Never mind the accuracy or lack thereof of the film, I think this is the scary part:
Quote:
|
Accepting the DVDs, they [NSTA] wrote, would place "unnecessary risk upon the [NSTA] capital campaign, especially certain targeted supporters." One of those supporters, it turns out, is the Exxon Mobil Corp.
|
Right there, the association is saying that by presenting something contrary to the opinions of one of their supporters, they risk losing that supporter's contributions. This indicates that these are NOT just "gifts in kind" as someone above suggested.
This is what's wrong with corporate donations - they ALL have an agenda. Whether explicit or implied, those on the receiving end know better than to bite the hand that feeds. This leads to tainted or slanted information being placed in curriculums, and therefore into classrooms.
And I'm sure it's not just big oil or tobacco doing stuff like this, I'm sure it comes from special interest groups on all ends of the spectrum. The only solution is to disallow corporate donations, which means the gov't has to step up to the plate to up the funding. And even then you'll always get the bias of the current governing party in the curriculum. My wife (an elementary school teacher) and I have discussed this at length, because it seems every time we get a new provincial government here in Ontario the curriculum (or at least parts of it) get rewritten. Not that it shouldn't ever be updated, but it should be done by an arms-length gov't body, independent of the bias of the ruling party.