Sunday, October 6, 2013

NYC Public School Parents: Why I won't be watching Education Nation this year

NYC Public School Parents: Why I won't be watching Education Nation this year:

Why I won't be watching Education Nation this year



In 2010, the first  year of Education Nation, NBC used the occasion to hype the propaganda film "Waiting for Superman" and  told prominent critics there was "no space" for them to speak on panels (Yong Zhao) or refused to make accommodations to enable them to be included (Diane Ravitch). They invited no public school parents, and their panel on teacher quality was moderated by Steve Brill, a journalist who made a second career out of attacking teacher unions and promoting charter schools, in articles full of exaggerated claims and factual errors. (See "Steve Brill's Imperviousness to the Facts.")  We sponsored a petition to NBC News,  urging them to involve more real life parents in the discussion, and wrote a column in HuffingtonPost when we saw how biased and one-sided this indoctrination fest was threatening to be.

Indeed,  the vast majority of panelists appeared to have been pre-selected by the Gates and Broad Foundations, Education Nation's sponsors, who have spent billions trying to subvert democracy and have successfully imposed their rigid and damaging prescriptions on the nation's urban public schools.

The worst outrage was a panel discussion entitled, "Does Education Need a Katrina?" Though the name