Paul Thomas spent many years as a high school teacher in rural South Carolina before becoming a professor at Furman University. As those of you who have followed his writings know, Thomas is a powerful social critic.
He has recently written a series of articles criticizing the mainstream media for swallowing the corporate reform line about “the crisis in our schools.” He points out that the media have been complaining about our “terrible” schools for over a hundred years and predicting that the schools will ruin our economy (which has never happened).
In his first post on this topic, he cites the article by Motoko Rich in the New York Times about a high school in South Carolina that has rising graduation rates but less-than-stellar test scores. The point of the article is that graduation rates are rising because standards are falling. The article was followed up by an editorial lamenting the crisis in our schools and calling for more testing and more of the reforms that have failed for the past 15 years.
Thomas writes:
Here, then, let me offer a few keys to moving beyond the reductive crisis-meme-as-education-journalism:
Public education has never been and is not now in crisis. “Crisis” is the wrong metaphor for entrenched patterns that have existed over a century. A jet plane crash landing into the Hudson River is a crisis; public education suffers under forces far more complicated than a crisis.
Metrics such as high-stakes test scores and graduation rates have always and currently tell us more about the conditions of children’s lives than to what degree public schools are effective.
Short-hand terms such as “college and career ready” and “grade-level reading” are little more than hokum; they are the inadequate verbal versions of the metrics noted above.
The nebulous relationship between the quality of education in the U.S. and the fragility of the U.S. economy simply has never existed. Throughout the past century, no one has ever found any direct or clear positive correlation between measures of educational quality in the U.S. and the strength of the U.S. economy.
Yes, racial and class segregation is on the rise in the U.S., and so-called majority-minority schools as well as high-poverty schools are quickly becoming the norm of public education. While demographics of race and class remain strongly correlated with the metrics we use to label schools as failing, the problem lies in the data (high-stakes tests remain race, class, and gender biased), not necessarily the students, teachers, or administrators.
However, historically and currently, public education’s great failures are two-fold: (1) public schools reflect the staggering social inequities of the U.S. culture, and (2) public schools too often perpetuate those same inequities (for example, tracking and disciplinary policies).
The mainstream media’s meat grinder of crisis-only reporting on public education achieves some extremely powerful and corrosive consequences.
First, the public remains grossly misinformed about public schools as a foundational institution in a democracy.
Next, that misleading and inaccurate crisis narrative fuels the political myopia behind remaining within the same education policy paradigm that has never addressed the real problems and never achieved the promises attached to each new policy (see from NCLB to ESSA).
And finally, this fact remains: Political and public will in the U.S. has failed public education; it has not failed us.
Paul Thomas received a few complaints on Twitter about his post and he returned with a second post, in which he notes that journalists who write about education seldom seek comments from teachers, principals, and informed education scholars. Instead, they quote think-tank spokesmen, economists, political scientists, statisticians, business leaders, and others who have little or no understanding of the reality of schooling. By bypassing those who actually have experience in education, journalists recycle the “crisis” narrative while ignoring the genuine problems in education and society (e.g., resegregation, inequitable resources, the pernicious effects of high-stakes testing) that should be changed.
Thomas writes:
My argument is that since most political leaders and political appointees governing education as well as most journalists covering education are without educational experience or expertise, these compelling but false narratives are simply recycled endlessly, digging the hole deeper and deeper….
And on the rare occasion that I am interviewed by a journalist, I can predict what will happen: the journalist is always stunned by what I offer, typically challenging evidence-based claims because they go against the compelling but false narratives.
No, there is no positive correlation between educational quality and any country’s economy.
No, teacher quality is actually dwarfed by out-of-school factors in terms of student achievement.
No, charter and private schools are not superior to public schools.
No, school choice has not worked, except to re-segregate schools.
No, merit pay does not work, and is something teachers do not want. Teachers are far more concerned about their autonomy and working conditions.
No, standards do not work—never have—and high-stakes testing is mostly a reflection of children’s lives, not their teachers or their schools.
This list could go on, but I think I have made my point.
