Why I won't be watching Education Nation this year

In 2010, the first  year of Education Nation, NBC used the occasion to hype the propaganda film "Waiting for Superman" and  told prominent critics there was "no space" for them to speak on panels (Yong Zhao) or refused to make accommodations to enable them to be included (Diane Ravitch). They invited no public school parents, and their panel on teacher quality was moderated by Steve Brill, a journalist who made a second career out of attacking teacher unions and promoting charter schools, in articles full of exaggerated claims and factual errors. (See "Steve Brill's Imperviousness to the Facts.")  We sponsored a petition to NBC News,  urging them to involve more real life parents in the discussion, and I wrote a column in HuffingtonPost when I saw how biased and one-sided this indoctrination fest was threatening to be.

Indeed,  the vast majority of panelists appeared to have been pre-selected by the Gates and Broad Foundations, Education Nation's sponsors, who have spent billions trying to subvert democracy and have successfully imposed their rigid and damaging prescriptions on the nation's urban public schools.

The worst outrage was a panel discussion entitled, "Does Education Need a Katrina?" Though the name of the panel was changed after protests, it was still described to examine "the advantages to the New Orleans school district of starting over post-Katrina."  We even held a protest/press conference in the rain outside Rockefeller Center, where NBC housed the event, and snippets of interviews with the parents outside were used in the brilliant film, Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman.

The second year of Education Nation, in 2011, we again sponsored an email campaign to NBC News, asking them to featured a more balanced set of panelists.  This was the only year that Diane Ravitch was included as a speaker,  in a debate with Geoffrey Canada of the Harlem Children’s Zone. Yet most of the panelists were just as doctrinaire as the year before, and almost exclusively corporate reformers drawn from Gates-funded astroturf  organizations. 

I along with a handful of NYC parents were invited to sit in the audience during the panel on “parent advocacy”, which featured Chancellor Walcott and Ben Austin of the Parent Revolution (God help us). I pointed out that the voices of parents have never been shut out as much as they have under Mayor Bloomberg and Walcott.  I said that the Parent Trigger, or as Diane calls it, the Parent Tricker, is really a ruse to allow privatizers to take over the public schools.  In response, Austin accused me of being a puppet of the teachers union.  Mona Davids, head of the NYC Parents Union, strongly defended me. The video is here.

Last year, 2012,  was the worst of all.  This time, Education Nation was intent on promoting the film “Won’t Back Down,” produced by right wing ideologues, Philip Anschutz and Rupert Murdoch, again to convince the public that the Parent Trigger should be adopted in states around the country and that charters were the answer to the ills of inner-city schools.  Thankfully, this time reviewers caught on early how the movie was a naked piece of propaganda,and weren’t fooled like they were by Waiting For Superman.  We handed out our fact sheet on the movie to people waiting on line to get into Education Nation, and “Won’t Back Down” turned out to be a mega-flop with both critics and the public alike.   

While NBC had been offered the wonderful documentary, Brooklyn Castle, to feature instead, that film focused on an middle school in Brooklyn with a terrific chess team threatened by repeated budget cuts from the Bloomberg administration, which refused to pay for their trips to competitions even though they had the #1 chess team in the nation.  Clearly, this message did not resonate with the Gates Foundation or the other corporate reformers who argue that our urban schools are failing, that more resources don’t matter, and that we should turn them into charters instead.

Though I along a few other NYC parents were invited to sit in the audience during what was billed as “a parent engagement town hall” and had been promised we could ask questions, we had to endure an awful hour and a half of Michelle Rhee, Joel Klein and the stars of the movie “Won’t Back Down” spouting nonsense, selling their snake oil of charters and online learning.  Not a single parent in the audience was given an opportunity to speak.

Later than night we along with other parent groups crashed the red carpet premiere of the film, and our protest was mentioned in some of the stories by reporters there to cover the event.  We even got mentioned in the Hollywood Reporter – though they claimed the UFT was involved in the protest, which was false. In any case, I promised myself I would never force myself to listen in agony to the lies spread by one-sided Education Nation panels again.

This year, there were apparently a sprinkling of “dissident” voices of students and teachers at Sunday’s student and teacher Town halls, which is good; but next week, the line-up promises to be more of the same empty rhetoric about how our schools are failing, and what kids need is even more testing, Common Core, charter expansion and online learning.  Not coincidentally, this is the exact same agenda that the Gates foundation has been imposing on America’s schools with the help of their agents in the US Department of Education.   

