You’ve Got to Be Kidding
Submitted by Frank Murphy, Jan. 6, 2011
Recently I have been considering adding a new category to Cityschoolstories.com . In it, I would place posts, videos, links and images that communicate the hypocrisy and/or absurdity of the billionaires’ school reform efforts being forced on public schools across our nation.
The Philadelphia Public School Notebook’s, “Notes from the News” for January 4, 2011, included a post from the blog Practical Theory, titled Satire-The Arena and Dialogue of Ed Reform. The You Tube video featured in this post is an excellent example of the type of material I am interested in occasionally featuring here on cityschoolstories.com.
I will be titling these new post entries under the category heading, “You’ve Got To Be Kidding”. Suggestions from readers for links or leads to other satirical school reform materials would be greatly appreciated. Please send any suggestions you might have to f@cityschoolstories.com.
I have included in today’s post, three examples of school reform satire that amuse me. Like the Reformer versus Real Reformer video that is featured on the Practical Theory blog, these are funny and painfully accurate representations of the diabolical and manipulative nature of current school reform initiatives.
The first example is a link to a mock web site titled the Last Stand for Children First Blog. As you can see in this content, it is the caring billionaires and politicians who support them who will help America’s children succeed in school. They will do so despite having to face the obstacle of the presence of a teacher in every classroom.
In fact, as exemplified in the second video clip, the “reformers” are working on devising a strategy that will eliminate the ill-effect on children caused by the presence of teachers. By utilizing a “proper” evaluation system of current teachers, they hope to gather information to be able to clone truly effective test prep facilitators.
In the final example, if you are an energetic young entrepreneur interested in supporting the mission of the friendly billionaires, you need to purchase the tool kit described in this video. To help you become a successful school reformer, you will be tutored in the language described in the Corporate Reform Action Pack.