When one of the journalists tweeted that she knows how to be a journalist, “It is my profession,” Thomas felt compelled to write yet a third post on the failures of education journalists in writing about education. Basically, he replies that if journalists expect to be respected as professionals, why don’t they treat teachers as professionals?
He writes:
To be perfectly honest, education journalism has significantly failed to extend respect to educators—for decades.
The entire accountability era is built on the premise that schools are not effective because teachers simply do not try hard enough, that education lacks the proper incentives (usually negative) to demand the hard work needed for schools to excel.
The “bad teacher” mantra that has risen during the Obama presidency, and the increase of calls for and uses of value-added methods (VAM) to evaluate teachers both further de-professionalize and demonize teachers—and the great majority of education journalism has embraced, not refuted, these.
And as I have already noted, the favorite meme of education journalism remains (for over 150 years) that education is in crisis.
How would journalists feel if “journalism is in crisis” was the primary and initial given about their field, for a century and a half? Does that honor your professionalism? Especially if you have little or no power over your field, especially if your voice is nearly muted from the discussion?….
What does it say to teachers when mainstream education journalists are quoting one think tank leader with no experience in education (and a degree in a field that is not education) more than all the quoting of classroom teachers combined?
Anthony Cody read Paul Thomas’s posts about the media and suggested that his ideas should open up a wider debate about whose voices get heard in the public debates about education.
Cody was especially disturbed that the Education Writers Association, which had awarded prizes to his work in the past, would no longer give full membership to bloggers like Anthony Cody, Paul Thomas, and Mercedes Schneider (or me, for that matter). None of them will ever be eligible for prizes for their writing and investigative work. Cody received an explanation from EWA staff saying that the work of bloggers did not meet their high standards for independent journalism. “Among many factors, we look for is the media outlet’s independence from what is covered, institutional verifications, and editorial processes.”
This is almost comical: Are education journalists subsidized and/or employed by Eli Broad, Rupert Murdoch, Bill Gates, the Walton family, and Michael Bloomberg more independent than bloggers who are paid by no one at all? Should all the education journalists at the Los Angeles Times be excluded from EWA since Eli Broad and a few other billionaires are underwriting education reporting there? What assurance does the public have that they are allowed to criticize Broad, who wants to control the city’s public schools? As between bloggers like Anthony Cody or Paul Thomas and reporters who work for a publisher who loves corporate reform ideas, who do you think would be more independent?
Cody suggests that EWA would do well to revise its bylaws and open its full membership to bloggers, because many are current or former classroom teachers and could add different perspectives, different experiences, and expertise to the other members of EWA.
He comments are the most on point that I have seen in a long time. The post needs to be reposted and broadcast far and wide. It speaks more truth than words can describe.
Maybe it’s that students in the habit of ignoring their teachers are those most likely to become journalists? (unless they become politicians, of course).
What more proof would anyone need that education writers are oft-willing captives than their claim that their “independence” I served by working for the likes of a Rupert Murdoch?
The human capacity for self-delusion is infinite.
“How would journalists feel if “journalism is in crisis” was the primary and initial given about their field,”
They wouldn’t feel good but at least it would be an accurate assessment.
Journalists should take a good look in the mirror — but a regular one.
“Self-reflection”
One way mirror
Little Help
For finding error
In oneself
Journalism is in crisis. Electronic media has eclipsed them so they are reduced to writing biased pieces that represent the perspective the oligarch that cuts their checks.
You mention a reflection in a mirror as an opportunity for self-reflection. Thomas refers to public schools reflecting staggering social inequities of the U.S. culture:
“However, historically and currently, public education’s great failures are two-fold: (1) public schools reflect the staggering social inequities of the U.S. culture”
We as a society shouldn’t like the image reflected back to us from that mirror because upon self-reflection, we may find that “We have met the enemy and he is us.” to quote Walt Kelly in Pogo.
It’s fun to read how consistent this theme is over time-
“In 1898, a writing exam at Berkeley found that 30 to 40 percent of entering freshman were not proficient in English. A Harvard report found only 4 percent of applicants “could write an essay, spell, or properly punctuate a sentence.” But that didn’t stop editorialists from complaining about how things were better in the old days. Back when they went to school, complained the editors of the New York Sun in 1902, children “had to do a little work. … Spelling, writing and arithmetic were not electives, and you had to learn.” Now schooling was just “a vaudeville show. The child must be kept amused and learns what he pleases.” In 1909, the Atlantic Monthly complained that basic skills had been replaced by “every fad and fancy.”
