The New York Times has taken a serious question–What are the best ways to improve public schools?–and turned it into a superficial parlor game–while dressing it up to make it appear to be a serious effort. In a September 28th article headlined “30 Ideas for Fixing U.S. Schools, Ranked by Experts,“ The Times breathlessly reveals two astonishing discoveries: 1) Some ideas cost more than others, and 2) some are more effective than others. Gee, who would ever have thought…..
Then they mash the two points of analysis, cost and effectiveness, and identify the best changes as 1) small group tutoring, 2) adopting what’s known as ‘The Science of Reading,’ 3) universal pre-kindergarten, and 4) more money.
How they got to this conclusion is interesting–and, in my view, indefensible. They asked an unpublished number of academics to participate, and 36 University Professors and one Research Fellow at a California Public Policy Institute signed on. Those 37 were then asked to rate, on the basis of cost and effectiveness, 30 different policies and practices that might change education.
Did they even ask any teachers or school board members? There aren’t any on the list, so it’s fair to assume that the reporters didn’t go down that road.
Just suppose for a minute that The Times was doing a similar article about ways to improve public transportation? Would all their experts have been academics, or would they have asked the men and women who run bus and subway systems in a few cities to weigh in? Maybe ask a few of the people who once led systems but are now retired? Ask a few transportation advocacy groups, like the Straphangers Campaign in New York City, the T Riders Union in Boston, Circulate San Diego?
As the lawyers say, ‘Asked and answered.’
What if The Times had taken on medical care? Would they have only asked academics? Of course not, but, hey, it’s just public education, so who cares!
The next sign of disrespect is their list of 30 strategies, which they say they got by asking around and by reading Democratic and Republican political proposals.
Dollars to doughnuts, Google was heavily involved.
Some public schools are doing really interesting things, such as gender-specific classes in academic subjects like English and math, or multiple but short recess breaks for elementary school children, or project-based learning that involves the local communities, but you wouldn’t know that from The Times’s reporting.
And then they write, somewhat disingenuously, “We see our survey not as a scientific poll, but as a useful measure of how experts steeped in the research view these ideas,” which is reporter-speak for “You don’t have to take any of this seriously.”
Just imagine how the 37 academics might have responded if two doctoral students had presented this proposal: “First we will cobble together the most talked-about changes in schools. Then we will ask a lot of experts for their opinions (but no teachers, school board members, or politicians). Next, we will put our findings on a spreadsheet and publish it somewhere. Finally, we will submit it for our PhD thesis.”
The professors I know would have sent the students packing.
Apparently, the editors of the New York Times said, “Cool, go for it.”
John, thanks for this. I’m glad someone put together a thoughtful response to the NYTimes piece. Totally agree that asking only academics misses the mark significantly. And even the ones they asked seem not to have read the research around the impact of family, friends, community, school culture, time in school, race. The Coleman Report all those years ago gave too little credit to the school’s impact but made clear what happens outside the school’s walls is deeply influential. I was a little surprised that money, as something distinct from what it buys, was one of the four top categories. I know all too well the impact of having too little money, but it was not the money itself; it was what it could buy that makes a difference. There are certainly lots of examples of having money that is ineffectual. The Times piece also fell into the time honored trap of seeking the proverbial silver bullet. The idea of the system is missing. And where is accountability, not mindlessly focused on test scores, averages or students as the only folks to be held accountable, but including things like attendance, punitive discipline, teacher and parent perspectives with the school as the unit of consideration but the focus on district, even state, leadership in the sense that teachers and kids ought not to be held “accountable” if they don’t have the necessary supports to succeed. Anyway, thanks, I hope, for contributing to a different perspective on the conversation.
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[…] I’ve been thinking a lot about that recently. So has The New York Times, which recently ran a story in which 37 experts rated 30 possible changes. The Times’ roster of experts does not include a single classroom teacher, an oversight that’s hard to explain. Nor did the newspaper ask any education reporters for their judgments (an oversight that upsets me, even though it may not bother you). I wrote about this recently on my blog, here and here. […]
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