The panelists will include Arne Duncan AND Michael Bloomberg, Chancellor Walcott AND LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy, David Coleman AND Jonah Edelman of Stand for Children, (or as some like to call it, Stand on Children) Jeb Bush AND Andrew Rotherham, and yes, once more Joel Klein, our former chancellor, hawking online learning as head of Amplify, Rupert Murdoch’s education tech division, all spouting the company line.  Clearly, the producers of Education Nation have proven themselves to be uneducable.

Will Bloomberg or Walcott be asked about how their education agenda has failed, according to the vast majority of New Yorkers, and how Bill de Blasio, the leading NYC candidate for mayor, has promised to reject their policies of privatization and test-based accountability? Will Deasy be asked about the fiasco of LA’s billion dollar  IPad initiative, or Joel Klein about the fact that his Amplify tablets were defective and  recalled by the Guilford schools?   

Will Joel Rose, head of the overhyped and super-expensive School of One, now renamed New Classrooms, be asked about the many studies and reports that show his program has faltered in nearly every school it has been tried?  Will any of them be asked about parents across the country rising up against high-stakes testing and  protesting inBloom, the devious Gates-funded plan to share children’s most private data with for-profit vendors? Don’t hold your breath.  I won’t hold mine, because I won’t be watching.

"Won't Back Down" a "loss leader" for the privateers?

See Diane Ravitch’s blog today about the fact that the anti-teacher, anti-public school film “Won’t Back Down” continues to tank.  The movie premiered Sept. 28, and had the worst opening of any film in thirty years opening “wide” (2500 screens), despite shameless promotion by CBS (remember their “Teachers Rock” concert show which featured the film?) and NBC’s Education Nation.

"Won't Back Down" revenues after 21 days

Yet on Thursday the film averaged $39 per day per screen.

The movie’s producer Philip Anschutz and distributor Rupert Murdoch have likely lost millions keeping this critical and financial flop in the theaters this long, helped by the fact that Anschutz also owns the Regal Cinemas theater chain, which was  offering two tickets for one to see the movie.  Last weekend, Murdoch was still buying half page ads in national papers, including the NY Times, featuring rave “reviews” of the film, that were actually drawn from Wall Street Journal and NY Post editorials (papers he owns), proclaiming that the film deserved as Oscar on the basis of its attack on the teacher unions.

For both of these privateers, their apparent desire to dismantle the public schools apparently won over their greed.

Will they manage to keep the film going nationally for another week?  In NYC, starting Monday the only theater that will still be showing the movie is in Glendale Queens; offering discounted tickets at 5:40 PM.

As Diane Ravitch points out, however, the US Chamber of Commerce along with other corporate reform and astroturf groups are holding free screenings of the film nationwide, to aid in their privatization campaign as part of a nationwide tour called “breaking the monopoly of mediocrity."

Speaking of monopolies, Murdoch is set to expand his control of the mainstream media and is in negotiations to buy up the LA Times and Chicago Tribune to further grow his mega-empire.   As we know too well, he has expanded into “education technology” products in a division run by Joel Klein, now renamed “Amplify.” 

Klein has expressed outrage that he and the division he runs for Murdoch are solely motivated by profit.  To some extent the marketing and continued promotion of this film might support his claim, which has been a money loser at least in the short run. 

Murdoch, Anschutz and the cadre of privateers they represent are focused on the long-term goal of putting public schools and educational services into corporate hands; arguing that this will somehow improve outcomes for kids.

 Of course, to the extent they achieve the privatization of the public schools, the more potential profits they are likely to reap in the long run.  In this regard, the film “Won’t Back Down” represents a “loss leader,” defined by Wikipedia as follows: “an item is offered for sale at a reduced price and is intended to "lead" to the subsequent sale of other items, the sales of which will be made in greater numbers, or greater profits, or both.”

Current TV on Parent Trigger and "Won't Back Down"

UPDATE: for some reason, the video no longer works.  Watch it on the Current TV website here.

Check out  "Public MisEducation": the Young Turks with  Cenk Uygur, from Current TV on the "Parent Trigger," the propaganda film "Won't Back Down" and its producer, right-wing privateer Philip Anschutz.