My father is elderly and he went to college on the GI Bill. He wonders how colleges managed all those first generation college students after WWII- were the veterans all “college and career ready”? He doesn’t believe he was “prepared” under the current definition, yet he went when the money became available and graduated.
https://newrepublic.com/article/127317/school?utm_content=buffer67653&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
Money and more money seems to be the reason for the bull crap flying around regarding education. It just seems like this country is suffering from the influx of immigrants who come to the US and bring with them their third world mentality thinking. Time has caught up with the population of the US. So now with all these third world people roaming our streets we have a shift of intelligence whereby the american value system is being destroyed. People from third world places have a very different view of the world and politicians such as the democrats are feasting on it thereby not interested in keeping out any of these so called third world immigrants. What I am trying to say is that insane thinking regarding education comes from the fact that our schools are loaded with kids from all over the world now. Take a look at NYC schools. The educators there are professional people trying to work with kids from just about every country you can think of. The kids in these schools do not speak english and have third world mentality meaning they disrespect authority, woman, school forcing a culture of people walking away and just protecting their own interests and protection.
America has always been a nation of immigrants. It is one of our greatest strengths. Diversity brings divergent points of view, but it is generally constructive, not destructive. I have had the privilege of working with refugees and poor immigrant students for most of my adult life. I have become friends with the parents of many former students. These people work hard, and appreciate America more than we do. They are an asset to our country and a net plus to our economy.
If you are talking about the new Syrian immigrants, these people need our compassion as they have been traumatized by war. We do not need to fear typical Syrians; we need to fear extremists of any religious group that want to impose their views on others or bring harm to any innocent people. Is it possible a terrorist may enter the US? Yes. However, the fact is we have more to fear from a disturbed American with a gun or a drunk driver.
“third world mentality thinking”
Wow. Just, wow. Racist much? Having been to a couple alleged “third world countries”, I can tell you most of those people work their behinds off in a way you would never be able to keep up with. And their “intelligence” (to the extent that’s really a thing) is no less than yours. You couldn’t survive a day of their lives and what they have to go through and figure out just to survive day-to-day.
omg – there are over 60 languages spoken in “my” school, & what you say couldn’t be further from the truth… if anything, in general, these kids work harder & have more respect for the teachers than some of the kids whose families have lived here for generations! Are there some rude immigrants? Of course! No nation has a monopoly on that… But, for the most part, any students from anywhere who are rude usually are suffering from really bad experiences in their lives… sorry, but this racist generalization really is unbelievable from “educated” folks!
“Words and Worlds”
The Donald has his word
Intended for the herd
Which blames the World of Third
And really is absurd
These comments make no sense. My experience actually teaching a variety of recent immigrant students from Mexico and South America at a middle school in south Los Angeles was that the students had values more similar to those I grew up with in a small farm community in the Midwest in the early fifties. They had more respect for their parents, for authority, for one another, and for hard work than most of their native-born peers. Those academically inclined came from families that had higher education levels. Interestingly, these were the families who moved to higher socioeconomic areas within a couple of years.
West Coast Teacher: I concur with you 100%. While new immigrants bring elements of their culture with them, most want exactly what we want, a fair chance to raise their families in a safe, productive environment. They are more like us than they are different. They are human beings first.
“Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace…”
John Lennon
Immigration Problem,
I’m a NYC high school teacher who teaches in a 100% immigrant school and I can reliably say that you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Every point you make is demonstrably false, based on my eighteen years of teaching, and the experience of every ESL teacher I have ever known or spoken to.
Please return to TrumpWorld, where you can curl up, savor your bile, and enjoy a world where facts don’t matter, and ignorance and arrogance are celebrated.
