TV REVIEW : PBS Special Spotlights Education

“Listen Up!,” a PBS special spotlighting the nation’s educational system (at 8 tonight on KCET Channel 28 and KPBS Channel 15, and at 7 on KVCR Channel 24) carries the somewhat deceptive subtitle of “Voices in Celebration of Education.” Celebration isn’t the word for what’s going on in this alternately humorous, eloquent and often angry jeremiad about the need for educational reform.

In a loosely woven hour of commentary and entertainment, Keith Carradine sings Tom Lehrer’s take on education--it’s in “deep doodoo”--and Mark Russell offers his version of “Schooldays”--they’re “politician tool days . . . until November.” Comedian and ex-teacher Dennis Wolfberg jokes about having taught in a South Bronx elementary school that had “its own coroner.”

Other segments include a tense dramatic sketch by National Book Award winner Charles Johnson that stars John Amos as a father giving a bitter eulogy at his teen-age son’s funeral, Fred Rogers paying tribute to his grandfather for inspiring Rogers’ belief in “the enormous worth of every human being” and Rae Ellen McKee, the 1991 Teacher of the Year, stressing the need for children to know they’re important to society.

The media come in for harsh words as well. TV, reflecting society’s attitude, has “gone from patronizing our children to contempt for their teachers,” says critic John Leonard.