Steven Singer was blocked by Facebook for a week because of the post you are about to read. This post “violated community standards.” Steven Singer was censored by an algorithm. Or, Steven Singer was censored by the Political Defense team that tries to prevent any criticism of charter schools and TFA. This team swarms Facebook and other social media and complains that a post or tweet is “offensive” and the machine blocks the offending post.
This is the post by Steven Singer that has been blocked. This is the lie about “school choice” that DeVos and ALEC and charter promoters don’t want you to read.
He writes:
Neoliberals and right-wingers are very good at naming things.
Doing so allows them to frame the narrative, and control the debate.
Nowhere is this more obvious than with “school choice” – a term that has nothing to do with choice and everything to do with privatization.
It literally means taking public educational institutions and turning them over to private companies for management and profit.
He adds:
There are two main types: charter and voucher schools.
Charter schools are run by private interests but paid for exclusively by tax dollars. Voucher schools are run by private businesses and paid for at least in part by tax dollars.
Certainly each state has different laws and different legal definitions of these terms so there is some variability of what these schools are in practice. However, the general description holds in most cases. Voucher schools are privately run at (at least partial) public expense. Charter schools are privately run but pretend to be public. In both cases, they’re private – no matter what their lobbyists or marketing campaigns say to the contrary.
They take money from public schools that serve all students and give it to privatized schools that choose their students and expel those they don’t want.
Charters and vouchers are the Walmartization of public education. They introduce corporate chains to run what used to be neighborhood public schools. The only difference is that everyone may shop at Walmart, but not everyone who applies will be accepted at a choice school. The school does the choosing, not the family.
Steven reinforces what I wrote in Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools. “School choice” is a hoax, a lie. It is promoted by rightwing ideologues and by Democratic politicians hungry for funding by the financial sector, which sees schools as an emerging industry. Don’t be fooled.
School choice is privatization. And privatization is very bad for those who are not chosen. And very bad for our democracy.
Wow. I wonder if the topic of school choice is just targeted consistently. We tried to promote a HuffPost article penned by Randi Weingarten. Our intro included this quote from her article: “Make no mistake: The real ‘pioneers’ of private school choice were the white politicians who resisted school integration.” We could post it, but Facebook twice forbid us from paying $5 to boost the post so more people would see it.
Does anyone else see the fingerprints of Facebook’s new content editor Campbell Brown?
School choice is privatization. And privatization is very bad for those who are not chosen. And very bad for our democracy.
It is also VERY BAD for those who ARE chosen. They are NOT quality schools!
>
Choice for those chosen.
Isn’t technology wonderful? Don’t get me wrong. I love my computer, but there are things that computers have been programmed to do well and other things, to put it plainly, they suck at. So here we have an almighty computer algorithm deciding whether an essay flagged by an opposition group should be posted?! Apparently the “algorithm pays no attention to the complainant or the complaint. Steven Singer said they lied!!! Even if his claim wasn’t true, and he does a credible job of proving otherwise, it is really hard to feel sorry for the charter and voucher industries. Too bad Facebook is learning (or not) how to be a media power by gosh and by golly. They need a leash…with a choke chain.
I am not part of Facebook. I will never be. The Gates Foundation calls these tactics for overriding criticism “advocacy.” The Foundation pays its friends big bucks “develop the public will” a polite way for deep pockets to squelch dissent. The algorithms in Facebook are not “dumb.” their creators have been given instructions to carry out that act of censorship.
Contractors working for the Obama administration employed to market the bad ideas in Race to the Top called for the creation of for-hire “teacher voice groups” and “communication swat teams” to promote those ideas. What’s more, they had the audacity to call this the new way to “engage” educators–putting in place a “new grammar” and new “framework” for promoting reform.
Reform Support Network. (2012, December). Engaging educators, Toward a New grammar and framework for educator engagement. p. 9. Author.
I wonder if this has anything to do with it? New from Think Progress
Facebook looks to partner with right-wing outlet to fact check stories https://thinkprogress.org/facebook-weekly-standard-fact-check-8dfc1cba987c/
Looks like Facebook is bad for democracy too.
I can’t find the article, but there was one written countering Steve Singer’s GREAT article about the goodness of public education.
YES, I can believe Singer was blocked by FB. Zuckerberg is a royal CREEP.
There was a despicable display that the Washington Post put on targeting a bunch of progressive sites as fake news , using material from an unnamed source . This is censorship and far more dangerous than fake news . Alternet shows the drop in traffic since Google instituted certain algorithms to attack fake news ,OR PROGRESSIVES .
The other day the right spread fake news stories about Las Vegas . The reason it gained such little credence is that it was countered by more credible outfits quickly and local reporting.
However the sources of these stories and their ideologies should be verified and available on the same page as the story or ad. I do not want anybody deciding what is fake or not.
So here you go, no news source is above an agenda . It is up to intelligent informed readers to discern what the truth is from any source. Unfortunately there in is the problem.
Fake news is ultimately far less dangerous than censorship!!!!!
Agree!!!!
Others are sharing it. Saw it first on Public Education Partners (Ohio) and BadAssTeachers facebook pages. So it must not be totally wiped out. Reading blogs hooked ot facebook is one of my main motivators for continuing to use it. If they keep censuring blogs that discuss charter education vs public ed some will just quit it. I have noticed many don’t ever post anything any more and some have deactivated their accounts. My initial motivation was to see my grandkids out of state but those posts have declined as well. Facebook has been a nice conduit and organizer to access things but most of what I look at is available otherwise and can just put it in my favorites on my PC and skip facebook. I would miss making comments and reading replies but gain some personal time……………….
Cecilia,
Steve is web captain for BATS.
His post is blocked on FB
While I am not a fan of Facebook, I appreciate what it can do. I use it for family, friends and colleagues, and I have used it to show support for public education. I have never filled out my profile, or played their games. I have refused to answer any of their fishing questions. Despite this they have a picture of me from when I was eight. I believe this was obtained from my brother’s Facebook account. I think it is small minded of Facebook to censor those with legitimate points of view that are neither dangerous or offensive.
Maybe it’s time for any of us who are on Facebook to start complaining about any posts or comments that falsely denigrate public schools and lie about the “benefits” of charter schools.
Remember Campbell Brown? She works for FB now – very interesting
Why am I somehow not surprised?
Campbell Brown was hired by FB to monitor ethical standards. Someone should ask her how all the Russian ads were posted but NPE not allowed to advertise
Facebook fascism at its finest.
So why don’t we all post this (or better) sentence on our FB page, and see what happens now?
School choice is a lie. It’s a way to divert tax dollars from public education to private interests, hence is aimed to end our public educational system.