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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."
This was on the four major broadcast networks (sorry, CW) - yet how many of us had no idea it was happening? This Slashdot submission was the first I'd heard of it, in any case...
#DeleteChrome
Wonder how Jeff Bezos owning the Washington Post and Apple competitor Amazon figured in on the WP panning an Apple sponsored event.
You got several levels of schooling in this country. The elite go to prep schools and other private routes and go to elite colleges and then to elite jobs where they get an education. The elite take care of themselves just fine.
Then you got public school which has to take care of the worst (special ed, and pls spare me the crap) to the best, some who might likely get identified early and sped along. Many not. And whether they are at 25% or 90%, many have to attend the same classes.
And public school has little tolerance for trade jobs, the overriding message is "Go to College" nevermind that many people work well with their hands, don't have the funds for college, and that college doesn't automatically mean better pay in the long haul.
We can also seperate this between inner city schools, most are underfunded, and suburban schools -- where the teachers often make more than the surrounding median population but will cry how poor they are like inner city teachers while their pay/benefits/pensions put crushing taxes on their districts in some states.
Public schools are generally a one-size-fits-all system when it doesn't and that is the overriding problem. Children can certainly benefit some customization something like a tablet running Khan Academy or Duoling-like programs can bring. But then again, tablets in their current form with browsing and other manner of garbage are unsuitable. Before someone mentions cost, prepaid smartphones are down to $30 at Walmart... they certainly can play Netflix and such. Not much more is needed for a tablet. A classroom of kids can be outfitted for less than a single iPad.
What states really need to do is hire people at a state and national level to cooperate on these programs and on public-copyright textbooks and save on costs over time by cooperation and having development costs spread out over thousands of school districts rather than rely on vendors.
"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." So what is it fair to ask when someone buys a whole newspaper?
"We'll be supporting all candidates who stand with us"
Translation: "We'll be supporting all candidates who will buy our stuff."
When you consider that these laws and benchmarks are written by people who have gone through private schools, have children or grandchildren in those same private schools, one has to wonder whether stories like this are a matter of politicians trying to help everyone, or help set their own above and apart from the rest... planting the roots of the caste system in America.
The Civil War monuments were mostly erected a half-century or more after the Civil War, about the time that Jim Crow laws were enacted in the South. Conclude from that what you wish, but why are they celebrating the traitorous, ugly, losing side in the Civil War and not the winning side? After almost every other war, it is the winning side that is honored.
The argument that taking them down would erase history is absurd. Why are there no monuments in the South celebrating the Union side? That is the history we should be remembering. I see the Confederate monuments as symbols of the slavery they wish they could still have. I've wondered that since I was a kid raised in North Carolina (and no one had a good answer), long before the current media focus on them. I can see how blacks could find these monuments unsettling.
Would you support replacing the Confederate monuments with ones that celebrate the winning side and the end of slavery? If not, why not?