor-owned charters is that the traditional news sources are hobbled from reporting accurately and fully.
On the other hand, in Oklahoma, blogs have been the spine of exposing the lies and game plan of school raiders who have used big money from investors to attack public schools and promote charter and voucher schemes.
Let’s look at the differences in blogs and the traditional, mainstream “press” or “media” when it comes to reporting about education.
Ownership
The Oklahoman and the Tulsa World, Oklahoma’s two biggest metro dailies that have circulations that spread throughout the state, are each owned by fabulously wealthy individuals who live in other states and never have had any family ties to Oklahoma.
On the Forbes 400 list of the wealthiest people in the U.S. for 2014,Warren Buffet, whose firm Berkshire Hathaway owns the Tulsa World, is #2, and The Oklahoman’s owner, Philip Anschutz of Colorado is #42.
Forbes lists Buffet as being worth $67 billion and Anschutz as being worth a measly $42 billion.
These quite smart individuals have been purchasing large newspapers for a reason: Those companies have the potential for a good return on investment if they are operated in an efficient manner. In this case, “efficient” means that more advertising dollars are coming in than expenses that are incurred.
Anschutz, however, has been buying up a string of radio stations and newspapers and has been actively pushing his right-wing ideology through them, even though not blatantly. The Oklahomangives appearances of being a neutral organ, but is too often caughtmisusing information in news stories to push a particular editorial viewpoint against public schools.
It is no secret that Anschutz is pushing corporate charter schools Blogs Are Critical to Re-establishing Public Schools:
