I saw an annoying report on "Good Morning America" yesterday in which Diane Sawyer stared with worshipful adoration at Oprah Winfrey while they discussed the $40 million school Winfrey has been building in South Africa. But that's pretty much the way everyone in the press treats the woman, and it's her money. She can spend it however she likes, and there are worse things than education. Later in the day, my Newsweek came, and it had a story about the same subject that was only slightly less annoying because it was only slightely less reverential (half the time it referred to her as Winfrey, half the time as Oprah; only Hillary gets similar treatment). But there were a few remarkable passages, including this one:
More than 3,500 girls applied for 152 spots—that's a 4 percent acceptance rate. (Harvard accepts about 9 percent.) Oprah interviewed all of the 500 finalists herself, though the students weren't told they'd be meeting her. Most were understandably stunned when they walked into the interview room. One girl opened the door, took one look at her and declared: "You're so skinny in person!" Oprah asked the various South African tribes and communities to nominate girls with exceptional leadership potential; her plan is to educate the best and brightest and hope that, after being Oprah-cized, they will lead their country out of poverty. To weed through the finalists, she asked each applicant a series of questions about her background and dreams. Some had questions for her, too. Lesego Tlhabanyane blurted out: "Do you spend $500 to get your eyebrows done?" Oprah laughed—and admitted her to the school. A girl with moxie is exactly what she's looking for.
The best and the brightest? That is so elitist, so non-inclusive, so judgmental. You mean the right thing to do isn't to just take everybody and teach to the middle, leaving the slowest and the smartest both on their own? You aren't afraid of offending the "fairness requires we treat everyone the same regardless of the outcome" crowd? You actually think it's possible that by encouraging the best and the brightest you might be helping everyone, a sort of trickle-down education effect, because those will become the leaders capable of moving the whole country forward?
Way to go, Oprah Winfrey.
