AJC.com > Blogs > Get Schooled > Archives > 2006 > April > 11 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.USAre You TiVoing Oprah Today?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In the newsroom, we’re already getting responses to Oprah’s two-day series on public education…and the first installment hasn’t even aired yet!
Are you Tivoing? If not, fear not. I’ll post a full report after I view it. (It airs on Channel 2 at 4 p.m.)
Love her or hate her, Oprah wields tremendous influence. Her report will be heavy on Bill Gates’ ideas for improving high schools - the man has spent millions on this pet cause. Anderson Cooper is also involved, though I’m not sure why. The project is also in conjunction with Time Magazine, which has a cover story on everyone’s fave topic, dropouts.
My Dayton Daily News counterpart Scott Elliot says he’s “always wary when anyone starts arguing that American education is a complete disaster.” I’m inclined to agree. Public education is much too complicated and nuanced to be all good or all bad - and to be covered in two hours of television - isn’t it?
Commenting is open late tonight, so please let me know what you think if you get a chance to catch the episode…
Some questions to get things started: Will Oprah do for education what she did for books? What good points did the program make? What bad ones? Overall on a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate it?
Comments
Commenting is now closed for this entry.
By scott
April 11, 2006 03:56 PM | Link to this
It will bring attention to some of the problems in education. I only hope this increases the public debate on working solutions and the faults of the one size fits all approach of NCLB.
By Just Me
April 11, 2006 05:19 PM | Link to this
The show hits most of the points that are expressed on this blog every day. She did make note that South Carolina is last in performance and Georgia is SECOND TO LAST in the US. The US schools are now in 24th place in the WORLD in Math. Twenty years ago the US was 1st. The US schools are behind in Math in “poor” countries like Poland and Hungary, not to mention that our schools are behind Canada, France, South Korea and Germany.
As I sit and listen to Oprah, it angers me even more that Fulton County wants to do away with Band, Orchestra and Foreign Languages. I am of the understanding that the music helps with Math.
Also, she points out that there are some good schools. However, it’s not enough to have some good schools; all the schools must be good!
This is not a local or state problem. This is a problem that is nation wide.
By the way, her data states that every nine seconds a student drops out of school. It makes me think, how can 16-year-old be capable of making a life altering decision life at such an age. Maybe that’s a topic for another day.
By Karen Armsby
April 11, 2006 07:38 PM | Link to this
I didn’t see Oprah’s show, and I don’t Tivo, so I can’t comment on the content of the show, but I do agree that Oprah’s influence is vast. The best ideas don’t always come from the leaders, they come form those working behind the scenes, and influential leaders like Oprah, and those flying far under the radar and blogging : ) Change in our failing Georgia public schools is possible, but it will take some revolutionary thinking by those who have the power and run the show. Time for revolution, time to give the schools back to the principals and teachers, and leave the school supers and boards out of it. Elect an innovative and intelligent State School Super, and kick the fear of PC lawsuits out the window. Make your motto a positive one; Every Child Working to Potential.
Just Me: 16 year olds drop out in 9th or 10th grade, ususally because they are poor readers and reach a point in their high school curriculum where they cannot hide their poor reading skills any longer, and so they bail. Sad :( for all of us.
By MrLiberty
April 17, 2006 09:41 AM | Link to this
Government-run education has been failing a large percentage of its “customers” for over 40 years now. Parents have been complaining and complaining and complaining. There is not a thing that Oprah could do, short of discussing the truth, that would help the system.
In episode 1 she shows what complete disasters many schools are. Typical government stupidity - they can con folks into a bond measure to build the school, but never plan for upkeep and maintenance. This will never change. Central planning doesn’t work. The Soviet Union showed these failings but we haven’t learned.
Her second show had 3 “successes.” What she never indicated was that these three successes HAD to involve moving kids out of the government system and into some sort of private system. But she never admitted that. Further, I found it interesting that all 3 of these successes were achieved by non-teachers. I hear teachers complaining all the time about how bad the schools are, but not one of them has the courage or insight to break free and start their own school.
Oprah does not have the courage or the network television support to spend an appropriate time discussing the inherent failed concept that is the government schools. She will not discuss the immoral funding mechanism (property taxes), nor the entitlement mentality of parents (paying a small sum of money yet sending 1,2 3,4,5….kids to these schools). She will also not discuss the obvious point of failure and that is the inability of parents to take their money and their child and leave for another choice. Not vouchers, but paying your own kids way and then being able to move him/her if the school isn’t right.
What Oprah did for reading was to get the problem fully out into the open and then use the power of the free market to work on the problem. Until she wakes up and realizes that the free market is the only approach that will help these horrible schools, nothing will ever get better. Pointing out these obvious facts and potentials for the school system would go a long way to getting John and Mary Sixpack to realize that the system that educated them is way beyond repair and that the free market is the way to go. But that might bring backlash and controversy and we don’t want that. Remember, there are plenty of people making plenty of money off the failures of our schools. They don’t want to kill the fatted calf either.