David Sirota, a crack investigative journalist, has written an expose of the financing behind the PBS series on pension reform.
Sirota calls it:” The Wolf of Sesame Street: Revealing the secret corruption inside PBS’s news division.”
You may be surprised to learn the secret. You may be disturbed to learn who is paying the bills.
Sirota’s hard-hitting article prompted an immediate response from the PR firm for “the Wolf of Sesame Street.” Read it.
In today’s world, language often means the opposite of what it says. We must deconstruct everything we read.
A “reformer” is someone who wants not to “reform” public schools but to replace them with privately managed schools, sometimes operated for-profit or by non-educators making exorbitant salaries.
“Pension reform” these days means someone has a plan to get rid of your pension if you are a public-sector worker.
“Turnaround” means that someone in D.C. decided that everyone in your school should be fired.
If someone wants to eliminate your job, you can be sure they will describe it as “reform.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on McBlog.
Exactly right, reform means destruction these days. Social Security reform, Medicare reform mean destruction, gutting, slicing, dicing and elimination of these very essential programs. Billionaires like Pete Peterson have spent millions of dollars over the years in their war, their jihad against these crucial social programs. The Koch brothers are big funders of PBS. Johan Norberg of the right wing libertarian Cato Institute made a “documentary” for PBS about the “wonderful” effects of free market capitalism on the world. That documentary was a disgusting tour de force of the libertarian world view of laissez-faire predatory capitalism and social Darwinism gone wild.
Off topic: I was very disappointed with Bill De Blasio keeping schools open in NYC during a severe snow storm. Very disappointing and it could be lethal to his credibility.
He has now crossed paths with Al Roker….Roker set him straight but De Blasio’s reasoning made no sense..
I am wondering if the Power Trip has begun…
On Topic…Great Post! Just read the entire article!
Scary to say the least!
“We must deconstruct everything we read.” (Diane Ravitch)
May I prominently post this quote in my classroom?
Thanks for posting David Sirota’s eye-opening exposé.
It has forever changed my view of PBS.
Thank you for the information exposing who was behind that anti-public worker program masquerading as an impartial investigation. It is disappointing that PBS actively joined in on the attack on public workers.
My wife and I will never contribute another red cent to PBS or to NPR…….. We will organize groups and spread the word about these two corrupted organizations, which we have known about for quite some time.
To deny pensions to people who have contributed to them, earned them, and collectively and mutually bargained for them is disgraceful and will one day lead to revolution if people have what they’ve earned stolen from them by the plutocratic state . . . .
Never.
The reality is that they don’t actually need your money, it’s peanuts to them..
Well, looters gonna loot … And get PBS to shill for them.
Yes, corporate “reform” charter schools are replacing pensions, due process, and salaries for high profit for the corporate people.
Voters elect politicians who gut the public funding of public broadcasting so we are left with endless fund raising drives featuring Lawrence Welk reruns (personal note – I am a fan). Is it any wonder that the privatizers among us see an opportunity to privatize what should be public and use it to promote their interests with the willing cooperation of desperate PBS management – higher profits; lower taxes; fewer regulations.
This scheme is right out of the public school play book. Gut the funding, turn management over to Broad School superintendents, invite the Gates’ in, and watch as schools are shuttered and for-profit charters multiply.
I teach middle school in Pennsylvania and am close to retirement. Watch when pension reform hits and there is a window to leave with your hard-earned pension intact. The flood of experienced teachers rushing for the exits will be devastating and it will be left to the young, inexperienced and underpaid to somehow carry on for our students. It seems to me that the best and brightest still left in education are already looking, and will continue to look, for better opportunities in other fields which I suppose is what PBS and John Arnold want.
There is no window where you can exit with your pension intact. Illinois is trying to eviscerate our pensions right now. Several lawsuits have been filed. Just like they say, Illinois has plenty of money for tax breaks and other monetary incentives for big business. We are perfecting government by crony capitalism.
In Pennsylvania Gov. Corbett has tried repeatedly to change pension benefits for both current and future employees and has failed. There is the Pa. Constitution in his way. He seems to have given up on that tact and is now, as he seeks reelection, proposing school funding increases paid for by excusing, just as was done 10 years ago, full payment of the state’s obligated share of our pensions.
Tweak the actuarial assumptions, just a little, and you will arrive at widely varied conclusions.
In wasn’t long ago that a pension fund that was 80% funded was considered ‘fully-funded’.
Too often, though, the public doesn’t realize that this overdue funding was earned by beneficiaries
in years past, but never ‘funded’ by various state and municipal authorities.
I think the term popularized for an earned pension benefit was deferred payment. Reducing a pension is like having your salary reduced retroactively and with no recourse.
You’re wasted as a teacher, you should be spinning the news or writing speeches.
Reblogged this on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé and commented:
Red all about “The Wolf of Sesame Street” and the plot to fire all public school teachers in the Untied States; then turn over the public school to corporations for profit.
Is Arnold involved in any way in corporate education reform, profiteering from charters, etc? I *think* I have heard his name in that context, but am not sure. Anyone?
Follow-up just posted a few minutes ago:
http://pando.com/2014/02/14/why-wont-pbs-release-details-of-its-3-5m-deal-with-a-billionaire-heres-a-possible-answer/
PBS gave the millions back to the Enron donor and canceled the biased pension “news” show. Now why won’t the AFT give the millions back to Gates? http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/15/business/media/wnet-to-return-3-5-million-grant-for-pension-series.html?smid=tw-nytmedia&seid=auto&_r=0
I have not seen any of the series, but I would venture to guess that they are not heavy on arguments from the pensioners side. Illinois is currently trying to diminish public pensions. They have plenty of money to support crony capitalism but have been short on meeting their pension obligations for decades. We have already paid for our share of the pension. What gives the government the right to steal the rest of our deferred income? There are plenty of people who can suggest ways to meet the pension obligation without stealing it from pensioners.