This is a blog about a blog about a blog about the state of education journalism. But that’s okay, because blogs today are where you are likely to find the liveliest writing and reporting.
John Merrow wrote recently that this was the golden age of education reporting.
I posted his comments and urged Paul Thomas to respond.
Paul did indeed respond, and he was not at all pleased with Merrow’s judgment.
Paul disagrees that we live in the best days of education writing. He says Merrow is “delusional.”
First, Merrow’s assertion can be true only if edujournalism was criminally horrible in the past to which he is comparing today’s journalism—which is negligently horrible.
Next, since Merrow mentions the Education Writers Association (EWA), his delusional post represents perfectly a central problem with edujournalism reflected in EWA: edujournalists are trapped within an insular norm of reporting that includes both traditional flaws in journalism (objective journalism anchored in reporting “both sides” dispassionately) and contemporary market forces that are contracting mainstream media, resulting in press-release journalism by journalists without the necessary expertise or experiences needed to report on a discipline or field….
The primary mainstream outlets for edujournalism are negligently horrible—unable to rise above press-release journalism, to see through the political manipulation of journalism and education, to listen to professional educators and researchers, or to critically examine assumptions about children/students, teaching and learning, and the purposes of school.
And worst of all, he says, is that education journalists today have no historical lens with which to view stories and so they report old news as new news. They think they have discovered something innovative when they encounter a phenomenon that is unknown to them, but well know to experts in the field. And too: they frame educational quality within a simplistic and flawed context that outcomes are primarily about individual effort (students, teachers).
In short, they lack the depth or breadth to question the system in which education is embedded. And that produces press-release journalism.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The golden age of education reporting?! As the kids say, that’s cray cray.
Imagine seeing an article like this today: http://articles.latimes.com/2002/nov/01/local/me-board1. It would never happen. Even our best reporters including Howard Blume are hamstrung by editors advancing the corporate privatization agenda and a conflict of interest as deep as the San Andreas fault. This one is man made though, by the LA Times taking $100 million from Eli Broad, the Waltons and other reformsters to fund its education coverage.
Golden age? More like green for money.
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The linked article is about Eli Broad offering $10 million to Occidental College in exchange for its president to agree to run against a too-independent school board member. 15 years later, that president, Ted Mitchell, is a deputy US Secretary of Education.
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How is that Powell Document thing working out (LOL or cry.) . You control education and the media and it is limitless what can be accomplished. If reporting and journalism were only terrible on education issues it would be one thing . When a thousand activists got locked up in Washington a few weeks ago and there was barely a bleep heard on the MSM.this has gone far beyond education.
When media ownership was defuse there were always differing opinions. Now that ownership is concentrated it is a danger to our democracy when the MSM and especially cable media manipulate news to push an agenda. like the creation of Trump or the Tea Party. If ten Tea party activists showed up on a beach in Malibu it was covered nation wide. I have been to many labor demonstrations in Manhattan with upwards of 1000, sometimes 10,000 people were present and the closest they came to media coverage was a Traffic helicopter seeing what the problem was.
So to my mind the focus of our response form education, to student debt ,to inequality has to be on the media and the Oligarchs that control them . Than we must move to taking back the University system that they have increasingly taken control of by painting education as the ticket to wealth and success. It is more like a lottery ticket to that success with few winners and many losers. The war on elementary education with Common Core and standardized testing is designed to feed a University system that will no longer have a Jeffersonian vision of its role in Democracy.
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OK, I’ll bite, what’s this about a thousand protesters locked up in Washington a few wks ago??
But wasn’t it ever thus? OK, for sure things were better at one time. Yet, I remember, as an attendee at the biggest ever anti-Viet Nam War protest in Nov ’69, being shocked & dismayed at how the media low-balled the attendance, not even counting the folks backed up in buses for miles who couldn’t get there. They called it maybe 150k. (Today they acknowledge it at 500k).
At the time, I [correctly] connected that with my then-recent experience as a Spanish student in Mexico summer ’68, when Paris student riots expanded to the U of Mexico (whose students were my daily instructors). Despite army tanks deployed on the main drag to quell the riots, & even an army grenade lobbed into an activist mtg killing 9, the police-state’s media reported no more than a minor kerfuffle. Two months after I left some 300 student protesters were trapped/ massacred & 1300+ arrested in the Tlatelolco section of Mex City (cleaning things up for the Olympics!)– facts on this finally released in 2000.
Just a heads up on the direction we’re taking, which you so well describe in your post.
