Are Merrow Reports on PBS Fair and Balanced?

Reports on Paul Vallas - the uber Klein - check the state of the Chicago and Philly and now New Orleans schools as he goes on his path of destruction of public education.

And Klein Klone Michelle Rhee who may actually face push back from a union (as Andres Alonso is finding in Baltimore) and school boards. But maybe not.

Are the Merrow reports and podcasts fair and balanced? He's based in NYC. When will he take on the BloomKlein story or is that too delicate in that he might have to actually hear the voices on these listserves?

At the bottom of his emails:
Funding for our podcasts is provided by the Annenberg, William & Flora Hewlett, Bill & Melinda Gates and Wallace Foundations.

Ooops! Guess not!

The story on Michele Rhee a few weeks ago was so narrow - like the issue is merely about the right to fire people without due process or to close schools. There are much bigger issues here that go beyond Washington. The use of the term "failing" schools is an excuse for the Eli Broads and Bill Gates' to be part of a private takeover of urban schools. Basically, urban parents and teachers are being put under the dictatorship of one person while suburban get to control their schools.

Hey BUB!
Merrow advertises the videos on you tube using the expression "bloated and unresponsive bureaucracies." How ironic when that is exactly what Joel Klein and ultimately Michelle Rhee will create. While we always have BUBs - and many private corps do too - (ie. Microsoft compared to Google) what BUB often means is that true educators are saying "NO" to gimmicky reforms.

The Rhee report left out all the connections between the assault on parents and teachers going on in urban centers by Joel Klein, Andres Alonso, Rhee, Paul Vallas. Why not look at the results of this phony "reform" movement in Chicago which has had 13 years of it where Vallas played a major role? How did Vallas ultimately do there? In Philly? Now New Orleans?

Where are the stories of the St. Louis schools system after the A&M consultants came in? Now they too are in New Orleans after taking away a king's ransom from New York.

I'm sure without even knowing anything about Washington that Rhee has used high priced consultants and funneled money to all kinds of profiteers and privateers while cutting schools - bet she used consultants to tell her which ones to cut. Maybe even A&M.

There's a major story here in NYC that the national press, in it's fantasy of the phony reform movement wants to ignore. It is about the immense failures of Bloomberg and Klein. And the cover ups, etc. Why not try to get info on exactly what they spend on consultants, etc.? The Kremlin was easier.

I am posting at Norm's Notes a recent Merrow podcast announcement and a selection of examples from the voices of teachers and parents in NYC that illustrate the absolute either out and out incompetence of Tweed or even worse, a bloated and unresponsive bureaucracy.