Part I: Anecdotal Evidence Piles Up, but Sunlight Disinfects!

January 03, 2006

We recently had a positive email exchange with Mark Manley, who writes Thespis Journal, and among other things is a public high school teacher in Xenia, Ohio. Mr. Manley inspired our article last week about how there's no war on public education, just battles waged against incompetence and problematic areas within public education. He feels there should be more balance in news coverage of public schools, whereby good news is reported in addition to the negative.

We agree that positive news coverage is a plus, but we disagree that the folks who publicize negative stories are simply out to bash public schools and public school teachers. After all, we've been teaching in public schools for over a decade, and we publish these same stories ourselves!

Our philosophy is pretty simple: sunlight is the best disinfectant.

If a local public school has 29 excellent teachers and one incompetent teacher, you bet we'd want that one teacher publicized! After all, he's dragging the school--and his students--down.

But if he's incompetent, why hasn't he been fired yet? Is the principal ineffective? Are the principal's hands tied by bureaucratic red tape? Is this teacher buddies with administration? Is he being protected by the teacher union? Does he have friends on the school board? All of these are ripe avenues for stories, if true.

If none are true, then it's a non-story because the guy was fired long ago, as soon as the principal learned the truth (probably by simply observing his classroom). Remember, if school administrators are doing their job right, incompetent teachers are identified within the first month of being hired, and can be dealt with quickly, with little damage to students.

Meanwhile the other 29 teachers are doing their job, which is to teach kids. They might not be recognized in the press, but they get recognition every day in class. Any teacher worth her salt gets a boost from the simple act of teaching (not a simple act, really). In effective schools, teachers get recognition by administrators and colleagues, to be sure, but the most important recognition of a job well done is internal.

It is folly to look externally for recognition, as Shakespeare wrote: "The good [that men do] is oft interred with their bones." We'd suggest that anyone going into teaching looking to get a self-esteem boost from public recognition try elsewhere!

Returning to our 30-teacher school, if indeed there are 29 effective teachers at that school we have no fear that this school will suffer any ill effects from a news story on the one bad seed. And chances are good that "the people" already know about the good happening at this school, after all, a school that size probably has over 500 students, and these students have parents. The school might not be on the daily news, but believe us, the people who matter know about the good.

Show us a truly effective school, and we'll show you a light with no bushel.

Mr. Manley writes:

Michelle Malkin, Neil Boortz, and others known to endlessly bash public education without regard for the random nature of their evidence, never acknowledge or report the multi-layered success stories that surround many public schools and their students and teachers.

While some take offense to the lack of balance in criticisms offered by folks like Neil Boortz (who roundly slams "government schools") and Michelle Malkin (ditto with public schools), but they serve a very important function: they supply sunlight! Sure, they get a bit opinionated, with ample use of hyperbole (e.g. Boortz has suggested that graffiti vandals have a hand chopped off) but don't look to them to be a booster of already-successful public schools (who should be boosting themselves).

Should there be balance in the news coverage of public education? Well it depends on what is meant by balance, as illustrated by the following examples using politics and crime.

In the political landscape of the United States, if recent presidential elections are any indication, the country can be described as being roughly half liberal and half conservative. News stories covering any of a number of "hot button" issues can either be given straight (just the facts, ma'am) or spun left or right. Media critics say that the New York Times spins the news left, while other critics say Fox News spins stories right. Balance is a concern because of the left-right demographics of the United States.

But take another topic handled by the news, for example violent crime. Last year the FBI called Detroit the most violent city in America, with 18,724 violent crimes reported in 2003. But even if every one of these crimes was committed by a different criminal (not terribly likely) that still would mean that 98% of Detroit residents committed no crime! But calls for "balance" in reporting would be silly, the news wouldn't be able to print 49 positive law-abiding stories for every single violent-crime story.

Of course there has frequently been the lament "if it bleeds, it leads" when discussing the nightly news' coverage. Yes, it's great when the news covers positive human-interest stories, but we'd certainly not want them to stop covering issues like violent crime.

This brings us back to the news coverage of public schools. Is it unbalanced? Yes, it does print more negatives than positives. Does this mean there are more negatives than positives? No.

So it seems the real different of opinion is on what is the implication of the negative coverage of public schools. We take the position that the negative stories supply valuable disinfecting sunlight. We disagree wholeheartedly that negative stories (such as the one about Bret Chenkin's use of overt liberal statements in class) indicate a desire on anyone's part to destroy public schools.

The sweeping view of Ms. Malkin and others within the conservative movement of associating Mr. Chenkin’s demeanor with the overall character of public education and public educators (commonly known to Neil Boortz and others as government schools) is fatally flawed.

We disagree that gross generalizations are taking place. Malkin and Boortz call it like they see it (plus a little hyperbole), but it doesn't seem like there are any generalizations to all public schools or all public school teachers. Again, we've been teaching in public schools for years and we've never taken offense at these stories of public school follies. In fact we prefer that these jokers (like Chenkin) have the spotlight shone on them, for maybe they'll learn to mind themselves. They make the rest of us look bad!

There is an abject and on-going failure of any media sources, including and especially the blogosphere, to report and magnify the great accomplishments of public education in the same tabloid manner in which the media creates sensational outbursts and false cries about isolated errors in judgment and professionalism among public school employees.

Again, we like positive news stories about education in America (see our Success Stories archives for a few nuggets), but "magnifying the great accomplishments of public education in a tabloid manner" sounds a bit like propaganda to us. It isn't a good idea to be on the wrong side of the slogan "don't believe the hype" for most people don't. We'd much prefer a successful school operating silently than a just-okay school with much horn-tooting.

We seriously disagree with Mr. Manley's suggestion that the "media creates sensational outbursts and false cries about isolated errors" for three reasons:

• The media hasn't created anything, if anything public school failure is grossly underreported in the press (from our personal perspective).
• The cries aren't false. Our kids, especially our poorest minority children, are getting a sub-standard education in far too many public schools, and yet the system keeps going on as if nothing was wrong.
• Errors in judgement aren't isolated, at least not where we teach.

Just one anecdote about one high school which draws kids from all over Philadelphia: the incoming ninth graders have a mean grade-equivalent score of 6.4, which means that on average, they're over two years behind. That's worth a percentile rank of four. In other words, 95% of ninth grade classes nationwide outscore this class. This isn't a school which receives students from a "feeder" school, it takes kids from all over the city.

If the average level of achievement is so low (some of these 9th graders scoring at the 3rd and 4th grade level), then we're not talking about isolated problems or sensational media fantasies. We're talking about kids routinely getting shafted.

Most voices in the conservative movement, including most of the bloggers, randomly attack the public schools without specific information, and without engaging in a credible discussion about the largely successful suburban and rural public schools across the nation.

You'll get little argument from us that suburban and rural public schools are largely successful (although we will argue that the Progressive movement has lowered standards across the board). This doesn't change the fact that injustice needs to be broadcast (or podcast) from rooftops and laptops. But we definitely disagree that critics of public schools do so without specific information. There's nothing random about the criticisms. If you were to be an observer for a day in any of the big-city schools where we've taught, you'd weep.

Mr. Manley made a number of other points which we'd like to address. We'll tackle them in our next article.