Critics and audiences agree: "Won't Back Down" a tremendous flop

FINAL REVISED UPDATE: with the complete weekend  box-office figures now available, it is now clear that the film  had the WORST opening for ANY film in wide release (2500+ theaters) in at least thirty years, or since data is available.

 UPDATE:  "Won't Back Down" had the second worst opening weekend of any film in wide release (2500 screens or more) since 1982.  The only worry is whether the right-wing producer, Philip Anschutz, will keep it in the theaters since he also owns the largest movie chain in the nation. And will Murdoch, the distributor, keep financing free screenings and claim them as tax-deductible contributions, to be able to offset some of his losses?  Anyone who has a thought on this, please leave a comment below.

 The reviews are out, the box office returns have been counted and it's clear that the pro-charter propaganda film "Won't Back Down" is a huge critical and commercial flop.

All the advance screenings sponsored by astroturf corp reform groups and the film's distributor, Rupert Murdoch, the big push by CBS and Walmart, the promotion by NBC's Education Nation, the multi-million dollar advertising campaign financed by right-wing producer Philip Anschutz, and Students First sending in their staffers to write glowing reviews didn't bring people into the theaters.  One assessment says it is likely to be one of the worst openings for a film ever, with an estimated gross of only $82 per screening in its first weekend.

Many of the critics' reviews mentioned  the obvious political motives behind the film as part of an orchestrated campaign to blame all the ills of our schools on teachers unions and to privatize our public schools through the use of a "Parent Trigger."  For once reality seemed to penetrate the well-financed PR fog surrounding these issues.  Check out also this excellent radio show on the  the deceptive "Parent Trigger" -- or as some call it, "the parent tricker" --  including interviews with several parent activists, including me.  The most interesting is perhaps the parent from Adelanto CA, who describes how the staffers from the astroturf organization Parent Revolution went in and told parents they were signing petitions for cleaner bathrooms rather than conversion to a charter school.

The truth is that most parents do not want to close their schools or turn them over to private corporations, where parents are apt to have even less voice and their children fewer rights. For more on what parents really want, check out my piece in Friday's SchoolBook, Parents Want Options Beyond a Trigger.

Critics pan “Won’t Back Down” as badly made propaganda film

UPDATE: As of Thursday morning, the reviews keep coming in, most of them extremely critical.  The rating on Rotten Tomatoes is 32% from all critics,  18% from top critics, which if it stands will make it one of the worst reviewed films of the year.  However, the user reviews are just as influential, if not more, for many people in deciding which movies to go see on the opening weekend; which in turn determines how long theaters will keep it going.   Students First, Michelle Rhee's group, is sending its staff people to write positive reviews; as Jersey Jazzman blogged about last night.  I strongly encourage anyone who has seen the film to send in your review, whatever you thought of the film, even if its only a few short lines, to Rotten Tomatoes as well.

Today there have been many scathing reviews of the new “parent tricker” film “Won’t Back Down” consistent with my view, that it is an extremely poorly made film as well as shameless propaganda.  

Hopefully the huge promotional push by privateer astroturf organizations like DFER and Students First, and the shameless publicity provided by MSNBC/NBC Education Nation won’t be able to overcome these terrible reviews (and bad word of mouth as well).  

As of 5;30 pm today, it is getting a 18% “Splat” rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and 11% from top critics, meaning  eight out of nine reviews are bad..  If you’ve seen the film, please add your User review on that website as well.  Here are some excerpts from the critics: 

AP review “Fails to make the grade”:  “Theaters should install glow-in-the-dark versions of those old clunking classroom clocks so viewers can count the agonizing minutes ticking by as they watch the movie.”

NPR review:  “Too-Easy Way Out””  "something less honorable...propaganda piece with blame on its mind." 

Hollywood Reporter review:   “pedestrian & insultingly tendentious…condescending... dumbed-down agenda film… Given the disingenuous way in which this lumbering movie pushes obvious buttons and manipulates the audience’s emotional investment while conveniently skimming the issues, it’s a mystery how some of these names got roped in.”

Variety review: "disingenuous pot-stirrer...taking public for dummies...cardboard characterizations..."
 