In addition to your comment being loaded with racist generalizations, your argument lacks any evidence or logic. Even if every single school in the U.S. were full of immigrant students (which is not the case, by the way), it is not the students who are making the decisions that affect the American school system. Bill Gates attended a private school in one of the least diverse areas of Seattle. He is certainly no immigrant, yet he has much more influence on the American school system than anyone else, immigrant or not.
By the way, my most basic level ESL classes cover capitalization and punctuation rules in English writing — you are welcome to attend.
I have nothing to add to all the well deserved criticisms already posted about your comments, but I couldn’t not join these posters in disagreeing with your sentiments.
With all due respect to commenters I sincerely respect—
It’s just a flamer desperately craving attention.
😒
“In 1913, Woodrow Wilson appointed a presidential commission to study how to improve our international educational competitiveness. They found that more than half of new recruits to the Army during World War I “were not able to write a simple letter or read a newspaper with ease.” In 1927, the National Association of Manufacturers complained that 40 percent of high school graduates could not perform simple arithmetic or accurately express themselves in English.”
Since they have apparently been selling ed reform using fear since 1898, maybe they should try something else? If you were one of them wouldn’t you start to think “this fear-based sales strategy might not be the best approach”?
Switch it up a little. Couldn’t hurt! 🙂
Counter-narratives:
(1) U.S. Schools Don’t Fail at Test Performance, They Fail at Citizenship Development: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arthur-camins/us-schools-dont-fail-at-test-performance_b_8570608.html
(2) It’s not our schools that fail, it’s our nation. Disparate performance on tests– reflect our refusal to address inequity. At the very least, as recently Sanders suggested at the B&B Forum, we need to abandon local property tax funding of schools.
http://www.arthurcamins.com
“we need to abandon local property tax funding of schools.”
That is genuinely “bold”. Good for him.
As a question: If we abandon local property taxes as a funding mechanism for schools, then what to we tax and how much to pay for them?
State and/or federal income and corporate taxes. In other words redistribute from the have lots to the have nots.
But that doesn’t fit with the “greed” model. Have a lot and need more.
There is an argument that control flows from money, and that the abandonment of local funding of schools would lead to the abandonment of local control.
Agree with a change in taxing.
However, given the current system, the Ohio school district’s lawsuits, to reclaim their tax money from charters, should address the issue of taxation without representation. An appointed charter board is unAmerican.
The conflict of taxation without representation is moot ,when charter schools are defined as what they are, government contractors.
Flerp does have an important point. It will be important to build some local control into the system, so we retain voice in the educational system. We have all seen the problems with remote top down control systems. Changing funding rules won’t fix things if the decision making authority is centralized. We have all seen how money seems to translate into power.
State and /or federal funding that offsets skewed local property tax resources need not impose control over how funds get used. The current system preserves local control but perpetuates inequity and preserves privilege.
Arthur — some would argue that significant local control over core education policy has been ceded to state and federal authorities in recent history, and that this has in no small part been due to coercive funding. As a general rule, “accountability” flows downstream toward whoever is paying the bills.
In NJ, redistribution of funds from hi-tax areas to identified lo-tax areas has been in effect since court decisions of 1985 & 1990. Not satisfied with a few yrs’ results, the state took over Newark schools in ’89 (having already done so in Jersey City & Paterson w/o even waiting for results), & proceeded to dictate policy [most recently, the disastrously hurried implementation of ‘One Newark’– privatization funded by Zuckerberg]. 20 yrs later, the Newark data is in: despite pumping all kinds of $ into Newark school district, outcomes by any measure have declined. One need only take a gander at the crumbling, leaking, asbestos-laden & rat-infested facilities to understand that increased funds went to corrupt bureaucracy, not to classrooms. Current mayor Ras Baraka was elected in no small part due to his promise to fight to return local control to Newark schools. That change is in process. This will be a lab experiment to see what happens when inner-city schools whose budget is largely provided by the state is run by officials answerable to the local electorate.
Charter schools are government contractors. Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck. Control/accountability is in the language of the contract.
“Take a Memo”
Broadly speaking, “journalist”
Is one who takes dictation
Truth and fact are simply dissed
With focus on sensation
Why do the media always cry “crisis” about the public schools?
Perhaps because, in the immortal words of that friend of teachers and public education, Rahm Emanuel, a good crisis should never be allowed to go to waste.