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bethree5 Here you go missing it was no accident . I was at that 69 demonstration and I do recall estimates of 500, 000 but even 150,000 would be coverage here the link to what you missed
http://www.salon.com/2016/04/20/1240_arrested_in_past_week_as_democracy_spring_movement_against_money_in_politics_spreads_throughout_u_s/
“Activists carried out one of the biggest acts of civil disobedience in recent history—yet got little media coverage “
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In Mr. Merrow’s list of eight points:
[start]
7) Diane Ravitch against the billionaire funders of what she calls ‘corporate reform’ and others call ‘data-driven decision making’ is a superb feature story, in my opinion. She’s 76 years young….and she has Gates et alia on the ropes. How did this happen?
[end]
As I see it, that’s a nice and well-deserved tip of the hat to the owner of this blog but the last sentence is a query that should be unnecessary. But then this is on par with his posting intended to enable him to get over his Michelle Rhee Obsession.
In a posting of April 18, 2013, he poses the question “Who Created ‘Michelle Rhee’”?
By which he means:
[start]
the public phenomenon known as “Michelle Rhee.” The one that’s has become America’s most prominent education activist. She’s loved by some, hated and/or feared by others. To her admirers, she’s a shining symbol of all that’s right in school reform. Her opponents see her as the representative of the forces of greed, privatization and teacher-bashing in education.
[end]
His answer immediately follows and does not, IMHO, reflect a golden age of
edujournalism:
[start]
Who created that character, that symbol? I can identify four possible parents: She created herself. We created her. “They” did. U did.
[end]
Link: http://takingnote.learningmatters.tv/?p=6316
There are very few people that can stake a personal claim to creating the “Michelle Rhee Phenomenon.” With all due respect to Mr. Merrow for some good edujournalism before and after the above posting, he is a prominent member of that select group. He gently takes a stab at taking his fair (and large) share of the responsibility by stating “We, the mainstream media, created “Michelle Rhee.” Good argument there.” but I think that was and is too little too late.
So when it comes to his credibility, that’s the way I see it…
😎
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Mr Merrow’s summation of education journalism is correct because he does compare it to the past. I am 73 and have witnessed the past. In the past there was little or no journalism relating to education. The system and philosophy of education was accepted as defined by Thomas Jefferson in the late 1800’s as “raking a few geniuses from the rubbish”.
Now much is questioned. Many blogs get noticed and more and more information is out there for the public to see. It is not always what we want to see but it is out there. Mr. Merrow concedes there is a long way to go.
To im!prove the quality of reporting it is up educators to detail the innovation needed to improve education. The fault lies only partially with journalism. Educators, rather than being obsessed by what is wrong, must wake up and tell the journalists what changes are necessary, specifically.
A perfect example is the “opt out” movement. It is easy, like the tea party has demonstrated, to say what is wrong with the test. It is more difficult and more professional to talk about changes that are necessary to solve the assessment problem assuring parents that their children are receiving a quality education.
You can’t tell journalists to write about issues we don’t present. If we were as passionate about innovation as we are about whining, then, and only then will journalist take notice. Until then, sit down and shut up about the lack of quality journalism.
But, of course, few on this blog will respond in agreement with me.
or maybe they will. What say you?
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This was my comment at Paul Thomas’ article commenting on John Merrow’s:
I would have thought anyone claiming a golden age of edujournalism would have cited first the Detroit Free Press, next whatever Ohio media have been responsible for bringing the subject of charter school poor ed results, financial malfeasance, & waste of taxpayer $ to the attention of the mainstream. In both those states these days, despite their voters’ anti-teachers’ union, pro-school-choice leanings, you can discern a healthy skepticism in the comment threads of any run-of-the-mill school-privatization-booster edujournalist article.
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John Merrow’s PBS News Hour piece criticizing St. Louis parents for oposing Alvarez and Marsal, Bill Roberti running St. LOUIS public schools still disgusts me. Pity John Merrow doesn’t switch to a topic I don’t follow like sports.
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Does EdLeader 21 have more than 170 school district members and, do they represent more than 2,000,000 students, via school superintendents and, other high ranking school officials? Does the firm’s PR fully describe what the public should know about a firm that is influential, in tax-supported education and, a firm whose comments are quoted in the media (Politico)? What is the firm’s source of revenue? As a non-journalist, the most I can find out is that it’s a private company. On the internet, the public can find an interview, in which a superintendent says she’s a member of EdLeader21 and her ideology is school choice. (It’s posted at both the Koch-funded Reason Foundation and, at EdLeader21). Why, is no reporter’s interest, piqued?
