Dear Journalists Covering Education, Let Me Explain
In my Twitter timeline, I saw a post praising a recent New York Times article on graduation rates and the devalued high school diploma. Since I had written a blog criticizing the many (and typical) flaws in the piece, I nudged Stephanie Banchero and Nichole Dobo to reconsider.
Dobo was gracious enough to respond [1], but Twitter really doesn’t afford the space to make my case as well as both the topic and Dobo deserve so I want here to lay out better just exactly why so many of us in education are routinely frustrated with how media cover education.
Let me start by reemphasizing why educators have moved from frustrated to exasperated in terms of media coverage of public education.
In the mid-1800s as public schools became a more compelling option for education in the U.S., Catholic schools initiated scathing attacks on public schools—not for educational, but for market reasons.
The history of vilifying public education in the U.S. has replicated that pattern until today—although the negative drumbeat has intensified significantly over the past three decades of high-stakes accountability (which is mostly a political, not an educational, venture).
Therefore, most political and media commentary on public education is misguided. Yes, most.
The problem for educators is not that public education is without flaws and is being unfairly Dear Journalists Covering Education, Let Me Explain | the becoming radical:
