Thursday, June 14, 2012

Beware of Parents Across America

Parents Across America was at it again today.   They have taken the time to warn people of the dangers of seeing the new Parent Trigger movie Won't Back Down.   Apparently, their big objection to the movie stems from a viewpoint that a movie based on a true story needs to be 100% truthful, but if that was the case would we ever have learned how Jon Bon Jovi cracked the Nazi codes in World War II if it wasn't for U-571 or would we have learned how Civil War veterans banded together to save the South in Birth of a Nation.

Parents Across America wants to hold this movie to a ridiculous degree of truthfulness.   According to Parents Across America co-founder Leonie Haimson, “The movie is supposedly based on a process called the ‘parent trigger,’ which purports to empower parents. But actually, the ‘parent trigger’ has a track record of 100 percent failure, and has pitted parents against parents and torn apart school communities at the two schools where it has been tried,”

You know what Leonie, Star Wars probably didn't happen either and The Avengers was also made up, but the point is they could have happened.  A movie doesn't have to be true, it just has to be mostly true. 

Mostly true is good enough for most movie audiences.  As Pocahontas sang in the Disney movie, the truth lies "just beyond the river bend."   In the actual true story behind Won't Back Down it was actually not a crusading mom, as the PAA blog says, "it was orchestrated not by parents but by an outside organization: Parent Revolution, founded by charter school operator Steve Barr and funded by wealthy foundations."  I would say the question isn't why the movie feels the need to portray wealthy hedge fund managers as a struggling single mom, but why American can't accept wealthy hedge fund managers as the real heroes of the education reform movement.

From people like myself and Whitney Tilson to Chicago's Billion Dollar Septet Board of Education, the wealthy are the real heroes behind education reform and the quicker the American public gets around to realizing it, the quicker we can begin eroding those barriers that make it difficult to do really great things for your children.  Parents Across America should be ashamed of their anti-wealth bias.

4 comments:

  1. Thanks for the "reality check," LS4C!

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  2. Parent revolution isn't about empowering parents or strengthening schools , they are elitists looking to privatize schools and make profits..... If I were you I would stop working for them and start working for the kids who deserve an education all of them!

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  3. "Why American (sic) can't accept wealthy hedge fund managers as the read heroes of the education reform movement" - LOL

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  4. I think the problem is Americans HAVE accepted hedge fund managers as the real heroes of the ed. reform movement. Well, at least UNBEKNOWNST to them, otherwise, why would Wall Street ever get away with this scam? If you keep doing this kind of blogging, people just might find out the truth! Shhh.....If you are the billionaires you say you are, don't you know you're suppose to work in secret?

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