Murdoch - mutatis mutandis

Bloomberg reports a speech delivered yesterday by Rupert Murdoch, boss of News Corporation, at the Media Institute awards dinner in Washington. Most of what he said applies with equal force to Britain, but then there is no equivalent to the Media Institute over here - hardly surprising in the land of "libel tourism".

He was there to receive the American Horizon Award in recognition of his leadership in promoting the vitality and independence of the media industry. Cue sneering and sniggering from the Bitchy Boys. I mean, who needs that in Britain, where all needs are so even-handedly catered to by the statist near-monopsony.

Upward mobility is in jeopardy unless we fix our public schools. . . . In plain English, we trap the children who need an education most in failure factories. . . . The price for the status quo will ultimately be paid by all of us. Children who fail or leave school without an education do not disappear. They become adults who live on the margins of our prosperity.

Well, you see? I mean if Murdoch thinks educational reform is a good idea, then it can't be. So we'll just keep on slavishly copying the US model, because it's been such a great success that even a president elected with the full and generous support of the teacher unions can't stand it any more.

President Barack Obama has been promoting his education initiatives, including the recruitment of 10,000 science, technology, engineering and math teachers in the next two years. He has said the U.S. should extend the school year, weed out the worst-performing teachers and promote math and science education because the nation’s economic competitiveness depends on a more educated workforce. He has also said that money, without reform, won’t fix the problem.