What do Ben Shapiro, Whitney Tilson, The Heartland Institute, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, The Hoover Institution, Wendy Kopp, The Manhattan Institute, and Democrats for Education Reform all have in common? They all shamelessly use the meaningless and hackneyed phrase "soft bigotry of low expectations."
Elmo isn't Gramsci for kids and the mythical soft bigotry of low expectations looks at the far right's bizarre assertions that Sesame Street is indoctrinating children in some sort of insidious left wing plot and that Children's Television Workshop's providing additional educational resources for children that "did not have reading literature in the house" is somehow tantamount to bigotry.
In the end, we know that access to books in the home is a major indicator of academic achievement and impoverished families have very limited access to books. That is where we should focus our efforts.
Published 2011-08-11 on The Daily Censored, please read it there and share widely.
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