John Stossel’s Report on Education Now Available Online

Note: this article contains dead links, the url is still in the hover/alt text. Keep the web working, curate content well!

In case you missed John Stossel’s ABC News report on “How U.S. Public Schools Are Failing Kids”, we’ve now found a copy online. This must-see documentary is available in Windows Media format here.

It covers topics where Libertarians and Republicans often agree, although virtually all Republicans tend to play lip service to the issue, in practice. As a matter of fact, it is Alabama Governor Bob Riley’s recent call (in the name of the chirdlins, of course) for the largest tax increase in Alabama history that indirectly brought the link to this website.

The tip came from South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford (who was featured in the documentary), who passed it to sometimes ally/sometimes enemy Chuck Muth, who passed it to former Alabama GOP Chairman J. Elbert Peters, who passed it to me. Peters and I work together from time to time on some Alabama legislative issues and Muth trashed me last time I visited his website, but he sent HoT an invitiation to join his mailing list (we accepted) today. Peters and I actively opposed the Riley plan, with Muth’s support. It’s a small world after all.

Update by Stephen VanDyke: Here’s a bittorrent link to the video in mpg format (info on how to use bittorrent).

posted Jan 21st, 2006 by Stephen Gordon
  • http://libspot.org/member/mlaursen/blog1/ Mike Laursen

    I did some Googling around to see what critiques were being blogged about Stossel’s report. The most interesting criticism was a claim, from someone who attended school in Belgium for a while, that Stossel neglected to mention that Belgium has a national teachers union.

    I couldn’t find any independent corroboration that Belgian does indeed have a national teachers union. (It would help if I could read French). Does anybody know if they do?

  • Stephen Gordon

    Even Alabama has a teacher’s union (biggest one in the state). While I don’t know much about Belgium’s educational system, I lived in Germany for years and strongly imagine that they do, too.

  • Devious David

    It only approached the subject from the pespective of end results, which of course is no surprise. I would have liked there to be something in there about coerced taxes that are levied for these schools and moral issues therein. But then, nobody cares about things like that anyway and it would have been a lot to cram in to an already packed show.

  • Jeremy

    Ok, this mms:// protocol is new to me. What do I do with this link?

    Thanks in advance.

  • http://thatsridonkulous.blogspot.com/ Rob D.

    Ok, this mms:// protocol is new to me.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Media_Services

    What do I do with this link?
    If you have Windows Media Player on your system, simply click on the link and it should open.

  • http://libertyforsale.com Timothy West

    Hmm. Wont work on my G5. :(

  • error

    Doesn’t work on my Linux box either. The stream just freezes up the video player on the first frame. This is why we don’t distribute files via Windows Media formats. :)

  • Stephen Gordon

    I’m out of bandwidth to host the video on any of my sites. If someone can host the video who can’t download it, I’ll get them the video.

  • error

    Well, nobody can actually download it through a mms: link!

  • http://thatsridonkulous.blogspot.com/ Rob D.

    Try using CoCoSoft Stream Down
    http://stream-down.cocsoft.com/

    I downloaded the Stoseel piece, and have almost finished downloading this recent David Boaz appearance on CSPAN 3…

    David Boaz discusses libertarian philosophy and the Cato Institute’s work on C-SPAN III
    rtsp://video.c-span.org/project/tvp/tvp011006.rm

    Wish we could put these up on Google Video, but you have to own the rights. Same goes for putting together a nice little DVD. We need the LP to come up with some of its own media.

  • Stephen Gordon

    Rob,

    When you get a url for the Stossel piece, let me know, and I’ll update this posting.

  • error

    Ha. If I had a copy of Windows around, I wouldn’t need that silly tool. :)

  • http://thatsridonkulous.blogspot.com/ Rob D.

    Actually now that I think of it, I might have gotten the Stossel piece from the Demonoid torrent from the first post. How about buying a seperate hosting plan with some of the money you’ve guys raised so far to host these types of files.

  • vforvandyke

    Rob D.

    Two problems with hosting video files: 1) the bandwidth would easily cause us to bleed money on hosting in a very big way; 2) we’d get slapped on copyright issues (us pointing at torrents is one way to avoid this)

  • error

    Oh, I love BitTorrent. Now if only the tracker would wake up and come back to life… Maybe I’ll get to watch it by tomorrow.

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