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The Washington Post Pans Apple-Sponsored School Reform TV Special (washingtonpost.com)
Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes: On Friday night, the Big Four Networks simultaneously aired EIF Presents: XQ Super School Live [YouTube], a commercial-free, one-hour TV special that championed Laurene Powell Jobs' mission to rethink the American high school. The closing credits listed Jobs as an Executive Producer, and noted that the chock-full-of-celebrities special was sponsored in part by her Emerson Collective and Apple.
"Surely Samuel L. Jackson, Tom Hanks, Mahershala Ali, Justin Timberlake, Cate Blanchett and a bevy of other celebrities have nothing but laudable intentions by appearing on Friday night's live televised high school reform spectacular on four -- count them, four -- major networks (NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox)," writes the Washington Post's Valerie Strauss. "But when an hour of prime time on four networks is purchased, it's fair to ask whether that is a public service or propaganda."
The Post points out gently that "not everyone believes" in the need to "transform" high schools, while theodp notes "viewers were pitched XQ Super School Board Program kits, which XQ's website explains are designed to prepare individuals for a school board candidacy."
If this seems suspiciously political -- or at least a way to ensure schools are friendly to Laurene Powell Jobs' specific proposals -- the nonprofit's web site adds reassuringly that "XQ won't be endorsing or supporting particular candidates; we'll be supporting all candidates who stand with us in a shared commitment to rethink high school, so all young people can be educated as they deserve."
"Surely Samuel L. Jackson, Tom Hanks, Mahershala Ali, Justin Timberlake, Cate Blanchett and a bevy of other celebrities have nothing but laudable intentions by appearing on Friday night's live televised high school reform spectacular on four -- count them, four -- major networks (NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox)," writes the Washington Post's Valerie Strauss. "But when an hour of prime time on four networks is purchased, it's fair to ask whether that is a public service or propaganda."
The Post points out gently that "not everyone believes" in the need to "transform" high schools, while theodp notes "viewers were pitched XQ Super School Board Program kits, which XQ's website explains are designed to prepare individuals for a school board candidacy."
If this seems suspiciously political -- or at least a way to ensure schools are friendly to Laurene Powell Jobs' specific proposals -- the nonprofit's web site adds reassuringly that "XQ won't be endorsing or supporting particular candidates; we'll be supporting all candidates who stand with us in a shared commitment to rethink high school, so all young people can be educated as they deserve."
Not to mention when that paper hires political operatives like John Podesta.
Fuck right off. If you're a white hetero male then every day is your day. I say this as one myself - we don't need a day because, fuck me, we don't need to struggle for anything as a population group. Man, whiny people who are part of the establishment (whether they see it or not) really annoy me. Pipe down!
Stop obfuscating the role that Europeans / European Americans had in the slave trade. A machine has many parts, sure, but you're making a false equivalence.
The statues thing - the term "these people" - wtf? Also no one is trying to rewrite history. People are, quite rightly, saying that monuments to specific people who did specific horrible things be removed. I've no problem with that, not sure why you do.
Back under your rock you go.
-- "...I'm a bad guy because I, well, I sing some rock-and-roll songs." M. Manson
Ah, parroting the line of your billionaire corporate master (Devos) who wants to spend tax dollars advancing her vision of propaganda, corporatism, and government by elites and billionaires, as the right-wing uses the false claim of 'School choice' to shovel tax dollars into their system of brainwashing, indoctrination and miseducation.
You may want to destroy any system where the public can unite to demand accountability, responsibility and integrity for the use of tax dollars, but your attempt to expose innocent children to the preaching sermons of "Liberty Elementary" and the worship of the Great Orange Jeebus who will dictate their place in life by their service to the Almighty Dollar will not be unopposed.
I am sorry that your parents failed you so badly that you are vulnerable to the blandishments of such an obvious group of con-artists and frauds, and that you are so poorly developed in your independent thinking and cognitive capacity that all you can do is recite the doctrinal creed that has been driven into you, but I will reject it as soundly as I do the other abuses you seek to impose upon us with your calavacade of failure.
Why don't you try abandoning the false scripture you have been subjected to, and seek the freedom that comes from honesty and integrity? It will lift a burden from you.
The weight is staining your soul.