Equally puzzling is, Huffpo’s recent education report, “Data Disaggregation Initiative”, (the initiative is featured at the charter school resource center, that Laura Chapman recently described in a post). Why weren’t questions answered, like, (1) What are the risks of data accumulation, (2) Who benefits from the exercise, (3) Does the initiative have commercial uses, driving it and, (4) Is the cost/benefit worth the expenditure of tax dollars?
Based on a representative sampling of education reporting thus far, the writers lack interest in substantive questions, which explains the void in reporting on the Aspen institute’s, “Senior Congressional Education Staff Network”.
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Has any main stream media reported about the national outsourcing of primary grades to retailer, Bridge International Academies, a company owned by Pearson, Z-berg, Gates….? (Ohio’s Senator Brown hadn’t heard about Liberia.) It’s a shame there’s no interest in telling the public about community economic multiplier effects, when money leaves the community and goes to Silicon Valley’s richest 0.1%.
Instead of reporting on the big story, “human capital pipelines” and schools-in-a-box, a paper like the Dayton Daily News, last week, devoted, almost a quarter-page, to a “second chance prom”, at a single charter school in California. Incredible.
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Chicago reporter Sarah Karp, writing then for Catalyst magazine, investigated and broke the story of CPS CEO Barbara Byrd Bennett taking 10% of a $21+million no-bid contract from SUPES Academy for principal training, because, she emailed, she had “tuition to pay and casinos to visit.”
Be nice if Diane might like to have a feature on her blog called something like, “Hall of Fame Ed Journalists”.
A blog, the daily howler, regularly analyzes weak reporting, including ed reporting. NYT’s Rich stands out for her lack of deep knowledge, as does Jonathan Chait who recently lauded Rhee’s DC performance in NY magazine. Chait based his article on …” a silly, underfed study from the conservative-leaning Urban Institute.” The daily howler — not Chait — went to the effort of comparing DC NAEP test scores to those of other cities and found them not to be exceptional.
Growth in average scores, Grade 8 math
2005-2013, NAEP, black students only
Atlanta 19.78
Los Angeles 16.72
Boston 15.17
Chicago 14.29
Houston 13.23
DCPS 11.48
Charlotte: 7.83
San Diego: 7.39
New York City 5.82
Cleveland: 5.34
Austin 4.85
Slanted use of selective data mars much of msm ed reporting, especially anything funded by Gates. Broad, et al.
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Mary, that is a good idea.
I think I will create a special section of the Honor Roll for Exemplary Journalism in the Service of Education and Truth.
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A great positive idea. Kudos
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Since you mention Jonathan Chait, it seems appropriate to say here that he has posted tweets and written in various articles that I am deluding the American public by standing up for traditional public schools (which he is certain are failing). One recent Tweet said I was stopping President Obama from directing more money to poor kids. This was very puzzling because I never imagined that I had the power to stop any policy, program, or legislation. Jonathan Chait is still hoping for the return of Rhee and the good old days when Waiting for Superman was the media’s guide to everything about education.
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Does Chait’s wife work for a charter school?
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I don’t know his wife or where she works.
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I wrote an earlier piece at this blog saying flat-out that John Merrow is wrong. This is NOT the “golden age” of education reporting. Far from it.
As evidence, I cited a very recent article in The Atlantic on NAEP scores by Emily Richmond, the public editor of the Education Writers Association, a group singled out for praise by Merrow.
In that article, Richmond tells readers absolutely nothing about the deep flaws in NAEP proficiency standards, but she says they are important because they measure the “skills that experts say Americans must have if they are to compete in a global marketplace. U.S. students typically have middling performance on international assessments gauging math and science ability.”
I doubt it’s hard to miss the direct – and false – implication here.
If we don’t shore up what kids are learning, and do it fast, the good ole US of A is going down the economic sinkhole.
In fact, that’s the claim that was made in A Nation at Risk (1983), the Reagan-era screed, which warned that a “rising tide of mediocrity threatened American economic competitiveness.”
Meanwhile, the World Economic Forum’s most recent competitiveness rankings place the U.S. at #3, up from #7 just four years ago; corporate profits in the U.S. are at record highs and corporate tax dodges and evasions are enormous; the earnings of bottom-rung workers in the U.S. are some of the lowest in the developed world; the poverty rate in the U.S. is the highest in the developed world with “the extent of child poverty even more severe;” and, “among peer countries, the United States’ tax and transfer system does the least to reduce the poverty rate.”
So, here we are, more than three decades later, and top education reporters – the ones Merrow says are good – are making the very same unfounded assertions that “economic competitiveness” is inextricably tied to student test scores.
