Joe Williams, former education beat reporter for the New York Daily News and author of a recent book outspoken in its criticisms of public schools [Cheating Our Kids], has started blogging for the New York Charter School Association at The Chalkboard. We were thinking that having a more articulate voice for conservative policy proposals might improve the quality of blogosphere debate and discussion on matters educational, until we came across this Williams’ post, which declares that the UFT had considered giving John Stossel our highest award for service to public education, the John Dewey Award.
What sort of hallucinogens do they put in the water at the NYCSA?
John Stossel is the chief correspondent of ABC’s 20/20 news magazine, and the main television purveyor of the crudely politicized and polemical “news” that defines the tabloid press. He has a long, well-known history of using 20/20 to promote a personal worldview unyieldingly dogmatic in its laissez-faire market fundamentalism and without a rival in its animus toward unions and the public sector. In Stosselland, the market is always a force of progress and benevolence, economic competition always delivers the best possible products and services and the public sector is always a dystopia, an anti-utopia, in its operations. Indeed, Stossel’s narrative relies so completely on stringing together superficial ideological clichés that it makes late 19th century Social Darwinists appear, by way of comparison, to be masters of careful argument and logical nuance.
Last Friday evening, the nation saw this Stosselian worldview on display in a one hour broadside against public education, Stupid In America. The high point of Stupid in America’s ‘investigative journalism’ was setting up a television camera outside a New York City high school, and having the students compete to make the most outrageous comment about their school and its teachers on camera. If you missed the show, or couldn’t bear to watch it through, just remember what happened that last time you saw a group of unsupervised adolescents in front of a television camera, and you will have captured the essence of Stossel’s journalistic method.
Perhaps the most telling moment of the hour was when Stossel had Chancellor Joel Klein go on at some length that the contract prevented him from firing a teacher who was found to have sent sexually explicit e-mails to his students, without ever telling the UFT’s side of the story. As Stossel knew well, because we had told him, UFT President Randi Weingarten had publicly indicated her desire to negotiate a ‘no tolerance’ clause for educators engaged in sexual misconduct long before these interviews, but Klein had refused to sit down over the issue until the new contract was finalized. It was too valuable a club against the union and NYC public school teachers in his drive to eviscerate all due process. The new contract has a ‘no tolerance’ clause for sexual misconduct, but Stossel is still wielding that club – months after the contract was ratified and put into effect.
So the UFT would no more consider offering the John Dewey Award to John Stossel then we would consider giving it to Anne Coulter, Bill O’Reilly or Pravda. Indeed, Williams’ suggestion that the UFT would consider Stossel, with nothing more as a source than “rumors,” was on its face so preposterous that we first thought that it had to be a parody of a serious post. Irony does have a way of falling flat in the world of electronic communication. But after a second and third close reading, all we can say is that if this post was meant to be ironic, Williams does a damn good job of hiding it.
Yet Stossel should not go unrecognized by those for whom he does perform a service. Perhaps Williams might suggest to his sponsors an annual William Randolph Hearst Award, with John Stossel as the inaugural award winner.
UPDATE:
Chalkboard’s Joe Williams responds here, making two points.
First, he identifies Stossel himself as the source of the rumors, in the form of an e-mail Stossel sent to his supporters.
There is a small epidemic of office water supplies spiked with hallucinogens, it appears. Perhaps we should call in Homeland Security.
Regarding Stossel’s e-mail, suffice it to say that the John Dewey Award is given at the UFT’s annual conference, in May of each year, and that the UFT’s leadership bodies discuss and vote on potential awardees in the weeks leading up to that conference. This is a decision which is not even contemplated in the summer, nine months in advance of the conference and before the school year has even begun, as that is a small lifetime in the world of New York City education. Yet last summer, when the leadership of the UFT was completely focused on our contract struggle, is when he received an invitation, Stossel claims. For the record, neither the UFT officers nor our Executive Board ever even entertained such an idea, then or anytime since. Indeed, there has been no discussion of any potential awardee to date.
Williams says he does not understand why we would think preposterous the suggestion that the UFT would dishonor the Dewey Award by offering it to someone who has made a career out of attacking public education, unions and efforts to introduce some measure of fairness and equity into American economic life. But unconvinced by his own words, he spins out of whole cloth a ‘possible’ scenario of a Manhattan function at which everyone has too much to drink and an UFT officer is quite taken with Stossel’s moustache, to make the idea of an invitation somehow plausible. If this goes on much longer, we will have a narrative so surreal that it can compete with Alice in Wonderland.
Secondly, putting the sentiments into the mouths of unnamed “UFT members, unionists and progressive educators,” Williams suggests that if the UFT gave last year’s Dewey Award to Diane Ravitch, one of the leading scholars and public intellectuals in the field of American education, what is so far-fetched about offering it to John Stossel? The logic here, such as it is, is that since Ravitch has been critical of Dewey’s pedagogical ideas, she should not have been offered an award named after him.