“What’s good for the goose..”
Let crisis be exploited
And never go to waste
Let AG be appointed
And give the Rahm a taste
To say that public schools have always been criticized is true. However, the zeitgeist of public school failure writ large became entrenched in the public chool narrative as a result of A Nation at Risk. ALL – presidential administrations along with the press/media – along with busines (ALEC/Businesss Roundtable), governors, corporations/Wall Street/ and conservatives generally who have a long history (pre-A Nation at Risk) joined an anti-public school crusade on steroids after A Nation at Risk. I’m actually shocked that so many readers continue to ask why the media always cries crisis about public schools. I know one thing- they sure don’t read books that explain in a valid manner what this education reform stuff is all about!
I found it fascinating recently to read the recommendations proposed by ‘A Nation at Risk.’ It was suggested that a hs diploma should be based on 4yrs Eng, 3yrs math, sci & soc stud, 1/2yr computer sci, & for-lang begun in early grades [also interpreted as two full yrs hi-sch study of for-lang]; a general raising of the bar on stds/expectations; longer school day or lengthened school yr; higher stds, higher pay, & longer contract [11mos, adding time for curricular planning] for teachers; admins who go beyond mgrl/ supv duties to encompass political leadership: soliciting & encompassing local stakeholders.
A 2008 25th-yr anniversary ‘report-card’ by ‘strong American Schools’ [a non-profit funded by Broad & Gates!] noted that ‘stunningly few of the Commission’s recommendations actually have been enacted.’
There is no exhortation in these recommendations for nat’l stds nor for annual testing to natl stds nor for union-busting methods such as getting rid of tenure or ‘grading’ teachers & schools via student test scores on nat’l std tests. One may perhaps tease out such ideas by a tortious interpretation of the recommendations.
bethree, “Nation at Risk” has nothing to say about charters, vouchers, or choice.
Right you are, Dr Ravitch. Charters, vouchers, & ‘school choice’, it would appear, are right-wing-nut [Friedmanesque] & Dixiecrat [segregationist & evangelist] jumpers onto the bandwagon.
“Journopoly”
They hide behind the Gates
On PARCC Place and on Broadwalk
Determining our fates
With “independent” board talk
Journalists, are like a broad swath of Americans, they like the lies. Or, the lies bring in ratings and revenue.
As an example….
SABEW, the Society of American Business Editors and Writers, thought (speculation) that a resentful public would like the message that public pensions gouged taxpayers and were failing. The fact that pension cost, averaged 3% of state budgets, less than expenditures for corporate welfare and, that vastly different models, couldn’t be judged with the same metric, didn’t fit the theme. A wealthy foundation gave SABEW money, for an all-expenses-paid workshop for journalists. (I know that should have been a clue to a professional organization.) The workshop’s program included the two “experts” that were testifying, at the time, in state capitols, about the pension “crisis”. Later, it turned out, one of the experts, Pew, was working with the anti-pension Arnold and the other expert was reluctant to name the funding source for his junket to state capitols. Upon review, his research was uniformly panned by real pension experts. SABEW’s plan at inception, lamentably, appeared so perfect.
The situation of the Center for Public Integrity and John Arnold, which David Sirota exposed, highlights a more troubling question.
To say nothing of the fact that the so-called public employee pension “crisis” is the result of systematic underfunding of pensions, and diversion of those funds to general operating budgets starved by corporate welfare and tax cuts for business and the wealthy.
It’s quite a racket:
1. Cut taxes on business and the rich, causing
2. Budget shortfalls that you plug by
3. Diverting pension contributions, which leads to a pension funding shortfall which you can use to lobby for
4. Cutbacks or elimination of defined-benefit pensions (which, always keep in mind, are actually deferred compensation), which can then be used to fund further
5. Tax cuts for business and the rich.
It’s a perpetual motion machine. Until it falls apart.
