Journalist Rachel M. Cohen broke the news in “The Intercept” that “the school privatization lobby places fake news on local stations.”
She writes:
ON A WEEKLY basis over the last three years, an arm of the national school privatization lobbying group the American Federation for Children has been producing fake news segments and distributing them to local news stations. The stations often air the segments just as they receive them, allowing anchors to recite accompanying scripts word for word. The aired content includes no disclosure that it was produced by the education advocacy group.
The little-known project, known as “Ed Newsfeed,” has “distributed hundreds of stories in dozens of states,” said Walter Blanks Jr., a press secretary for the American Federation for Children, in response to questions from The Intercept. The Ed Newsfeed staff sends out a weekly email to producers nationwide with their new video content, including recommended scripts, available to them free of charge, and where “courtesy is optional.” The news producers can also access a full library of current and previous stories by creating an account on the nondescript site EdNewsfeed.com.
Founded in 1999 as the American Education Reform Council, and long funded by billionaire and top Republican Party donor Betsy DeVos, the since-renamed American Federation for Children pursues policies that redirect public education funding to parents to spend how they see fit. “We believe choice, innovation and entrepreneurism will revolutionize an antiquated K-12 system into a 21st century mode,” states the website for the lobby’s 501(c)(3) partner, the American Federation for Children Growth Fund, which sponsors the videos. DeVos was the group’s chair when she was tapped in 2016 to serve as secretary of education under President Donald Trump.
The news broadcasts are mostly cheerful and positive, focused on students who overcome long odds, transformative educators, and “inspiring schools.” Ed Newsfeed segments have featured organizations, apps, schools, and services that have political and/or financial connections to both the American Federation for Children and the DeVos family. Such relationships are not disclosed in the videos, which are marketed as straight news clips.
Most radio stations don’t have their own education reporter so they are glad to get free content. Some stories are innocuous but most focus on the glories of school choice. Fake news, brought to you by Betsy DeVos.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“We believe choice, innovation and entrepreneurism will revolutionize an antiquated K-12 system into a 21st century mode,” end quote. What total libertarian claptrap, garbage and deceptive propaganda. Oh sure, they believe in “choice,” the choice to have the billionaires in charge of our schools and turn them into private enterprises. Horrible!
I just hope all these folks are held accountable for the privatized systems they’re engineering and selling to the public.
Once they reach their ideological goals of eradicating public schools and handing every family a low value voucher as a replacement, will we still hear the “failing schools” recitation from ed reformers, or will all the “analysis” miraculously disappear and we’ll instead be fed a steady diet of cheerleading for privatized systems?
They promised all we needed was “choice”- they’re making huge gains promoting vouchers- we’ll have plenty of choice. The State of Ohio literally does nothing BUT “choice” now- our state political leaders haven’t lifted a finger for the children who attend public schools in this state in a decade.
Who and what do the ed reform echo chamber blame when the US adopts their preferred privatized system? Will they finally be held accountable?
If their privatized system is lower quality (and it will be lower quality- low value vouchers cannot replace public schools) will anyone turn to the designers and engineers and ask what happened or are we stuck with the same ed reform echo chamber members controlling public education policy for ANOTHER 20 years, regardless of results?
What happens to the tens of millions of children and families who use public schools now – none of them were informed this “movement” has deemed their schools unfashionable and not worthy of investment or support. We just sacrifice 50 million public school students so ed reformers can realize their ideological goals? Shouldn’t the public at least be notified that if they hire an ed reformer they’re abandoning their public schools and committing to privatizing they whole system?
You really have to hand it to Ohio ed reformers. Their complete disregard and disdain for public school students could not be clearer.
This is their “school funding plan”:
https://fordhaminstitute.org/ohio/commentary/primer-ohio-senates-school-funding-plan
They copied and pasted the existing school funding plan and added only provisions to fund, market and promote charters and vouchers.
The only work that was actually performed was work that advances the ed reform charter/voucher priorities. Public school students once again were the dead last priority, so much so that no one even bothered to do any work at all.
The public school student part of the plan exists only as a vehicle to advance the charter/voucher agenda.
