"Won't Back Down" draws controversy

[Starry Messenger]

http://www.peoplesworld.org/won-t-back-down-draws-controversy/

<snip>

"Won't Back Down" is a story of parents and teachers using a "parent empowerment" law, better known as "parent trigger" legislation, to take over a bad school. But Leonie Haimson, a longtime public school parent activist in New York, says actual efforts to use parent trigger laws "have been driven by billionaire-funded supporters of privatization, and have sparked acrimony and division. None of these efforts has actually improved a school." Haimson is a leader of Parents Across America, along with other public school activists.

Parent trigger laws have been promoted by the right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), she notes.

"Won't Back Down" is reportedly being screened this week at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, and at next week's Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C.

Michelle Rhee's anti-teacher-union "StudentsFirst" group, which cloaks its agenda in pro-student language, is promoting the film.

The Anschutz Film Group and Walden Media are subsidiaries of the Anschutz Company, whose chair and CEO is billionaire Philip Anschutz. Anschutz funds right-wing groups and ballot initiatives. According to a New Yorker profile, he is a frequent contributor to the anti-union National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, and is close to the far-right Koch brothers. He is tied in with Big Oil, having served on the boards of the American Petroleum Institute and the National Petroleum Council.

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[HiPointDem]

1. Recently found out anschutz is also concessionaire in the national parks, hires overseas on

(i think) j1 visas where the people think they're coming over to learn how to manage parks, see the sights, etc. -- then charges them to sleep in tents & works them like galley slaves.

he's a horrid man.

[proud2BlibKansan]

15. He's from Kansas and made his money in oil.

He's also good friends with Bob Dole (same home town).

And yes, he's a horrid man.

[HiPointDem]

2. Rhee the mouth-taper at RNC, tells teachers to get ready for a fight

Former D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee called for classroom teachers unhappy with the system to brace themselves for battle. She spoke during a panel following the showing of “Won’t Back Down,” a film to be released this fall about a parent and teacher fighting to take over a failing school.

.."“Won’t Back Down” features Maggie Gyllenhaal as the parent of a dyslexic daughter with a clearly incompetent teacher, and Viola Davis as a teacher who is convinced to try to shake up the system. Together, they work to get 50 percent of parents and teachers on their side to take advantage of a “fail-safe” trigger law that allows parents to take over a failing school. Along the way they battle the teachers’ union and school-board bureaucracy.

The film was shown at an event sponsored by Rhee’s advocacy organization, StudentsFirst, and the Foundation for Excellence in Education, a group founded by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/29/michelle-rhee-at-republic_n_1838927.html?utm_hp_ref=elections-2012

[Starry Messenger]

4. She's disgusting.

Promoting that fascist propaganda.

[proud2BlibKansan]

16. Which teachers is she talking to?

I don't know ANY who would support Rhee's idiotic ideas. Even the ones who don't pay attention know who Rhee is.

[knitter4democracy]

3. Why do people always think that change, any change, is better?

So you change who runs the school. So what? Same kids, same building, often the same teachers, and then they run into the same laws and regulations and up against the same problems.

Want to change schools? Deal with poverty first, then look to administrators and how they're trained and how much experience they have to have before moving up, then look to our buildings and teaching environment. Take care of those, and the rest will take care of itself.

[AnneD]

14. I can usually stop reformer with one observation.....

If all this educational reform and testing is suppose to work.....why has the education level of the US students dropped over the years instead of risen.

Too much time and money spent on testing and not enough time and money spent on actual education.

[proud2BlibKansan]

17. And why would parents know what to do?

That's what blows my mind about these parent trigger laws.

Yes, parents should have input and be a PART of the process. But should they have complete control?

[Jakes Progress]

5. Why are so many here silent on this?

Does principle not matter?

If you believe that privatizing schools and ending teacher unions is a good thing, then let's hear from you. If you don't, then how about putting in a word or two. If our party was showing films and supporting an agenda about how bad abortions are and how much gay marriages would hurt America, we would have some voices being raised. Is election solidarity worth selling out our children?

[Smarmie Doofus]

7. OK. I'll play. I have no kids or can afford private school. Or live in a high-end ..

... leafy green suburb w. top performing ( fully... ahem.... *unionized*) public schools which the corporate reformers do not ( currently) have in their crosshairs.


Therefore,



it's


not



my


problem.

[Jakes Progress]

9. Or I could

just be a reagan democrat.

[sulphurdunn]

12. Public education may not be your problem.

Or, maybe, you just assume it isn't. Either way, it is now or will be soon. Then what will you do?

[Jakes Progress]

6. Oh. I see. Education has been quarantined on DU3.

That they relegate all information about schools to a place where it won't be read by the general public is proof of two things.

1) They know that Obama can't be defended on this, that his programs are right wing without any pretense of progressive thought. That this is a total sell out to the corporate right.

2) They know that there are those here who would convince lots of principled DUers to take a long look at this travesty, that there is no way to agree with Obama and rhee on this and not be joining hands with norquist, rove, and bush.

[HiPointDem]

8. nah, you can still post elsewhere. most people won't comment, though.

[Jakes Progress]

10. Won't they just transfer any real information

to this group thread?

[HiPointDem]

11. not so far as i've seen

[sulphurdunn]

13. I agree with you,

but you could say the same thing about war, global finance, trade, oil, taxes, politics, environmental regulations or anything else the people who actually own the country consider essential to protecting and promoting their financial interests . Public education is merely being commodified to make money, just like everything else. It's being done at the expense of the poor, paid for by people who work to make an honest living, and is most profitable to those who don't.