Andrea Gabor is the Michael R. Bloomberg Professor of Business Journalismat Baruch College in the City University of New York. She also blogs and writes books and articles. Her book about W. Edwards Deming (“The Man Who Discivered Quality”) explained clearly Deming’s view that performance pay doesn’t work and ruins the morale of the corporation. Her recent articles about New Orleans exploded the myth of academic success in that all-charter city.
Now she reports that her students at Baruch won a prestigious award for their reporting on the new, emerging economy in Cuba. Congratulations to them and to her.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Deming’s work is stellar.
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In your earlier post about reform initiatives that have failed, I considered “Pay for Success” schemes under the new ESSA law. Since they have not officially been launched, it is too early label them as failures. As for more bad ideas from reform, I predict they too will fail as they are based on the short sighted, quick fix cure that reform is known for. The whole idea that corporations are going to solve deep rooted, societal problems is laughable. More than likely, they will take the money and run! Corporations are more often the cause of many of our social problems by recklessly polluting the environment, trying to squeeze money out of our public services like public schools and refusing to raise the minimum wage. While “Pay for Success” is not merit pay, it has potential failure written all over it.
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Gabor is among very few in her profession who are journalists instead of hacks.
In a recent article, Michelle Jamrisko at Bloomberg news, wrote, “…retiring baby boomers saddle the government with higher Social Security and health care costs. That’s the risk often cited by fiscal hawks.” Separately, Jamrisko provided space for an opinion by Pete Peterson’s Institute for International Economics (coincidentally, hedge funder, Peterson spent an estimated one-half billion dollars to destroy Social Security). In today’s work product from “journalists”, it’s unheard of for a writer to fit in a quote about how the economy is “saddled” with the financial sector, that drags down GDP by an estimated 2%. A fact about S.S. and Medicare recipients, paying over a lifetime of work, for their “government” retirement benefits and paying taxes at higher rates than the richest 0.1% for whatever common goods remain, will never find a space in copy. A statement about Wall Street’s theft of labor’s rewards, for their productivity gains. which, in reality, qualifies S.S. payments, as deferred compensation, won’t appear in reporting.
The sparse rolodex for differing opinions, should be the primary focus, in the training of future journalists.
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Men like Jeb Bush wouldn’t be shocked by the anger of the American people, if main stream media didn’t shill, exclusively, for the richest 0.1%
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Diane – Congratulations and please read:
https://www.tapinto.net/towns/east-brunswick/articles/careful-navigation-needed-parcc-testing-is-the
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The video linked in the article is worth to see. At one point, one teacher says “testing alters how kids think. Instead of having an investigative mind, to try to see a problem from many angles, they just try to find the one correct answer.”
And of course, this is not thinking.
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How much longer will Bloomberg allow her to be a Bloomberg prof?
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