It is almost time for…drumroll…NBC’s Education Nation!
If you are like me, I like many of the NBC hosts. They are personable. I even think Brian Williams should be a regular on Saturday Night Live. If I have a chance to watch TV in the morning I am torn between the Today Show and Morning Joe, although I may switch over to CBS and ABC to try to dodge commercials. And Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O’Donnell, Ed Schultz and the others—how many of us haven’t wanted to tweak or write just a little more to their scripts when they address public schools. I have been known to yell out “JUST SAY IT! THEY WANT TO PRIVATIZE THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS!” To which my husband, knowing I am going over the edge, quickly grabs the clicker and switches to Everyone Loves Raymond reruns.
While liking some of these people on their own, when it comes to education they just don’t seem to get it…or don’t want to get it…or can’t get it… Maybe the problem is when they get into groups.
Maybe it is like what George Carlin once said.
“People are wonderful. I love individuals. I hate groups of people. I hate a group of people with a ‘common purpose’. Cause pretty soon they have little hats. And armbands. And fight songs. And a list of people they’re going to visit at 3am. So, I dislike and despise groups of people but I love individuals. Every person you look at; you can see the universe in their eyes, if you’re really looking.”
When these NBC personalities get together with all of those outside supporters, who really crave the privatization of our public schools, they see only the ideology of the paying hosts. NBC’s Education Nation has had as sponsors Microsoft and the University of Phoenix and some others of the same ilk. It should therefore be of no surprise that if you have those kinds of sponsors, Diane Ravitch will be an afterthought. She will also not be invited to sit up on the stage, but instead she will be told she can speak from the audience, up in the balcony, or out in the street, or in the restroom, or wherever they wanted Diane to speak. So Diane Ravitch, will not speak from anywhere on Education Nation because she is traveling the nation. And, by the way her book is selling, I venture more people will hear Diane speak than will tune into Education Nation.
So the rest of us, debating whether to watch Education Nation, or not, are left with nothing but the guests who sold off our public schools a long time ago and a group of newbies who are doing nonprofit things to show how much they care. For me, I will be selective. I might watch the teachers in the audience trying to make the same points they made since this showcase began several years ago. Perhaps I’ll tune-in to see Goldie because she still looks like she is forty years old, or Lloyd Blankfein, chairman of Goldman Sachs, because…because…well because…I cannot figure why he is even on this program!
But mostly, I probably won’t watch NBC’s Education Nation because I will yell, what everyone knows, ““JUST SAY IT! THEY WANT TO PRIVATIZE THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS!” Oh…and also…I will say, “Please don’t. We like our public schools. They are fine and we want to keep them. Thanks but no thanks.”
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