Not really a full picture of what’s happened in NY. You omitted the effect of huge retroactive benefits increases in the 2000s. Also, I’m not sure how accurate it is to say that tax cuts for business and the rich are the primary driver of budget shortfalls. There may have been a shift in where the tax burden rests, but we know that whatever burden has been shed by the rich has been more than picked up by the rest of the taxpaying population, because tax receipts over the last 30 years have increased substantially in real dollars. From the macro perspective, if there’s a systemic budget shortfall problem, it’s because the expenses have increased even more than tax revenues.
Lots of the “crises” are manufactured to make the target vulnerable to collapse and takeover. This is the MO of the hedge funds, and it is being directed against public education and pensions. The public needs to wake up to what they stand to lose if corporations have their way.
FLERP: “From the macro perspective, if there’s a systemic budget shortfall problem, it’s because the expenses have increased even more than tax revenues.”.
I don’t get your point. Isn’t it obvious (or do I just don’t get it) that tax revenues have decreased, logically, from a combination of tax cuts to the rich, plus deregulations allowing corporate profits to be sequestered offshore, thus allowing them to deny any share to the American commons?
My point is that tax revenues have not decreased. They’ve increased substantially over the last 30 years, both in nominal dollars and in real dollars. This is publicly available data, we don’t have to guess or deduce it.
Note that I’m talking about NY state. I would assume it’s true of most other states, too, but NY is the only state whose historical tax revenue I looked up today.
States brag and compete with one another, based on claims about lower taxes for the wealthy “job creators” and, multinational corporations. One solution is to prohibit the competition among states. When Bernie is elected, I hope it happens.
In education, the Walton’s and the U.S. Dept. of Ed., both send money to Ohio to expand charter schools, which the public doesn’t want b/c, as the Walton-funded “74” site, acknowledges, they been an abysmal failure. (Charter profit opportunities have also further corrupted the government in Columbus.) The combined spending of the two, leads to the hiring of people who then work against their fellow Americans, to eliminate public education.
How would competition among states be prohibited?
Flerp, by establishing precedence or codifying it into law. For an example, look no further than the creative ways that existing laws have been skirted and dismembered to accomodate charter schools.
Based on a plethora of court decisions along partisan lines, Constitutionality is in the eye of the beholder. The Robert’s (Scalia and Thomas) Court renders decisions, that many legal scholars see as fickle.
Back to the tax issue. If higher taxes are being paid and the public isn’t getting what it wants, the answer is N.Y. is an oligarchy. Offering as illustration, Ohio taxpayers contributed to the $71 million that the U.S. Dept. of Ed. sent back to the state to expand charter schools. The Walton-funded website, “74”, reported that charter schools are a failure in Ohio. The Walton-funded Wohlstetter paper says voters in the state capitol don’t want charter schools. The Walton’, Gates and Hastings, plan to spend more than a billion to expand charter schools. And, still the Dept. of Ed. gloms onto the oligarch’s vision, and spends our taxes to make it happen. Incredible.
I assume your tax data accounted for population growth/stability/decline. Ravitch’s blog readers understand that a population when it advances, has greater expectations. For example a chemo cocktail, undeveloped 30 years ago, didn’t require funding. Today, people, with falling incomes need assistance paying for both medical advances and necessities. I’m sure you can think of other examples.
“by establishing precedence or codifying it into law”
Sorry, what I meant was, what kind of law? Maybe you had something else in mind, but the federal government cannot prohibit states from setting their own tax rates at the level their legislatures deem appropriate. Even assuming that Congress would ever been remotely inclined to pass such a law, which it wouldn’t.
Reporter Laura Bischoff’s Jan. 9. 2016 article about lobbyists, Wright State University and the Ohio Speaker of the House, perfectly exemplifies plutocratic abuse of middle class taxpayers. “Probe Launched over WSU E-mails”, Dayton Daily News.
Social impact bonds, with a cut of taxpayer money to Goldman Sachs, exemplifies the abuse in Utah.
Who thought the U.S. electorate would be “remotely” interested in electing Bernie Sanders, as President?
Who thought a man, with children from three different mothers and three bankruptcies under his belt, would be leading in the conservative Republican polls?
“Cody received an explanation from EWA staff saying that the work of bloggers did not meet their high standards for independent journalism. ‘Among many factors, we look for is the media outlet’s independence from what is covered, institutional verifications, and editorial processes.’”
