Up North Progressive

The Internet can be a place for information and communication with others, and sometimes it can be a place for mischief with hilarious results. Not everyone on the web thinks things through very well before launching their campaign. With a little effort, the people hustling school choice could find that out too if enough people join in the fun. This week, corporate education reformers are holding a week long event called National School Choice Week, and this could be a great opportunity to spread the truth about for-profit education online while using the ed reformers own tools against them.

Back in 2010 Justin Bieber had a poll for his fans to pick which country he would begin a new world tour. When the poll was over, the overwhelming winner was Pyongyang, North Korea. The choice of city had nothing to do with the fans voting, because it’s more than likely very few people have ever heard of Justin Bieber in North Korea. The Internet found an opportunity to have some fun, and made sure Pyongyang stayed at the top of the poll.

About a year later, the Republican Party thought they came up with a great idea to get people to sign their online petition to demand President Obama repeal the Affordable Care Act. People who signed the petition could watch a live feed of their name being printed on the petition. The Internet struck again and before long “Butty McButterButt,” “Piss Children,” and the now famous “Weedlord Bonerhitler” had signed on demanding Obamacare be repealed. The video feed didn’t last much longer after that.

Twitter hash tags have also been hijacked successfully by the Internet with results completely the opposite of what the originator of the campaign expected. In 2014 #MyNYPD was supposed to be a twitter campaign for people to share positive stories about the police in New York City. What they got was a viral global twitter storm of police brutality and people venting their frustration at overzealous police using their badge as an excuse to commit acts of assault.

This week there is another opportunity to hijack a twitter campaign meant to mis-inform people about school choice, and instead share the truth about for-profit charter schools, online schools and school vouchers. All of these things are part of a larger plan to dismantle public education in the United States by changing schools into factories that turn out a profit at the detriment of our children’s education. National School Choice Week is a celebration of corporate reform of American education while claiming they’re putting kids first. Using the twitter hash tags #SCW, #SchoolChoice, #forthekids, and others, it’s easy to help spread facts to people who don’t know the truth about corporate education reform.

There are plenty of examples out there of ed reform scams, charter school scams, embezzlement, charter school managers living large on people’s tax dollars and more. How about the charter school that was rented out on the weekends and used as a night club? Charter schools also discriminate against minorities, and especially children needing special ed services, because those students cost more to educate, and that cuts into profits. There are plenty of links and facts to share on the Internet, and it might help inform people about the truth of school choice.

So join in, send some tweets and use a School Choice Week hash tag today. Help spread the truth about for-profit education and how it’s doing everything but helping kids get a better education.