My favorite?  The Salon review, headlined “Won't Back Down" is an offensive, lame, union-bashing drama”:

 

“ …the movie is unbelievable crap and the whole project was financed by conservative Christian billionaire Phil Anschutz, also the moneybags behind the documentary “Waiting for ‘Superman,’” …“simpering, pseudo-inspirational pap, constructed with painful awkwardness and disconnected from any narrative plausibility or social reality…. script that has that disconnected, amateurish quality distinctive to conservative-oriented entertainment and plays written by fourth-graders…. a set of right-wing anti-union talking points disguised (with very limited success) as a mainstream motion-picture-type product. Someone needs to launch an investigation into what combination of crimes, dares, alcoholic binges and lapses in judgment got Viola Davis and Maggie Gyllenhaal into this movie….”

The only somewhat mixed review so far is from Rex Reed in the NY Observer: 

“As a message picture, its heart is in the right place. Too bad it doesn’t always manage to rise above a swirl of predictable Hollywood clichés.”

Education Nation ignores parents but we make our voices heard at the premiere of "Won't Back Down"

Yesterday was NBC's Education Nation's "parent engagement" town hall, which turned out

Real-life public school parents

to be nothing but a big infomercial for the controversial film  "Won't Back Down" promoting the "Parent Trigger" and the privatization of our public schools. (See our review of the film and our FAQ about its backers and their political agenda.) The Education Nation parent engagement panels featured the stars of the film, along with privateers Michelle Rhee and Joel Klein, two people who have never shown any  interest in parent empowerment.

Movie poster starring Klein and Murdoch

Only two public school parents appeared on any of the panels, neither of them from NYC, and though the audience was full of real life public school parents, not a single one was allowed to speak. A more frustrating hour I have never spent. Rhee and Klein were pushing "choice" and charters, predictably enough, and Klein, who runs Murdoch's for-profit virtual learning division, was also hawking online learning, though weirdly the NBC host described him as running "an educational organization."

Fake public school parents

Afterwards, we bumped into one of the two parents allowed to speak, Chicago's Vanessa Bush Ford, who also expressed frustration at the lack of substance in the event (they kept showing us clips from the movie, some of the same clips twice). Then we joined the real-life parent protest outside the red carpet premiere at the Ziegfield, where we held our own "red carpet" event. One confused reporter asked us if this was an "actual parent protest" (unlike the fictional ones depicted in the film.)

Yes, this was indeed a real life protest, starring real-life public school parents. unlike the rest of the day's events, which featured  movie actors and corporate reformers who would like to spin their own illusions, while ignoring our priorities.  I was happy to find out afterwards by watching MSNBC's coverage inside the theater that our voices could be heard. Check out our video below of the protest. Short news clips about the protest were also run by WNBC and Fox News.




Wont back down protest from Class Size Matters on Vimeo.

Don't be fooled by "Won't Back Down"!

Credit: Center for Media and Democracy

Over the next few weeks, we will be running pieces describing real-life “Won’t Back Down” stories from parents and teachers.  If you’d like to share yours, please email us at info@classsizematters.org

Last night I attended a screening of the controversial new film, “Won’t Back Down” about a parent and a teacher who take over their “failing” public school.  I have written a FAQ about the movie which is posted here.  The film was produced by Walden Media, owned by right-wing billionaire Phillip Anschutz, who also co-produced “Waiting for ‘Superman.’” 

Advance screenings have been held around the country, organized by Michelle Rhee’s Students First and other pro-charter lobbying organizations, to promote the “Parent Trigger,” which allows a school to be turned over to a charter operator if 51% of the parents sign a petition calling for this. Here is a good analysis by the Center for Media and Democracy.  

The movie itself is badly written, poorly acted, and full of exaggerated characterizations and unconvincing plot twists. Its message, transmitted with sledgehammer subtlety, is that the only reason that schools in poor communities are failing is because of incompetent lazy teachers who are protected by the union.  The film also implies that in turning around a school, all that needs to happen in addition to getting rid of the union is to change the school “culture” which is done by scheduling more field trips and telling students that they can learn and go to college.  

The two main characters, played by Viola Davis and Maggie Gyllenhall, both have children who are struggling in school; one with dyslexia and the other [spoiler alert!] who towards the end of the film is revealed to be  possibly brain damaged.  Somehow getting rid of the union and converting to a charter school will magically help these kids learn; though in reality, many charters discourage parents from enrolling their children if they have disabilities, or are quick to push them out after they enroll.

