Ho-hum. It was the usual one-two punch in the Globe today.
James Vaznis reported on the Boston superintendent’s announcement that 12 ‘underperforming” Boston school will be shaken-up. Boston superintendent Carol Johnson announced that five principals will be replaced and the staff at six of the schools at the schools will be forced to reapply for their jobs.
http://www.boston.com/news/edu…
Mr. Vaznis asked everyone for a comment (well, almost everyone). Ms. Johnson has a quotation. The Governor expresses his concerns. Mayor Menino gets his say-so. A superintendent voices his fond hope for some of that RTT money. Even union president Richard Stutman gets a word in.
Once again, not a single, solitary teacher-only the group most effected by this shake-up-is asked for a comment or thought. To do so might give the impression, mirabile dictu, that they can actually think. How do they feel about having to reapply for their jobs, mostly in the absence of any evaluations? What is their response when the Boston superintendent says teachers are going to have to “recommit themselves”? One would think these are natural questions for a reporter to ask.
By not asking them and having only Mr. Stutman respond, Mr. Vaznis reinforces the perception that the world of education can be best explained via the “determined reformer/selfish union” dichotomy. This is the prescription lens being ground for us and placed before our eyes. The reader walks away without any sense of how the people in the trenches (including the fired principals) feel about this action or how they explain the students’ low performance. This is a great example of how journalism can be deficient despite the absence of any reportorial error. It’s all about omission. The mental world of the Globe is populated only by those who occupy high positions of responsibility. Important people. Like them.
Question: if a significant number of reporters at the Globe were going to reassigned or let go because of poor performance, would the reporter covering that story think to ask any of them for their thoughts? You would kind of think so.
A related editorial is the right-cross that is supposed to send us to the canvas. In a piece entitled, “Menino’s Circle of Change,” the Globe editors help us reach the correct conclusion about the Boston school shake-up, just in case the story didn’t do the job. In a tone dripping with the usual condescension-honestly, I would treat my dog with more respect-the editors announce they are beginning to see evidence that Menino just might have a vision for his fifth term. The evidence is the shake-up and the mayor’s willingness to deliver on another Globe passion: more charter schools for Boston. Mayor Menino must be feeling terrific to have earned that pat on the head. Nothing like a doggy treat in the morning to get the day off to a great start.
http://www.boston.com/bostongl…
I want to end with an incisive reader comment in Globe today. The reader suggests that Superintendent Johnson lead by example and go into one of those “Scarlet F” schools and show the teachers how it is done. Great idea.
ps: By the way, is Larry Harmon still writing those nameless/faceless/Voice of God omnipotent education editorials? Please note he has also now been given op ed real estate to write on other issues. But, sigh, there is still no room for critics at the inn! Actually there is less room them ever, because Globe staff have so much to express.
OK, class let’s compare and contrast the way things are happening and are covered in Boston with what went down in Worcester as reported in the Worcester Telegram. In Worcester, which still has an elected school board, members are questioning whether it’s worth getting tangled up in the strings attached to federal turnaround $$:
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p>Tracy is a longtime member of the Coalition for Authentic Reform in Education (CARE), now merged with Citizens for Public Schools, who has brought her independent thinking to the Worcester School Committee and is making waves.
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p>Shout out to Tracy and other activists making waves out there beyond the Globe’s cone of silence.
Kudos to Tracy Novick, Mary Mullaney, and Joe O’Brien!
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p>Tracy also mentioned that Arne Duncan’s scorched earth policy of firing principals and teachers and closing schools and replacing them with charter schools hasn’t turned things around at all in Chicago.
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p>I hope that when the Worcester School Committee meets in a few weeks, that they’ll get one more vote and reject the Turnaround $$$!
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Only a Boston Globe writer desperate to slag education would seriously headline an article with the words “Menino” and “change” in the same line.
The omissions I noticed first were the voices of parents whose kids had attended those schools over the past few years.
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p>If the journalist was limited to adding one more quote, and you were his editor, would you tell him to get a parent/kid quote or a teacher quote?
Actually I would tell him to get both. Why one or the other? What’s the big dilemma? We aren’t dealing with a ticking bomb scenario here. I think there is plenty of room. I’ve seen quotations in stories (somewhere) about Central Falls, in which the parents and kids were quoted and they have been quite supportive of their teachers. You don’t always get what you think you are going to get. I am all for a fuller story regardless. But you do have to get a sampling and not just cherry pick.
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p>I think parents and teachers have been cut out for some the same reasons. They aren’t worthy or important enough. Teachers are cut out for other reasons too.
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p>Here’s the main deal: occasionally reporters have to actually put down the phones and visit the news scene. That would be helpful. The Globe might even discover the phenomenon of multiple perspectives.
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p>What I’d like to see is extended coverage in the online edition.
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p>2. I’d offer at least a different perspective on the Globe’s reporting of K-12. As a charter school person, our school was on the receiving end of a very critical story that (naturally) I felt was wildly distorted.
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p>3. In the meantime, before we cast too many stones at the reporters, we should consider our own little world on BMG….
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p>As you know, almost none of the commenters are self identified black and Hispanic single moms who comprise most of the parents in high-poverty schools.
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p>Many commenters, like me and you, are current or former school employees.
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p>I realize it’s probably not at all plausible for the editors to “recruit” diverse perspectives. But like you say, there’s something to be said for multiple perspectives….
Any newspaper can blow a story, s they did with your charter apparently. In my original comment I was referring to a pattern extending over 17 years of excluding teachers from news stories, to say nothing of the reform process itself. I don’t believe there was a space crisis for all those years, with all those stories.
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p>Charters have faired much better in the Globe. Very much better. (When is the last time you read about a great public school?) I celebrate all good schools–charters included–let a hundred flowers bloom, as long as the funding formula doesn’t injure public schools. Admittedly, I don’t like the anti-union policies, because I know from personal experience that you can have a progressive union contract. Much depends on how a school is run.
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p>I don’t think it can be fairly asserted that Globe coverage –news and opinion–
has not followed the paper’s educational policy preferences. The pattern is what it is, and it is undeniable.
They point to “failures” of schools and immediately blame the teachers. They never point out that for thirty years, since Prop. 2 1/2 passed in 1980, school budgets have endured one cut after another. It is this chronic underfunding of education that is responsible for the failures. Charter schools, which the Globe has been relentlessly pushing, do no better than public schools with comparable students. Yet the Globe consistently ignores this inconvenient fact. It reminds me of their war on rent control some years ago – article after article about some “rich” person living in a rent controlled apartment. This led to the repeal of rent control, and the consequent worsening of the affordable housing market that has hurt so many people.