Responding to ABC television reporter John Stossel's slanted and unfair "Stupid in America" segment that aired on "20/20" in January, the United Federation of Teachers and other AFT affiliates around the country fired back this month with their side of the story.

In New York City, UFT president Randi Weingarten on March 8 led a rally of more than 1,000 members at ABC headquarters in Manhattan to protest 20/20's biased report (see AFT analysis), which focused on New York City schools and blamed classroom educators for much of public education's ills. "If a classroom teacher presented such a biased and inaccurate lesson, he or she would receive an unsatisfactory rating," said Weingarten after delivering petitions signed by 25,000 educators. The UFT's state affiliate, the New York State United Teachers, also launched a petition drive demanding an apology for the "demeaning and inaccurate" 20/20 report.

Weingarten also invited Stossel to teach for a week at a mutually selected New York City high school. "Do you really want to understand something you so quickly criticize?" Weingarten asked. "Then stand in our shoes for as while. I'll even co-teach with you for a day so you can feel supported and prepared."

On the same day, other AFT affiliates around the country also had events to focus public attention on 20/20's error-filled broadcast. In Rhode Island, AFT vice president Marcia Reback, president of the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Health Professionals, delivered a petition with 1,703 signatures to the ABC affiliate in Providence, WLNE. Although she had been promised a meeting with station officials, she reports, when she arrived the news director refused to discuss the issue with her or to accept the petitions. Nevertheless, she brought a videographer and photographer with her and will be doing a report for "LaborVision," a broadcast of the Rhode Island Institute for Labor Studies and Research that goes out to every cable franchise in the state.

Elsewhere, the Chicago Teachers Union staged a protest at the ABC affiliate there and delivered a petition with 2,000 signatures. A suburban Chicago paper has also invited CTU president Marilyn Stewart to write an op-ed rebutting Stossel. AFT Michigan and the Ohio Federation of Teachers delivered letters of protest to ABC affiliates in Detroit and Cincinnati, respectively, and in California representatives of the ABC Federation of Teachers delivered petitions to the news offices of KABC in Los Angeles.

March 10, 2006