Memo to YOUR Local Paper About Education

The Free Library ^ | Nov. 14, 2009 | Bruce Deitrick Price

[BruceDeitrickPrice]

(Summary: Parents need help defending their children against the ideology and incompetence so common in public schools. But US newspapers hardly bother to explain education to their readers. When kids aren't learning, you can bet there is a scandal to investigate. Where's investigative journalism when we need it?)

The big question: "When are you people going to start covering education?"

My local newspaper hardly seems aware that there is this very exciting, controversial and dramatic topic crying out for smart, helpful coverage. I bet it''s the same way in most American cities. How about yours??

Every education story in my local paper seems to be a repeat of the one before: reading scores up or down; math scores down or up, principal fired or hired. The stories contain little substance.

If you read through the things, you still have no idea why any of these events took place. In particular, why are scores up or down? What does it mean when the paper says 70% of eighth-graders are "functioning at grade-level." What can they do? What do they know? How about the other 30%? And why aren't we told the names of the curricula used?

I've been keeping tabs on my local paper for a dozen years. Here are some stories I've NEVER seen mentioned:

[BruceDeitrickPrice]

What this story is really about: how do people wake up their local media and make them fulfill their responsibility to the public??

[jimpick]

“Why are Dolch Words and Sight Words still used even though the Education Establishment itself has stated that phonics is essential?”

This is why we home school my kids. My son was falling behind in reading till we brought him home and taught him phonics.

Public school is joke. What a waste of money.