Franken-Lies-And-the-Lying-Liars-Who-Tell

Where New York State Education Commissioner Mills noted that there is "no simple
fix" to the problems of New York City schools, Hannity has found one-and not just for New
York, but for every school in the country. Vouchers. It's about competition. If the government
gives every student a voucher for tuition at the school of his or her choice, public, private, or
parochial, schools will be forced to compete. The result? An education revolution. "You're
going to see excellence in education, because the parents are going to send their kids to
schools where there is discipline, where there are no problems, where their kids will get a
good education, and we'd see test scores go through the roof," explains Hannity. Vouchers,
says Hannity, will succeed because they will "break the nearly total government monopoly on
K-12 education in this country."
The proof?
Hannity describes a couple of since-discredited studies and then quotes an editorial
saying that "vouchers offer the only hope available to many poor students trapped in the
worst schools." Now comes the lie. "Want more proof?" asks Hannity. "Come right here to
New York."
He then trumpets The Miracle in East Harlem: The Fight for Choice in Public Education,
a book that chronicles a remarkable success story in one of America's most troubled
school districts. What happened in Harlem? A handful of teachers and principals in District
Four reorganized their district into small, independently run alternative public schools to
which neighborhood parents could choose to send their children. The result? Hannity puts it
best: "small, innovative public schools having just a little more freedom than traditional public
schools has paid such big and valuable dividends in the lives of children and their parents....
Kids are learning in Harlem."
Gives you hope, doesn't it? But not for vouchers. Because the "Miracle in East Harlem"
didn't actually involve vouchers. There were no vouchers. None. Nobody got a voucher.
Vouchers? Not a part of the miracle.
Even though he offers it as proof that "vouchers offer the only hope available," Hannity
carefully avoids saying whether or not the East Harlem program uses vouchers. Suddenly,
he switches to the term "school choice." The artful avoidance of a literal untruth makes
this a particularly sneaky kind of lie. He's deliberately misleading his readers. When you have
to mislead to make your argument, it's because you know you don't have a case.