In the United States today, you can pretty much sell anything. Maybe those of us who've been trying to respond the the education "reform" movement have been going about it all wrong. Is it really a good idea to simply address the issues media brings up? Maybe we should ignore them and simply start attacking the media. I mean, sure, there are good reasons to do so.What can you say about an education summit hosted by Rush Limbaugh aficionado Brian Williams? What can you say about a major network that excludes Diane Ravitch from the conversation? How about a major network that witnessed a pivotal event, the CTU strike, and did not see fit to invite CTU President Karen Lewis?
To top it off, what can you say about said summit, for the second time, hosting an anti-teacher, anti-labor, mythological Hollywood production as though it were newsworthy? As if that were not enough, there are real grassroots efforts that receive no coverage at all from these great thinkers.
For myself, I'm going to Darkest New Jersey today rather than subject myself to this one-sided nonsensical extravaganza. I don't do that lightly. But that's how strongly I feel about it. I mean, we could ask real questions:
How do you feel about NBC's so-called Education Nation?
Are they adding value? Should they be turned around? And since they're already privatized, should we perhaps try making NBC public?
I'm not saying there's any evidence that making the network public will improve it, because "reforms" don't hold up when you actually demand evidence. But perhaps we should move away from presenting truth, and simply attack them relentlessly, without offering any reason whatsoever. We could ignore reality altogether, and focus on making stuff up for no other reason than to make them look bad.
That seems to be what "reformers" and "objective" news organizations like NBC does to teachers. Is it time for us to launch a campaign to impose fanciful, baseless nonsense on those who vilify us and pretend to give us news? Would we have an edge over the "reformers" if we didn't bother with even the pretense of being reality-based?
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