I'm finding it hard to get worked up about education reform these days when crazed but brilliant "Sicko" documentarian Michael Moore is
taking on CNN's Wolf Blitzer, handsome medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta, and mainstream coverage of health care issues (as well as missing the boat on Iraq, the treatment of veterans, etc.). It makes you think. Wouldn't it be horrifying and exciting and disruptive if someone in education -- a more charismatic and compelling version of Jonathan Kozol, Debbie Meier, Marian Wright Edelman, et al -- was pushing this hard on the school reform front, and getting this kind of attention? Why isn't there? If there was, who would be leading the way?
Comments
To hear Gupta imply that Moore hid the fact that Cuba was ranked 39th when Gupta knew that CNN's screen banner hid Moore's disclosure of Cuba's standing can only be described as total dishonesty. I was shocked to watch Gupta accuse Michael of fudging numbers by relying upon 2007 Bush administration U.S. Dept. of Health data instead of Gupta's 2004 World Health Organization figures. I don't think we've ever seen a Wolf Blitzer Situation Room hatchet job such as this, and so naked too. Apologies are in order or I'm afraid my years of program loyalty are at end. I can't imagine why Wolf and Gupta felt it necessary to destroy our trust in them as quality news sources?
John R. Polito
Mount Pleasant, SC
Posted by: John R. Polito | July 11, 2007 2:38 PM
I wonder if part of the reason no one arises to take on the kind of advocacy you are suggesting is that so many members of the public are complacent about publc education. Part of the blame for this has to put on school boards and their administrators who so often seem to sell to the public a rosy image of what is going on in public schools, thereby perpetuating the myth that schools can, with the right resources, solve almost any of society's problems.
Posted by: Lorne | July 11, 2007 5:18 PM
The reason education has no Michael Moore is because there is not a single expert/commentator/advocate who has a sense of humor and irony.
Posted by: Anne Lewis | July 16, 2007 9:51 AM
good point, anne --
does anyone come close when it comes to humor and irony?
Posted by: Alexander | July 16, 2007 10:10 AM