This anti-union movie premieres today.
On Wednesday, we exposed the right-wing billionaire behind the new anti-union movieAi??Won’t Back Down that’s releasing today in theaters. It seems like the critics are on to his game too — the movie has a pitiful 33 percent rating on the review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes.
So the film’s promoters have taken a new route to try to boost the film: astroturf reviews. Ai?? Education blogger Jersey Jazzman and advocate Leonie Haimson has discovered that Matthew David, a staffer with Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst — which is working with right-wing groups to promote the movie — actually wrote a review of the film on the Rotten Tomatoes site in an attempt to boost its rating.
Here’s a screenshot of David’s review:
A few other StudentsFirst staffers also wrote reviews on the site, but they at least did identify themselves as members of the organization, unlike David. David is actually a former McCain rapid response staffer and Bush-Cheney campaign operative.
Interestingly, one of the other Rhee staffers who posted a review, Catherine Durkin Robinson, was previously caught offering the chance to win a gift card to individuals who would promise to post comments in favor of Rhee’s agenda.
What all of this means is that Big Money groups are doing everything to try to make their education agenda — one of disempowering unions and empowering private schools — popular. Unfortunately for them, the facts just aren’t on their side.
It is very heartening to know that money cannot buy EVERYTHING.
You can’t fool all of the people all of the time. Rhee’s days are numbered. She is a failure and a lair.
great movie. look past your own agenda’s and see the bigger picture. Education in the US is failing, union contracts have ensured equal pay to everyone regardless of effectiveness or ability. I am old enough to remember communist Soviet Union, I remember that every citizen recieved the same stipend, and that because of it, there was no incentive to be creative, effective, or productive. because of this, communism failed. teacher contracts ensure the same attitude in its members, why try, why work harder, There is no benifit. I can do the minimum and get the same pay as I would if I worked hard. How can even the most liberal person not see the flaw in this system?
Get rid of teacher unions! Get rid of teacher seniority! Get rid of teacher tenure! Get rid of the bureaucracy!
They are the weapons of mass destruction in public education that we have only to eliminate to begin to solve the crisis of education in America.
At least that’s the implied message of the union and teacher-bashing movie, Won’t Back Down. The movie is insulting to teachers, to the profession, and to public education.
Won’t Back Down portrays a sea of white children trapped in failing schools not being effectively educated by a large corps of white female and male teachers. The weapons of mass destruction have crushed their spirit, causing them to give up on trying to teach, to make a difference. Is this the image we really want to portray across the globe about our educational system?
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After seeing Michele Rhee speak on Sunday I too have very mixed emntoios. I agree with Sue Ellen that the tone leaned heavily on competitiveness. I feel there is a real paradox in American schools. On the one hand we have students who are performing 2 years below grade level, as Rhee tells us. On the other hand, we have criticisms that the top performers from top high schools are not as prepared as they should be for the rigors of higher education. As to the film Firt to Worst, again a paradox. On the one hand we talk about the value of an elite private education and hope or assume that it has more value than a run of the mill degree. Would this education feel so impressive it were attained in the building we saw on tonight’s film even with the same professors, same assignments, same classmates or would something be missing? What about same professors, same assignments but all brown faced classmates? Is it still as valuable? Could you sell it to the parents? On the one hand students want to feel that we need a certain type of school to get a certain type of education, that bosses will see Bucknell on the application and know they have someone of quality. Is it all about the education, or is some of it about meeting the right kinds of people and developing a social network that could be helpful down the line. Is it what you know or who you know?