This has been standard procedure in mainstream newsrooms at least since the late 1980s and probably before that. Need someone to cover a story about a new scientific discovery? Be sure that reporter knows little to nothing about that branch of science, and no scientific knowledge at all is even better. Because otherwise there’s no guarantee of lack of bias.
Want to address the issue of domestic violence? Heaven forfend the reporter should have any knowledge of or, even worse, personal experience on the issue.
So, clearly, we wouldn’t want anyone with background in education reporting on it. How could they possibly write “balanced” material?
Here we have to be grateful for the Internet– which, I think, is gradually gaining dominance over mainstream media.
I can testify anecdotally– as the parent of a child with both mental and physical afflictions which onset in early ’90’s, just as internet sources became available. I was able to access a site with many members whose children were like mine. Through them, I learned to research meds recommended by well-meaning local docs. I found more than one site [competing sites] explaining chemical components, mechanism of action, profile of side affects [important for us, as my son tended to be ‘brittle’, I.e., susceptible to even the most rare side effects]– & thro med-org sites I was able to access the studies on which FDA approval was based, many of which were very small (e.g., 12 subjects), & learned early of– tho rare– instances of fraudulent studies exposed in Europe, on whose results American drs were banking to prescribe off-label to their clients.
Meanwhile, pop-med American websites, including even Mayo, still promote mainstream half-truths (with CYO disclaimers) suggesting such pap as that childhood ADHD symptoms can be treated risk-free with stimulants– & their half-assed studies [w/12 subjects] are picked up & spread to the mainstream via ‘newspapers’.
Investigations into government and corporate (particularly local) corruption, gain traction if they are in a widely read forums. The current problem with internet sites, is they fragment the population, preaching to the choir, instead of forcing the representative population to see new information. contradictory to their current perceptions.
The Dayton Daily News has gained success in its market, by focusing on investigations. Recent articles, involving lobbying, Wright State University and the speaker of the Ohio House, are riveting.
What I would like to know is why any journalist considers himself or herself to be capable of writing well about education if he/she does not have experience working or studying education? How many education journalists have degrees in education? How many education journalists have experience actually teaching?
I would never dare to write and publish an article about the stock market. Even if I invest money in it and thereby “participate” in it, I would never be so arrogant as to think that I have any sort of expertise in it.
The consistently poor quality of education reporting seems to me to highlight a larger problem in the preparation of journalists. Are they learning to simply be gossip-mongerers, people who recycle little bits of information and splice them to together to make a sensational story? Or are they learning to study in depth the field that they are reporting on and thereby provide an informed presentation of the issues?
Perhaps the strangest thing is that some of these reporters (eg, at NPR) actually believe that being ignorant of the subject they are reporting on is a plus for a reporter, their “logic” being that it allows them to be “unbiased.”
To these folks, ignorance really is bliss.
They seem to actually believe that there is no underlying truth, just he said/she said and that as long as they give equal time to two sides of an issue, they have done their job.
Their idea of journalism is to interview someone from a “left-leaning” think tank and one from a “right-leaning” one and call it “journalism”.
Laura and SomeDAM Poet: what y’all said.
And if I may add: think about the deep cynicism they so unselfconsciously exhibit.
😒
One problem was on display in the Ohio Senate Bill 5 battle. Journalism’s “balance”, to offset business-funded ads, was T.V. debates, pitting a Chamber of Commerce representative, highly skilled in PR messaging and highly practiced, against a worker, with skills in a productive field, instead of PR, whose time in preparation for the debate, was limited by the necessity to work to feed his family. (BTW-the ratio of PR people to journalists, in the U.S. is 4 to 1 and, the former earn substantially more.) The debate was won by PR.
The fight was ultimately won by labor. But, it was costly, for workers, spending from their paychecks, for the campaign. And the fight required boots on the ground, with a high burn-out cost. (Those same workers paid for the opposition’s campaign by force-consumers, paying business profits, which are then used for the political goals of ALEC.)
Reblogged this on The Academe Blog and commented:
A follow-up to my previous reblog, “Dear Journalists . . .” (http://academeblog.org/2016/01/11/dear-journalists-covering-education-let-me-explain/)
Education reporters are, generally, pretty bad.
