Instapundit links to Eduwonk's list of five education stories that are important, yet under-reported. I agree with most of them.
For your consideration, here are five education stories not getting the attention they should right now, each one has implications that could mean a major political or policy pivot in coming years:
*The increasing support for vouchers among African-Americans, now a solid majority overall and even more among younger blacks and families.
This one, I do agree, is important yet under-reported, and I'll say more about it below.
*How President Bush's mishandling of NCLB has created a mess for his signature education law, alienated even supporters, and potentially hamstrung some school improvement efforts.
Eduwonk thinks the idea that people are unhappy with NCLB is under-reported? Eduwonk is kidding, right? Virtually every day newspapers spill over with stories of teachers bitching about tests, educators bitching about NCLB-required bean counting, researchers insisting that tests cause kids to drop out, activists insisting that not all students should be held to the same standards, etc. The mass media lovingly catalogue every gripe, kvetch, and whine about NCLB and its related standards, tests, rules, regulations, and so forth.
What are under-reported are the instances in which NCLB seems to be working, and all the changes that have been made to the act in response to these complaints. The mass media have been very slow to acknowledge areas in which NCLB-related reforms appear to have had positive effects. Luckily, blogs like mine are helping pick up the slack.
*How important and significant it is that the entire Democratic ticket for president champions differential pay for teachers.
I think it's very important and significant that both Kerry and Edwards support differential pay. But Kerry also opposes vouchers- you know, the vouchers that African Americans tend to support, as Eduwonk notes?
There is debate, true, over whether urban America really supports vouchers, or whether vouchers are effective. But what gets relatively little coverage (other than on The West Wing!) is that, despite the fact that African Americans overwhelmingly vote Democrat, the Democratic platform is often at odds with the education-related choices that African Americans would make for themselves.
*The achievement gap. In personal terms it's catastrophic, in demographic ones if it's not the nation's top social policy challenge it's right up there.
Again, while this is incredibly important, how on earth is this under-reported? We hear about this all the time. I wonder if what Eduwonk means is that, while the test score gap is always big news, the fact that the test score gap represents a very real underlying achievement gap is often ignored, or even treated dishonestly (e.g., the notion that score gaps represent only bias on the part of test developers is taken for granted by many reporters).
*The teachers' union led referendum in Washington State to overturn the charter law there. Huge consequences for charters if this succeeds.
There's a simple solution to this. Put Stefan Sharkansky in charge of press releases and news reports from Washington State. Any news about charter schools up there won't remain under-reported for long.
Eduwonk titillates us with a couple more hush-hush stories:
Two More Bonus Freebies! (A) Why No Child Left Behind is going to be a boon to efforts to make state school finance systems more equitable for poor kids and (B) The NEA’s membership woes and what that potentially means for the organization down the road.
(A) Yes, I agree it will be a boon, and (B) Yes, I'd love to read more about that, but that kind of news will get heavy coverage on the same day that the NYT runs a story about how much NYC's third-graders just loooove their reading tests. I.e., never.
Posted by kswygert at July 9, 2004 04:09 PM