charter schools

Ecuador declares a state of emergency as President Correa escapes attack from rogue armed forces; lenders are forced to suspend thousands of foreclosures after admitting to a faulty review process; Critics of "Waiting for Superman" say the much-hyped education documentary unfairly targets teachers unions and promotes charter schools. Democracy Now! is a daily independent newshour.

"We can't spray dispersant on poor people and expect they go away," Tracie Washington says, calling attention at once to the plight of the people of New Orleans, still struggling to rebuild, and the ongoing issues with the oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico. ; Like the oil that BP claims to have cleaned up, the problems left behind by Hurricane Katrina are still there, just a little bit harder to see.It's been five years now since the levees broke, and the changes to New Orleans are many: around 150,000 people haven't been able to return, the city has more charter schools than anywhere in the country, and it's not hard to guess who's been left behind by the policies. Bill Quigley of the Center for Constitutional Rights and Tracie Washington join us to discuss the challenges New Orleans faces, half a decade after the storm. Actress Melissa Leo didn't know much about New Orleans before moving there to shoot a season of HBO's Tremé, but she quickly fell in love with the city, its music, and its resilient people. The show's focus on the music and culture of the city has brought national attention once again to the unique jazz scene, and filming in New Orleans has brought money and jobs to a city badly in need of both. Melissa joins us via Skype to talk about her experience in New Orleans as an outsider, and why it's important for pop culture to remind us of people's struggles. Finally, Laura has some thoughts about what we can do to make sure that the next time disaster strikes, there's help for all affected.

Everywhere you look jobs are cut, programs are eliminated, and the fat is trimmed as closely as possible leaving only the bare bones of our society. Well, almost everywhere. It seems that for all the costs being cut surrounding education and employment benefits, a disproportionate amount of money has poured into intelligence, better known as the U.S. Military Industrial Complex. This imbalance in public spending and private contractors prompted the Washington Post to conduct a two-year long investigation into this hidden, growing world. The Nation's Media FIX Blogger Greg Mitchell joined us in the studio to discuss this phenomenon, along with the recent PBS documentary "Turmoil and Triumph"--an uncomfortably flattering three-part documentary on George Shultz's three years as Secretary of State. Normally, PBS would not air an apparently biased piece, but, as Mitchell implies, both the media and the government work together to keep their people sorely in the dark. "We're lying to our kids," says Diane Ravitch, professor and former charter school advocate and supporter of "No Child Left Behind." High-stakes testing and punishing teachers for low-scoring kids is failing, according to her research; moreover, charter schools are only successful, when they are, because they can select the best students from the failing districts in which they are located. In a new piece at The Nation, and in her new book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education, Ravitch lays out the case against the policies she once supported. She joins Laura in studio to discuss the problems with education--and how Obama and Arne Duncan might be making things worse, not better.
Finally, Jaclyn Friedman, Executive Director of Women, Action & the Media and editor of Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape, has some thoughts on the recent sexual assault allegations against Al Gore--and why we should accept that "nice guys" can do bad things.