It's the end of August, 2006 so you know what that means. It means that we are about to hear a fucking ton of news stories about the 1 year anniversary of Katrina and the 5 year anniversary of 9/11. Mixed into both of these stories will no doubt be plenty of assertions that the authorities, in fact, did awesome jobs and it is simply a failure of communication that causes the public to think otherwise.
"Failure of communication" is such a seductive idea. It glosses over whatever the real problem is ("we are incompetent and overly self-interested") while suggesting a painless solution ("we need to get out in front of this thing and tell our side of the story")
Which brings us to the Chicago Public Schools, where only about 5% of the student population is reading at grade level. What's the solution? Apparently it involves eliminating over 100 teaching positions, eliminating classes at both the advanced and special education ends of the spectrum, and hiring a video production company for $575,000 to make 20 half-hour programs for local cable that talk about how Chicago Public Schools are not sucky but, in fact, awesome.
The trib has the details:
"Ultimately we have to make choices about what's important," said Peter Cunningham, director of external affairs, who made the decision to hire an outside video production company instead of having the district's own five-person video staff handle the work. "We believe communicating to parents about what's happening in the district is important."
and
Cunningham said he has no way of knowing how many people actually watch the cable show, but he believes it's another way to reach parents who might not read newspapers or use the Internet.
Right! All those parents who don't read the non-existent stories in the newspapers or the Internet about the high quality of Chicago Public Schools are, if you think about it, an underserved population. They need a TV show! Because otherwise their actual, real world experience of having children enrolled in public schools might lead them to the assumption that the schools suck.
