An Op-Ed in The State and Paul Bower’s Charter school advocates shifting gears in South Carolina (The Post and Courier) inadvertently reveal the same message: South Carolina remains mired in crass edupolitics.
StudentsFirst and 50CAN have become SouthCarolinaCAN, but the merging and renaming hasn’t changed a truly ugly fact: these education advocacy groups across the US have no credibility and are created to provide individuals political platforms that benefit the so-called leaders and the pro-privatization forces funding and supporting these constantly morphing organizations.
Yet mainstream media continues to allow these groups and their leaders significant platforms for their misleading propaganda while educators are nearly absent from the public debate.
Crass edupolitical organizations are a sham, but as long as mainstream media continues to shirk their responsibility to support credible sources, it is the media who are at fault here.
Edujournalism has been and continues to be one of the elements contributing to post-truth fake news.
The crass edupolitics infecting SC remains committed to failed policies such as takeover districts, charter schools, and school choice because these organizations and their leaders are not concerned about education, but about their own political agendas.
Since I have addressed these issues repeatedly, I offer here a few posts below:
The Zombie Politics of School Choice: A Reader
Resisting Fatalism in Post-Truth Trumplandia: Charter Schools and the End of Accountability
The Post and Courier: Beware of ‘turnaround’ school districts
The media must choose credibility over press-release journalism if our public institutions, such as public schools, and our democracy has a chance to recover from post-truth fake news.
For Further Reading
dr. p.l. (paul) thomas 
KANSAS CITY STAR. But it is equally important to understand that the historical (and ongoing) struggles to provide equal education to women, minorities and the disabled demonstrate that public education has been about more than just providing access to the educational conditions needed to secure a good job; it is also about the democratic need to value human dignity in furtherance of democracy.
Public education in a democracy is much more than just an instrumental means to an economic end. It is also a moral pillar upon which the entire structure of democracy rests. It’s true American education has not always lived up to its ideals, but it remains an enduring institution capable of great good.
http://www.kansascity.com/opinion/readers-opinion/as-i-see-it/article122776634.html
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