The main villain in the film is the teacher of Gyllenhall’s daughter.  This teacher spends time playing with her cellphone during class, and prevents the little girl from going to the bathroom and then locks her in a closet when she wets herself.  The evil parents and teachers who oppose the takeover of the school carry signs saying “Public school advocate” and “Taking over neighborhood schools destroys neighborhoods."

 If I hadn’t been on a panel to discuss the movie afterwards, I would probably have walked out. 

The panel also included  Christina Grant, formerly the deputy Director for the DOE Office of Charter Schools and now head of NYCAN, a charter lobbying organization, and Kate Hayes, a parent with a Kindergarten child who has been shut out from attending her neighborhood public school because of overcrowding.  Hayes is also on the founding board of a prospective charter school called Great Oaks, which has applied to the state to open in the fall of 2013.

I pointed out that though the movie claims repeatedly that the union prohibits public school teachers from staying after 3 PM to help struggling students, this is factually untrue.  Many teachers do indeed stay late helping students, and according to the recent Gates-funded Scholastic survey,  they work an average of 10 hours and 40 minutes a day  -- a 53-hour work week.  Also, according to international comparisons, our teachers spend more time actually teaching than in any other developed nation.

When Christina said that when she was a charter school teacher at KIPP she made herself available nights and weekends, I pointed out that most charter schools like KIPP have extremely high levels of teacher and principal attrition; this is not sustainable model nor one we should want to replicate if we want experienced teachers and school leaders in our schools. 

I also pointed out that every year in NYC, the top priority of parents is reducing class size, and the union is the only thing standing in the way of Bloomberg doubling the class size, as he has said he would like to do.  Michelle Rhee, on the other hand, as well as other members of the corporate reform crowd, would like to eliminate all limits on class size, as well as to bar teachers from being able to negotiate on this issue, and would limit them to arguing over wages and benefits. 

I also provided some historical background.  Here in New York State, we already have a form of the parent trigger.  With the assent of the district, a school can convert to a charter if 51% of the parents at the school vote to do so.  Despite the fact that under Bloomberg , the DOE has been extremely charter-friendly, they have never tried to put conversion to a vote of parents, probably because they know it would be roundly rejected. 

The last time such a conversion was attempted was in 2001, when then-Chancellor Harold Levy allowed Chris Whittle, the CEO of the chain of Edison for-profit chain of charters to try to convince parents at five public schools to let him operate their schools. Despite promises to parents of more funding, computers, etc., this attempt sparked big protests and opposition in communities all over the city, and Edison lost the vote at all five schools.  Now Edison operates only one charter school in New York City, the Harriet Tubman school, which gets very poor results, and Whittle has moved on to greener pastures by starting the much hyped private school Avenues, charging $40K per year in tuition.

 Christina Grant countered that the Parent Trigger legislation they are now lobbying for, which in its current form would just pertain to the city of Buffalo, is better than the existing charter conversion law, because it gives parents more options, such as closing the school, restructuring it, etc. 

I don’t think most parents want to close their neighborhood school – or to fire 50% of the teachers, another negative option that the bill provides.  Why a rigid quota that would require that half of all teachers at any school should be fired could be seen as a way to empower parents or to improve a school is beyond me, though it is one that the DOE and the Wall St. hedgefunders seem to favor.   

And these sorts of high-stakes decisions should never be made through the mere signing of a petition, without holding a real vote with proper oversight; this is an open invitation to manipulation and abuse.  In fact,  the two times the Parent Trigger has been tried in California, hundreds of parents asked to have their signatures rescinded.  A PTA election would never be allowed to occur in such a slipshod fashion, no less turning a public school over to a private corporation to run.

Now, I have spent over a decade as a parent activist in NYC, and I have yet to see any parents rise up on their own in an effort to privatize or close their neighborhood public schools.  I have seen thousands of parents – along with teachers – working together to protest school closings, fight budget cuts and rising class sizes, and/or to obtain the right to opt their children out of high stakes testing, and yet these efforts are usually met with scorn from the same people who are pushing this movie.  Don’t be fooled: the movie “Won’t Back Down” is not really about parent empowerment; it is instead a massively financed PR campaign, engineered by billionaires and hedgefunders who couldn’t care less about what parents actually want, but want to take down the teachers union and take over our public schools.

Over the next few weeks, we will be running pieces describing real-life “Won’t Back Down” stories from parents and teachers.  If you’d like to share yours, please email us as info@classsizematters.org