How Sloppy Education Reporting Is Slowly Killing Our Schools
Be afraid, be very afraid, any time you see a reporter in the business media turn his or her attention to education and public schools. What will likely follow is a string of truisms used to prop up a specious argument, steeped in biased notions that were themselves picked up from ill-informed conversations promoted by other clueless business news outlets.
All of this chatter would be something best to ignore were it not for the fact that reporters and pundits from these outlets are often raised to prominence, labeled as "experts," and lionized by political leaders and policy makers, while real authorities on education are overlooked or completely drowned out in the babble.
Exhibit A in the case against bad reporting on education is in the Feb. 14, 2015 issue of the Economist. An article titled "Pro Choice" highlights efforts to create new school voucher programs in many states and allow parents to take money meant for public education and use those tax payer dollars to enroll their children in schools of their choice, including private schools and charter schools.
This topic has been the subject of countless research studies and is a matter of ongoing examination by numerous authorities. Yet the writer barely skims the research and consults with a bare minimum of real experts on education policy.
Had the Economist made the effort to consult some real research and talk to bona fide experts, what they would have learned is there are some very big problems posed by school vouchers, and there are much better alternatives to improving schools.
It's important to call out this article and others like it, not only because it's an example of feckless journalism, but also because it exemplifies an all too common pattern when low-information reporters tackle stories about education.
When Education 'Experts' Aren't
At liberal-leaning watchdog group Media Matters for America,Hilary Toneclosely follows how journalists in major media outlets report on education. She unearths some startling revelations. One such discovery revealed that whenever cable news outlets such as CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC feature programming devoted to education, those segments hardly ever feature real educators.
Over all cable news channels, only 9 percent of guests in education segments were educators. This would be like CNBC reporting on the stock market and hardly ever consulting with experts on finance and investing or the CEOs of publically traded companies.
Print and online news outlets aren't much better. Tone recently came across a How Sloppy Education Reporting Is Slowly Killing Our Schools | Alternet: