Erica Green of the New York Times wrote to ask me to delete the post saying that the New York Times was wrong in reporting that the CDC recommends that schools close for eight weeks.
She asked me to delete my post. My posts includes links to the CDC guidance. I recommend that everyone read the CDC guidance.
She wrote me personally defending her story, and included an email to a reader as follows:
I am responding to your email about my story that includes the CDC guidance on school closures to address COVID-19. Thank you for writing.
Ms. Ravitch’s assessment my story was incorrect is flat-out wrong. I will be writing to demand she correct or delete her defamatory blog post.
The CDC guidance linked here very clearly states:
It states (top of page 3): “Closing schools early in the spread of disease for a short time (e.g., 2 weeks) will be unlikely to stem the spread of disease or prevent impact on the health care system, while causing significant disruption for families, schools, and those who may be responding to COVID-19 outbreaks in health care settings. It may also increase impact on older adults who care for grandchildren. Waiting to enact school closures until at the correct time in the epidemic (e.g., later in the spread of disease) combined with other social distancing interventions allows for optimal impact despite disruption.”
However, in the case of 8-20 weeks, (page 5) it says: “Modeling data for other respiratory infections where children have higher disease impacts, suggests that longer closures may have greater impact in terms of overall transmission.Provides substantial protection for older staff and students and staff with underlying medical conditions.”
She is correct that the guidance in nuanced in that it presents a variety of scenarios for schools to weigh. But our job is to capture what school leaders and the public needs to know, and these were the two most crucial pieces of information given what was transpiring across the country (mostly 2-4 week closures): short-term doesn’t work, and long-term might work, with transmission. Of course, there are downsides and cautions in all situations, which I outline later in the story.
I do not know if CDC was pressured to do anything, except release some guidance to help schools decide what may be the most effective way to slow down the transmission of the virus. That’s what we reported. And it was accurate. This has also been reported in education outlets, and national outlets.
Hope that helps.
Best,
Erica
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Even if you were wrong, Diane, it wouldn’t be defamatory — newspapers (including the NYT) get stuff wrong all the time, every day, all day long (I know this as a newsroom veteran), and an error isn’t “defamatory.”
Ms. Green needs to behave more professionally. And no, that’s not defamatory.
Off topic but concerns school closings:
Governor cancels Illinois schools statewide until March 30 to slow the spread of coronavirus
Gov. J.B. Pritzker ordered all Illinois schools closed by Tuesday, sending parents scrambling to make alternative arrangements for the roughly 2 million children affected by the state’s latest attempt to slow the coronavirus.
The order — which also includes private and charter schools — will be in effect until at least March 30…
https://www.chicagotribune.com/coronavirus/ct-coronavirus-chicago-illinois-school-closings-20200313-day6c3ez3vb7thpqhptuayuwh4-story.html
I cannot read the NYT, so I don’t know exactly what she said, but if she boiled down the CDC advice as to close for 8+ weeks, then she needs to claim it as her own interpretation and NOT the CDC recommendation. Events around the world where countries are taking drastic measures to stop the spread of CO-VID19 appear (my interpretation) to have influenced her writing. If so, she should have acknowledged that fact. My home state, Illinois, has closed all schools and my local public institutions are shut to the public. So far, no cases have been identified in my community. Perhaps the CDC will be revising their recommendations in the near future, but the recommendations they made were apparently not covered in a nuanced fashion. NYT’s assessment may prove to be prudent, but based on the CDC information could be considered a bit over the top. Her huffy demand that you remove your post strikes me as fake outrage to cover her own less than complete reporting.
That’s quite a bit more emotion than we need from the press at this time. Let cooler heads prevail. I’d like to refer everyone to another of Diane’s posts. This one is very important right now: https://dianeravitch.net/2015/12/24/true-facts-about-the-dung-beetle/
The Times they are a changin
“Defamation” is the claim
When reporter’s put to shame
NY Times is never wrong
That’s the gist, the short and long
Thank you, Diane, for doing your best to keep people informed in this challenging time.
It’s pretty pathetic that so called “journalists” * are calling it “defamation” (with a legal suit to follow if Diane does not do what is demanded?) if the public challenges them on a story.
What kind of “journalist”* does that?
*Did I just defame “journalist” Erica Green (thrice)?
They just closed all Erie County Schools as well as those in nearby counties of Western New York State even though we only have a few identified cases, none hospitalized. Looks like as grandparents we will be child care providers.
Everyone, stay safe.
Chicago was suggesting that parents not rely on grandparents for childcare since us oldsters are high risk, and kids can have such a mild case that they don’t even know it. There are no easy answers.
Actually the Buffalo Public Schools are working out a plan to provide laptops for the students with the city along with the local cable company is creating hotspots for the Internet. They will use the Community Centers and other locations to provide 45,000 meals (both breakfast and lunch) daily for the students from public, parochial, Private, and charter schools. They are also trying to set up child care at these locations, including some of the churches, for parents who must go to work. The school buses will be available for transportation. Details are being worked out for a comprehensive program.
My grandson, who goes to a suburban school, will participate in distance learning (he’s six) but he’ll still be with his grandfather some of the time since his mom is a health care provider and his dad works at a supply house needed to unload the necessary items to stock the shelves.
That’s the new logistics. (Subject to change at any moment).
Actually the Buffalo Public Schools are working out a plan to provide laptops for the students with the city along with the local cable company is creating hotspots for the Internet. They will use the Community Centers and other locations to provide 45,000 meals (both breakfast and lunch) daily for the students from public, parochial, Private, and charter schools. They are also trying to set up child care at these locations, including some of the churches, for parents who must go to work. The school buses will be available for transportation. Details are being worked out for a comprehensive program.
My grandson, who goes to a suburban school, will participate in distance learning (he’s six) but he’ll still be with his grandfather some of the time since his mom is a health care provider and his dad works at a supply house needed to unload the necessary items to stock the shelves.
That’s the new logistics. (Subject to change at any moment).
Chicago schools will be providing meals for all children on program. Families will be able to pick up three days of food for each child out of school from distribution centers at the schools. The park district is running special programming designed to minimize close contact, so they are making contingency plans.
It’s heartwarming that our local politicians/school administrators are on top of things.
and so often it feels as if calls from those with privilege arguing that they should be made perfectly safe will happen by nonchalantly sacrificing the poorer classes: so many people who have little will now have nothing. As we have loud calls for closing schools, for example, the attendant line offering a guaranteed income and a rent/mortgage hiatus to parents who will have to now stay home with children is generally missing.
All I know is that someone has to watch my grandson while his mother does her job at Roswell Research and Cancer Center. Her department is going to ten hour days so she can have an extra day off each week.
If I had a grandchild living nearby whose parent was in a critical job, you can bet I would be taking care of her/him. My granddaughters are scattered across the country in Skypeland. We are on lockdown/shelter in place in Illinois now, so things are getting very quiet. Stay safe, everyone.
I want to Costco yesterday to shop. I passed by a long line of people at a side door. I parked, walked up to the entrance and saw a note that said to go around to the tire door entrance.
I joined that long line. Eventually I picked up a cart and walked inside the building…still following the line of people. A woman was there with a large roll of some type of handi-wipe and was giving them out. We were to wipe down our own cart. A sign notified us that Costco was out of toilet paper, handi-wipes and hand purifiers.
The store is allowing only 300 people inside the store at one time. A lady with a counter was clicking off each person as we entered. As 25 leave, 25 can enter.
A man outside with a blow horn notified the outside line that the store would be open on Tues. and Thurs. at 6:AM for only senior citizens 60 and over.
I cried at what our country has come to.
Later I shopped at Meijers and found food in the frozen section was mainly gone. There were shelves at Whole Foods missing products.
I saw a map of the world and the US was deep red along with most of Europe, including Italy and Iran.
Now Trump is being advised to declare a national lockdown.
WHAT HAS OUR COUNTRY COME TO? China and S. Korea have numbers that are going down while our Orange Moron wasted valuable time reassuring us that it was all a Democratic hoax and that because of his incredibly fast thinking the numbers were low. I believe the numbers should be at zero by now.
I am debating whether I can handle the blather that comes out of T’s mouth at his news conference later this morning. How can this man not hear how idiotic he sounds?
speduktr: Trump no longer can hold ego rallies so giving ego ‘press conferences’ is now his way to feel important.
Look at how badly he handled an intelligent question yesterday about what would Trump say to a country that is worried. Trump can only think of ‘nasty question’. Bet that reporter is barred from coming to any more ‘press conferences’.
Ironic that Erica Green is very upset that Diane Ravitch’s post was not more nuanced about her story that was not more nuanced!
If Erica Green really wants to make that the standard for “defamation”, then I suggest that when she and Eliza Shapiro keep repeating charter advocacy group’s claims about the number of students desperate to get into charters with absolutely no nuance, it is a defamation of all public schools and their parents.
By Erica Green’s and Eliza Shapiro’s “defamatory” standards, every year there are more 8th graders on “wait lists” for NYC public high schools than there are 8th graders, period. Because every 8th grader who “applies” to a high school (i.e. ranks that high school somewhere on the list, along with charter schools) and does not immediately get a seat would be (using charter standards) on the “wait list” since whether they are in a school they prefer is irrelevant. But they only report charter school waitlists using that standard to give readers a picture of charter school demand that is certainly NOT nuanced at all.
Now suddenly those reporters demand nuance? There is a serious lack of nuance when Erica Green and Eliza Shapiro write stories in which they imply that it is absolutely impossible for a charter network that teaches a very small percentage of the African-American and Latinx students in NYC public schools who do well on state tests to cherry pick students.
There is a lack of nuance when those two reporters ignore the 35% – 37% of African-American and Latinx students in public schools who are doing well despite having only a fraction of the resources a rich charter has. Those reporters write endless stories that (intentionally, I assume) leave out the nuance that in NYC public schools, 35% to 37% of the African-American and Latinx students are proficient on state tests and that percentage goes up to 45% of those students who do not have disabilities!
And yet when those reporters write endless stories dutifully reporting about the “miracle” that a charter network teaching a very small percentage of the proficient students in NYC and getting 99% proficiency rates of state tests, there is no nuance or context at all. Instead, most readers who don’t know how large the public school system in NYC is are left believing that it is absolutely impossible for a charter school famous for suspending huge numbers of African-American kindergarten and first graders – and defending it as necessary because of their violent actions — to cherry pick because those reporters absolutely refuse to include the nuance of the many tens of thousands of students in public schools who do well in a public school system who are there to be cherry picked!
Because of Eliza Shapiro and Erica Green’s lack of nuance, anyone reading their articles would assume that the only African-American students in all of NYC who are academically proficient are in charter schools and it is those charters who are entirely responsible for the academic success of those students! Because the lack of nuance in their stories make readers believe that all of those students that charters don’t drum out would be abject failures in their public schools, because the lack of nuance in their stories certainly doesn’t mention how many academically successful students are in public schools for those charters to cherry pick from. Imagine a huge public school system where 45% of the African-American and Latinx students with no disabilities are proficient on state tests. Now imagine education reporters ignoring those 45% of students without disabilities who do well, and instead only writing stories about the “miracle’ of a charter network that teaches a tiny percentage of those students.
That’s real lack of nuance. Leaving out every fact that would put a 99% passing rate for a charter that teaches fewer than 2% of the students in a large public school system into context and instead presenting those 99% passing rates as a miracle of superb teaching of students who would otherwise be failures.
I wish Erica Green would start reporting on charters with a lot more nuance than she has ever showed any interest in doing.
“Defamatory,” lol