The John Dewey Award is an award for distinguished public service to public education, named after Dewey because of his exemplary work with America’s public schools and America’s teachers. It is the UFT’s highest award precisely because it is our award for distinguished service to public education. It has never been tendered on the basis of fidelity to Dewey’s ideas, in education [his pedagogy], in philosophy [as the major developer of the school of pragmatism] or in politics [as a democratic socialist]. Over the years, numerous awardees disagreed with Dewey in one or more of these areas. But what they all had in common was exemplary service to public education in the tradition of John Dewey.
In this regard, Diane Ravitch’s service to public education has been long and distinguished. Her historical scholarship has made an important contribution to our understanding of American education; one does not have to agree with all of her theses – I, for one, would dissent from a number of formulations – to recognize the importance and value of her work. Similarly, her vigorous engagement as a public intellectual in educational policy debates stands as a model for all educational scholars, from all sides of educational debates and controversies. Her insistence upon maintaining her intellectual and political independence from the Bloomberg-Klein administration, her trenchant public criticisms of the top-down, autocratic implementation of Children First, and her willingness to stand up and be counted in defense of New York City teachers, our profession and our union have been unparalleled among education academics and scholars in New York City – including many who would profess allegiance to educational ideas more progressive than hers. A fair-minded person could not but be impressed by her political courage and outspokenness, and her willingness to break ranks on behalf of principle.
Comparing a scholar and a public intellectual of the breadth and depth of Diane Ravitch to an empty suit ideologue like John Stossel speaks for itself.
UPDATE 2: By Kombiz
Stossel has removed the email claiming he was offered a John Dewey Award from his website. You can follow the link to the Google Cache, and or grab to a screenshot of the site.
17 Comments:
1 Schoolgal
· Jan 17, 2006 at 7:08 pm
Randi’s comparing our work hours to the private sector came across as pretty stupid. When I worked in the business world, it was an 8-hour day, and many times I stayed late as many professionals do.
Well guess what? Teachers work way passed the “bell” and Randi never stressed that point. We work through lunch hours, stay late, take work home, etc.
I can’t believe she stressed time over substance.
Oh, I heard you gave yourselves a raise.
What givebacks did you include?????
2 sean
· Jan 17, 2006 at 8:12 pm
I saw the 20/20 episode also, and though I’ve made a point of avoiding Stossel since I can get his unintelligent libertarian views anytime I want from my brother in law, I was shocked about how far the “episode” was pure agenda driven propaganda. As far as the comment above, I am sure that a significant portion of Ms. Weingarten’s comments were left on the cutting room floor. That’s just the way Stossel operates in the time that I’ve seen him on television. What liberal media indeed!
3 sean
· Jan 17, 2006 at 8:25 pm
I apologize about the double posts, here’s the FAIR account on Stossel: http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1134
4 Jackie Bennett
· Jan 17, 2006 at 9:05 pm
I read the Stossel report after one of the members at my school sent me the link, thoroughly outraged. I got half way through and had to stop because it was so awful.
Here is the dead giveaway about the bias. Stossel says: “And while many people say, ‘We need to spend more money on our schools,’ there actually isn’t a link between spending and student achievement.”
It’s laughable to think money doesn’t matter in the schools (and I’d love to know what Stossel spends to educate his kids), but that’s not the point. Any good reporter would have said “SOME EDUCATIONAL EXPERTS BELIEVE there isn’t a link….” — and then gone on to present both sides. Stossel is a reporter with an agenda.
But even with an agenda, Stossel points to a successful principal who attributes his success to the fact that he “pays teachers more, ” which, we can presume means that he can hire quality. I’d be curious to know how Stossel squares that with his unqualified statement that “there isn’t a link between spending and student achievement.”
5 Schoolgal
· Jan 18, 2006 at 12:13 am
While I still think Randi should have handled the question of “time” better, I have to wonder what is happening to news organizations when reporting is no longer objective. We have seen this with Dan Rather and Fox News as well as all the major newspapers.
Where is Fred Friendly when you really need him? (I think he passed away some time ago) So where are his replacements?
6 NYC Educator
· Jan 18, 2006 at 5:54 pm
Lacking the foresight to anticipate the hatchet job Stossel was planning is just incredible. I could have written his segment myself without having seen a moment of it.
Randi Weingarten, while I don’t much admire her recent contract negotiations, is one of the brightest, quickest-thinking speakers I’ve ever seen. Why on earth did she not know what he was up to?
7 CityTeacher
· Jan 18, 2006 at 6:31 pm
I watched it, waiting for a teacher, a real teacher, to be interviewed. And the hour slid by. I sent off an e-mail to Stossel the next day saying,in effect, how can you talk about education without talking to educators? I’m sure he’ll get back to me soon. And Randi sure didn’t come off very well, but that might have been a lot of slight-of-hand editing. But I agree with above posters that she should have had her guard up. That’s our job. No respect. After all, we get All That Time Off (to quote Frank McCourt).What are we complaining for?