Take, for example, Jay Mathews at The Post, who has misrepresented the research on Advanced Placement for decades. And still does.
Or what about newbie Allie Bidwell at uS News & World Report? She has misreported on STEM, and she has written that the Common Core is “carefully thought out education reform.” Its development, she says, was “nothing short of an exhaustive and collaborative years-long effort” that was “an absolutely state-led initiative.”
Julia Ryan, now at Time magazine, wrote this when she was at The Atlantic: “For the fifth year in a row, fewer than half of SAT-takers received scores that qualified them as ‘college-ready’.”
All Ryan did was report to readers the pap she got from the College Board. People like Ryan actually seem to believe this nonsense. What Ryan might have told readers is that the SAT is basically worthless. It is, in a very real sense, a huge scam.
The National Center for Education Statistics tell us this about the SAT: ”The SAT (formerly known as the Scholastic Assessment Test and the Scholastic Aptitude Test) is not designed as an indicator of student achievement, but rather as an aid for predicting how well students will do in college.” The problem, however, is that the SAT is a very poor predictor of college success.
College enrollment specialists find that it predicts between about 3 and 14 percent of the variance in freshman-year college grades (and after that zilch). As one college enrollment specialist quipped, “I might as well measure their shoe size.”
Or how about Joy Resmovits, now at the LA Times, Previously she wrote that David Coleman of the College Board is ”in charge of the most important test score a student can receive,” the SAT, “the standardized test taken by many high school seniors as a part of the college application process.” She added that Coleman is “also expanding the Advanced Placement program, which offers college-level classes and tests for high school students.”
Resmovits might have taken the opportunity to share with the public what research says about the SAT (and the ACT), and about Advanced Placement courses and tests. But she didn’t.
And then there’s Amanda Ripley. Ripley usually comes to specious conclusions about school “reform.” She cites a goofy McKinsey report that says the U.S. must recruit more teachers from “the best and the brightest,” which gets defined by McKinsey as those with high ACT and SAT scores. Apparently the McKinsey “analysts” didn’t do their homework, because both the ACT and SAT predict little and measure nothing more than family income.
Ripley has glorified “accountability” measures that are more likely to undermine public education than to nurture and improve it. Finland abandoned high-stakes testing decades ago and it’s the top-ranking nation on most international assessments. Moreover, in Finland the citizenship purpose of public schooling is taken seriously. In Finland, the goal of education reform is equity, with all of the attendant policy programs aligned. Education is seen “as an instrument to even out social inequality.” That is simply not the case in the U.S., and Ripley just doesn’t address it.
But why would she? She went to the private, exclusive Lawrenceville School. Current tuition for boarding students is nearly $60,000, not inclusive of other fees. Parents also have to buy tuition refund insurance. Tuition. Refund. Insurance.
Its campus is 700 acres, with its own golf course. There’s a 56,000 sq.ft. science building, a music center, a visual arts center, a history center, and multiple dorm buildings with their own dining halls. It has a field house that includes “a permanent banked 200-meter track and three tennis/basketball/volleyball courts.” There are also “two additional hardwood basketball courts, a six-lane swimming pool, an indoor ice-hockey rink, a wrestling room, two fitness centers with full-time strength and conditioning coaches, and a training-wellness facility.”
Ripley had very “small classes, “intimate…with a maximum of 12 students“ that focused on “discussion and debate.” Allegedly, she was nurtured to “develop high standards of character and scholarship” and “strong commitments to personal responsibility.” Perhaps she didn’t avail herself of those opportunities.
There’s more. But the gist is this: education reporting in the U.S. is more than deficient. It’s derelict.
I would hope that this issue reminds us of how important it is that we teach our kids to use the Internet for research on different opinions on any issue. I am a neophyte: I teach PreK students whose schools (for good reasons) do not allow their students Internet access. I can only hope & assume that public middle & high schools encourage Internet research to obtain multiple opinions on Issues?
There has to be a media prohibition against naming the funders of organizations like Fordham?
Why else, would no journalist, trespass there?