The late Gerald Bracey wrote a piece in The Washington Post (which was all-in on Michelle Rhee when she was in DC) that condemned the public education fear-mongering. He said this:
“The most recent phony alarm comes from Eli Broad and Bill Gates, who are putting up $60 million hoping to ‘wake up the American people.’ If the fear-mongers can scare you sufficiently (how many times have you heard the phrase ‘failing schools’ in the past five years?), you might permit them to do to your public schools things you would otherwise never allow.”
So what has really changed nearly a decade after Bracey wrote that?
A recent peek at the EWA website turned up a link to an Ed Week piece titled “PARCC’s ‘College-Ready’ Score Reflects Rigor of College Work, Study Finds.” Sigh.
This is the kind of education “reporting” that’s fairly typical. But it’s a horrible, terrible piece. The “study” that’s referenced — which compared the Massachusetts state tests to the PARCC tests and the SAT — did not include a representative sample. The Ed Week article stated that “study offered important comparisons, finding that the MCAS had about the same power as PARCC and the SAT college-admissions exam to predict freshman-year grades.” But naturally, the article did NOT say anything at all about the incredibly poor predictive power of the SAT.
Here’s how the study put it:
“Scores on the assessments explain about 5 to 18 percent of the variation in first-year college grades, depending on the subject. MCAS and PARCC scores are comparable to SAT scores in predicting college outcomes. “
The SAT is NOT a good test. The best predictor of SAT score – by far – is family income. College enrollment specialists say that their research finds the SAT predicts between 3 and 14 percent of freshman-year college grades, and after than that nothing. The owner of a college enrollment consulting company said, “I might as well measure their shoe size.” The head of Princeton Review, a test-prep company, called the SAT “a scam.”
Yet, the clear implication of the “study” reported on by Ed Week is that the PARCC test is as “good” as the SAT. How does nonsense get turned into “good?”
Let’s take another example. In an article at the Education Writers Association website, Eric Robelin, who is the EAW deputy director and has previous stints at Ed Week and ASCD, writes this:
“In 2010, state after state took a remarkable—and unprecedented—step: They adopted common academic standards…With major financial support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation…The standards were crafted by writing teams and feedback panels that included college professors, state curriculum specialists, and K-12 teachers as well as representatives from testing organizations such as the College Board and ACT Inc., and the Washington-based research and advocacy group Achieve.”
There are some truths there: the standards were written, writing teams were involved, and Gates coughed up a lot of money to fund the standards.
There are some huge omissions and distortions and untruths too. There were few classroom teachers involved in the writing of the standards. There were a lot of representatives from the ACT, the College Board (maker of the SAT), and Achieve, Inc. Gates provided funds to encourage the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers to write the standards (Okay, he bought them off. Gates helps to fund Ed Week and the EWA too.). And, as Julian Vasquez Heilig writes, “Achieve’s main donors are corporate foundations and private industry companies including many companies rumored to be contributors to the American Legislative Exchange Council.”
Eric Robelin writes that Achieve is a “research” group? Please.
Achieve, Inc.’s board includes Louis Gertner, who’s bad-mouthed public education for decades. It also includes Tennessee Republican governor Bill Haslam, a pro-life, anti-gay, corporate friendly politician. The board also includes Prudential executive (and former big banker) Mark Grier (Prudential has been fined multiple times for deceptive sales practices and improper trading), and Intel CEO Craig Barrett (who keeps repeating the STEM “crisis” myth). Intel has laid off thousands of workers and is masterful and aggressive at avoiding tax payments and seeking subsidization, much like Boeing, and Microsoft, and GE, and IBM, and Chevron, and AT & T. These are some of the biggest tax cheaters in the country. There’s a reason that Achieve’s main publications never mention democratic citizenship as a mission of public education.
Achieve’s funders include – not surprisingly – Boeing, Intel, GE, IBM, Chevron, Microsoft, Prudential,and State Farm, MetLife and other insurance companies, and the Gates Foundation. Uh huh.
If omission, distortion, inaccuracy and incompetence are now the standards of the “golden age” of education reporting, then we’ve hit the jackpot. We’re there.
Otherwise, we’ve got a very long way to go.
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I thought good journalism was to objectively report the news. Even better journalism was to investigate and expose scandalous behavior.
What we have now is propaganda perpetuated by news media which have been bought and sold by the very people who are committing the acts which should be questioned by any legitimate news agency.
Lies on top of lies until even those involved are confused about the truth.
If you tell me red is blue enough times, I might start questioning my own sense of color.
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