8 redhog
· Jan 18, 2006 at 9:19 pm
Character assassination of teacher unions is all the rage, like hoola hoops in the ’50s. Attempted massacres, like John Stossel’s, can be deflected, but defensive wounds may stick. Forensic debate and activism will neither charm our enemies nor tame their lust. At the end of the day,we don’t need nor should we much covet, their consent for our survival. Call me a civil rights sentimentalist.
The endemic ganging up, ( it goes beyond the usual reactionary suspects ) against us is a new mutation of the virus of bigotry. Like all others, it has its own corrupt inspirations and pretexts.
We can neither humor our enemies by telling them to go to hell, nor honor them with the veto of our right to live. We are sucked into war that we do not seek and they will not shun. Combat takes many forms, and the Union must learn to be at home with more of them. We will win nothing unless we risk everything.
The only way to match wits with those who would destroy us is to cross swords with them. Chart the battles. Draw first blood. And Randi is our ideal commander. T
9 NYC Educator
· Jan 19, 2006 at 3:10 pm
Your commentary, as usual, is supported by no details whatsoever. I suppose I could believe it if I were to ignore the highly worsened working conditions that will be inflicted upon us next week, endorsed by our own anemic leadership, which just voted itself a raise.
As long as the Unity patronage mill continues to run the UFT plantation-style, the quality of this profession will decline right along with the standards of its sloppy, entrenched, and startlingly indifferent leadership.
From all acoounts, our “ideal commander” came off no better than a deer in the headlights. Hardly a sterling moment in unionism.
10 northbrooklyn
· Jan 19, 2006 at 7:43 pm
speaking of respect-why did the the management of UFT vote themselves a raise?
11 mvplab
· Jan 20, 2006 at 12:23 am
I say we boycot Disney-ABC especially since they let someone as biased as Stossel personally profit from some of his broadcasts. Hey, do you want to buy a John Stossel teaching aide from his web site http://www.intheclassroom.org ?
Check out his products for teachers: “Is America #One” In this video Stossel studies the causes of wealth by comparing USA, India, and Hong Kong and shows that wealth for a nation is generated by removing regulations and government control.
Another one is called “The Price System” and delves into the free market system of economics. Another is about the “Foundations of Wealth.” And another called Jonathan Gullible- A Free Market Odyssey.
Let’s see how would a free market education system work? Definitely no government regulations! Definitely no union control!
So those that have the resources, win; those that don’t, lose.
12 no_slappz
· Jan 20, 2006 at 10:17 pm
mvplab:
You wrote:
“Let’s see how would a free market education system work? Definitely no government regulations! Definitely no union control!”
If you want a view of a relatively free-market education system that works extraordinarily well, go no further than the college and university system in the US.
It’s an excellent balance of public and private schools educating millions of students with enviable success.
You also wrote:
“So those that have the resources, win; those that don’t, lose.”
I paid for college with no parental help — and I went to a private university. It really wasn’t that tough.
13 CityTeacher
· Jan 22, 2006 at 3:54 pm
I think we finally know No-Slappz real name!
14 no_slappz
· Jan 23, 2006 at 10:40 pm
City Teacher:
You wrote:
“I think we finally know No-Slappz real name!”
Really? Who am I?
15 Persam1197
· Jan 24, 2006 at 5:53 am
“So those that have the resources, win; those that don’t, lose.” I agree completely with myplab. We see that everywhere in the so-called “free-market” system and in the public sector. People are politically motivated to do things and those motivating factors are not always in the best interests of the common good.
There is no excellent balance between public and private colleges educating millions. The public colleges are starving for funding as politicians divert educational resources into pork leaving many excellent public colleges to delay contracts with their professors, raise student fees astronomically, raise tuition, deal with severe cuts to Pell, TAP, etc., hire adjuncts to replace full professors, and so on.
In the name of “higher standards,” the senior public colleges have cut remediation and have turned that responsibility to the community colleges as a cost-saving measure. Even the Ivy league colleges offer remediation.
Public education is being attacked from K-12 and at the collegiate level. When the governor of this state can say that it is only required to fund public education up to an 8th grade level, there can be no balance. Interestingly enough, in this global market of ours, China, India, Europe, etc. are funding public education at record levels offering free public education to all. That’s what we used to have in America. Today, China has more college graduates than we have citizens in the U.S. and what a coincidence that America’s jobs are being exported there. The reality is that there is no free market. Some countries invest and some don’t. We are approaching the latter.
16 Chaz
· Jan 24, 2006 at 6:16 pm
no_slappz;
Are you really John Stossel? You sound like him. However, I must admit your comments are a little more intelligent than how he came off on the 20/20 propaganda piece.
17 no_slappz
· Jan 24, 2006 at 10:08 pm
Chaz:
You asked:
“Are you really John Stossel?”
Is it too much to believe there’s more than one person who thinks the public school system needs a major overhaul?
No, I am not John Stossel, though in the 70s I had a similar mustache.