John Stossel, one of America's most dangerously biased and irresponsible "journalists", recently devoted an entire hour of 20/20 to a grotesquely slanted attack on the public schools. Stossel is closely associated with a number of far-rightwing groups whose goal is the destruction of the public school system. Fortunately, the public schools are well defended here by DeweyCounts at DKos. Dewey rips Stossel a new one (well deserved) and stands up for the last great unifying institution in America. It is the egalitarianism of the public schools that conservatives hate the most, and it is the factor animating their perverse desire to destroy it.
Stossel is a pathetic liar and he, 20/20, and 20/20's sponsors deserve to be boycotted. I'm damned sick and tired of right-wing bastards like Stossel throwing garbage in my face, and I'm going to fight back.
UPDATE: Bob Somerby weighs in as well here.
1 comment:
Dewey makes excellent points, though I'm not sure I agree with #4... even if technology does not improve reading or math scores, it's still somewhat necessary, because workers today have to be familiar with computers.
I find it interesting that they compared American and Belgian scores. I have a very good Belgian friend, and he's possibly the smartest teenager I've ever met. He speaks English better than I do. But he also acknowledges that the Belgian school system is nowhere near as egalitarian as ours'. They divide the schools based on eventual occupation, of course, and there are separate schools for ethnic minorities (Algerian and Turkish, mostly), where the mother language is spoken. Political repercussions aside, these divisions completely skew the test results.
It's a gross oversimplification to simply compare the numbers. But then, every teacher knows that.
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