Education

Thought Crime in New Mexico

by Sheldon Rampton — May 19, 2003 - 10:00pm

Several high school teachers in New Mexico have been suspended or fired after refusing to enforce pro-war views in their classrooms. Geoff Barrett, a teacher at Albuquerque's Highland High School, was suspended after refusing to remove student-made artwork expressing views on the recent U.S. war against Iraq.

Main Source:

Albuquerque Tribune, May 20, 2003

Campus Ink Tanks

by Sheldon Rampton — May 6, 2003 - 10:00pm

At the Jesse Helms Center in North Carolina, more than a dozen earnest college students gathered for training in how to start their own conservative newspapers and opinion journals and how to pick fights with lefty bogeymen on the faculty and in student government. "By the end of the day, the student journalists were fired up for battle," writes John Johnson, "determined not only to change the tenor of notoriously liberal campus dialogues, but also, in the long run, to alter the basic makeup of the nation's professional news outlets. ...
In the wake of Sept.

Main Source:

Los Angeles Times, May 7, 2003

Censorship Becomes Publicity for Emma Goldman Project

by John Stauber — January 13, 2003 - 11:00pm

Front page attention in the New York Times is priceless publicity. Heavy-handed censorship at UC Berkeley has backfired, landing a fundraising appeal by the school's Emma Goldman Papers Project on the Times front page. "Goldman died in 1940, more than two decades after being
deported to Russia with other anarchists in the United
States who opposed World War I. Now her words are the
source of deep consternation once again, this time at the
University of California, which has housed Goldman's papers
for the past 23 years.

Main Source:

New York Times, January 14, 2003

Teachers Sizzle Over Fast Food Fund-Raiser

by Laura Miller — October 14, 2002 - 10:00pm

"McTeacher's Night" has drawn criticism from some elementary school teachers in South San Francisco according to the San Francisco Chronicle. During the fast-food chain's PR event, teachers volunteer to work a three-hour shift at a McDonald's, preparing and serving food. Then the restaurant donates 20 percent of the profits to the teachers' school. "This is exploiting teachers for a real, live McDonald's commercial," one first-grade teacher told the Chronicle.

Main Source:

San Fransisco Chroncile, October 15, 2002

The Big Lie Continues

by Sheldon Rampton — September 17, 2002 - 10:00pm

"The myth that the National Educational Association told teachers not to blame Sept. 11 on al-Qaida continues to unravel," reports Brendan Nyhan. "It's now clear that Washington Times reporter Ellen Sorokin based her original myth-creating article on a preliminary NEA Web site that clearly wasn't complete, misconstruing quotations from a recommended sample essay allegedly written by a professor named Brian Lippincott and attributing them to the NEA.

Main Source:

Spinsanity.org, September 18, 2002

No URL Left Behind?

by Sheldon Rampton — September 17, 2002 - 10:00pm

"The Department of Education is in the process of a massive overhaul of its Web site to make it easier to use and to remove outdated data -- and ensure that material on the site meshes with the Bush administration's political philosophy," reports Michelle Davis.

Main Source:

Education Week, September 18, 2002

ACME Promotes Media Education

by Sheldon Rampton — September 2, 2002 - 10:00pm

PR Watch editors Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber are among the supporters of a new activist coalition that aims to promote critical thinking about today's corporate-dominated mass media and encourage democratic reforms.

Main Source:

http://www.acmecoalition.org/summit.html

Smearing Teachers as Terrorists

by Sheldon Rampton — August 31, 2002 - 10:00pm

Did America's largest teachers union construct a subversive web site concerning September 11? This nasty slander against the National Education Association has been spreading across the Internet, sparked by a series of articles in the Washington Times.

Main Source:

http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh082802.shtml

Have A Coke And A Pedometer

by Laura Miller — August 4, 2002 - 10:00pm

In an effort to "bring additional value to our educational partners," Coca-Cola is launching its "Step With It!" campaign. Coke will promote walking to middle school students in 10 cities. According to PR Week, the campaign will encourage students to walk 10,000 steps a day, giving students pedometers to keep track of their walking. Coke will also promote the campaign to local media.

Main Source:

PR Week, August 5, 2002

Media Literacy: An Alternative to Censorship

by Sheldon Rampton — May 5, 2002 - 10:00pm

The Free Expression Policy Project has produced a 56-page report "which surveys the history and current state of media literacy education and illustrates why it is far preferable to TV ratings, Internet filters, 'indecency' laws, and other efforts to censor the ideas and information available to the young."

Main Source:

http://fepproject.org/policyreports/medialiteracyfull.html