They shouldn’t have bothered. They would have gotten a rubber stamp for the charter/voucher provisions anyway and then public school students could perhaps find some other lawmakers who might be willing to perform some work that is even relevant to their schools.
The whole ed reform echo chamber repeat in unison that public schools are old fashioned and should be pitched in the trash, but ed reform itself is Ronald Reagan and Milton Friedman circa 1974:
“That this prescription found political purchase with the American right in the 1960s is not a surprise. Friedman’s opposition to state power during an era of liberal reform offered conservatives an intellectual justification to defend the old order. What remains remarkable is the extent to which the Democratic Party—Friedman’s lifelong political adversary—came to embrace core tenets of Friedmanism. When Friedman passed away in 2006, Larry Summers, who had advised Bill Clinton and would soon do the same for Barack Obama, acknowledged the success of Friedman’s attack on the very legitimacy of public power within his own party. “Any honest Democrat will admit that we are now all Friedmanites,” he declared in The New York Times.”
This is the ed reform ideology. It’s 60 years old. Listening to these people is like traveling back in time to 1981. They haven’t changed a word of the dogma since A Nation At Risk.
If the basis of your “movement” is 1950’s Right wing economics I don’t know that I would be throwing stones at public schools for being old fashioned.
They haven’t changed a word of the dogma since A Nation At Risk.
More than a generation of utter failure
Well isn’t that interesting. Betsy the Brainless Beast DeVos and other Traitor Trump-like billionaires are paying for real FAKE news to be broadcast as local news.
41 years ago, Ronald Reagan, in the first few months of his first term, appointed an FCC chair who deregulated broadcasting, allowing fraud and plagiarism to no longer prevent broadcasters from renewing their licenses. 41 years ago. That set the stage for Betsy DeVos to fund fraud and plagiarism by broadcast news companies. DeVos’ plot, which should be called Ed Fraudfeed, was hatched 23 years ago. That’s a long time ago. 23 years of propaganda, caused by The Ronald, Reagan, condoned by every president since, putting our nation at risk by weakening the Fourth Estate, and at the same time weakening our education system. Producing and widely disseminating fraud is organized crime, and government has been actively complicit and irresponsibly failing to protect its citizens for far too long.
Sorry, I keep wishfully thinking it’s 2022 already. Repeatedly. 1981 was 40 years ago, not 41, and 1999 was 22 years ago, not 23. I just have been through so much this year and last. I seem to be trying to live in the future instead of the present, like thinking it’s Friday when it’s Monday. All the time.
And right after I wrote that, I looked up and saw that my comment follows one by a teacher who is also a war veteran. It’s important to keep perspective and not overdo how difficult this year has been for everyone. There was a death among my students recently and it is weighing on me, that’s all.
And I should also explain what I mean when I say weakening the Fourth Estate and education puts our “nation at risk”. We’re not at risk of Soviet invasion. We’re not at risk from Japanese electronics. We’re not at risk because of China. We are, and recent events including domestic terrorism at the Capitol reveal it, at risk of deteriorating from within. Greed and corruption are rotting the pillars.
“will revolutionize . . . into a . . . mode”
LOL. These people can’t even write in standard English.
I think I do something else in a mode
So, a question:
Which was the most utterly incompetent official appointed by Jabba the Trump?
The competition for this title is FIERCE!!!
Secretary of the Office for Privatizing US Education, formerly the Department of Education, Ditzy DeVoid?
Jared Kootchie and Princess Sparkle?
Grand Klegel Jefferson Beauregard Sessions?
AG Bill “I just make this sh*t up” Set-the-Barr Low?
DNI John RATcliff?
Wilbur “Rest through the Meeting” Ross?
Sarah Huckster-bee Slanders?
Previously there was a discussion of the CRT controversy and how one individual influences its travel through public consciousness. This post talks about how inaccurate news is fed deliberately to news outlets starved for cash in the deregulated market of radio.
What these two posts have in common is the ability of the wealthy to produce the news they want people to read. Mid-twentieth century fascism required a censorship that was immediately recognizable as based on governmental activity. Today tyrants have to be more discreet. Perhaps an improvement, but hardly different.