Last week, I attended the Education Writers Association National Seminar in San Francisco. Journalists from across the country took part, representing publications large and small. Edu-bloggers and online reporters were there as well, in bigger numbers than ever before.
The networking was great, as was the company. It’s refreshing to be surrounded by grizzled skeptics. There are no sacred cows as far as this crowd is concerned.
Two themes emerged that I found especially interesting. One was a growing impatience among journalists with today’s self-styled reformers. A number of veteran education writers said this group’s certainty about the correctness of its positions borders on the arrogant and hubristic.
The other oft-repeated theme was disgust with “the polarized education conversation” (there was even a session by that name) and the media’s role in exacerbating that polarization.
First, the journalists’ view of reformers. For some conference participants, an appearance by filmmaker Davis Guggenheim epitomized the reformers’ smugness. Guggenheim, who directed “An Inconvenient Truth,” has a new documentary film coming out in October, focused on education reform. “Waiting for Superman” is being awaited with breathless anticipation by the reform crowd.
Guggenheim showed about 20 minutes worth of clips from the film. It’s beautifully made, and delivers a powerful message about how the latest generation of change agents (Geoffrey Canada, KIPP’s Dave Levin and Mike Feinberg, Harlem Success Academy founder Eva Moskowitz) are transforming education despite stiff resistance from entrenched interests.
I believe in much of that message, up to a point. But “Waiting for Superman” is the third new or soon-to-be-released movie focused on this theme I’ve been exposed to in the past few weeks. The other two are “The Lottery,” centered on Moskowitz’s Harlem campuses, and “The Cartel,” a film that cheerleads for charters and vouchers and paints an annoyingly shallow, black-and-white portrait of “reformers” versus unions and recalcitrant bureaucrats.
Taken in the aggregate, these films are effective propaganda. But even though I agree with much of their advocacy, they leave me feeling used and manipulated rather than informed. They present a simplistic view of challenges facing public education. They may effectively advocate for the “reformer” position, but in the end they fail to elevate or advance the debate.
During the Q&A session, I asked Guggenheim why he thinks so many school reform documentaries are being made now. He replied that more people are recognizing this is a “break the sound barrier” moment. In “Waiting for Superman,” there’s a scene about uber-pilot Chuck Yeager breaking the sound barrier when most people thought it could not be done. Cutting-edge reformers like Canada and the KIPPsters are playing a similar role in transforming public education against seemingly hopeless odds, the film asserts.
Guggenheim said that when his film comes out this fall, a campaign to push for large-scale reform will accompany it. This campaign will build on lessons learned from the reaction to “An Inconvenient Truth.” Film can prompt effective, broad-based campaigns for change, he said.
Guggenheim is an engaging guy. I enjoyed listening to him. Afterwards, though, chatting with other journalists over beer, I heard a lot of grumbling—and I found myself agreeing with much of it.
“He’s so sure he’s right.” “He’s like all these foundation types and hedge fund guys who think they’ve found the answer and anyone who doesn’t see it their way is an idiot and a Neanderthal.” “Nice message, but when will these people admit that the jury is still out on the sustainability and replicability of the KIPPs and the Harlem Children’s Zones of the world?” “It’s just not that black-and-white.”
This wasn’t an expression of hostility toward the reform camp, but rather journalists’ frustration over the intractable and increasingly ugly nature of current disputes – for which they blamed both sides – and themselves.
I heard these views amplified during the jam-packed session on the polarized school reform debate the following day. Reporters in the room agreed that entrenched interests fighting change – most notably unions and district bureaucracies – are a big part of the problem. But so, they said, are the reformers.
New York-based reporters, for example, said that Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Chancellor Joel Klein have created such a “climate of fear” in New York schools that it is hard to get educators who view the reforms skeptically to talk to journalists even off the record. And one reporter said that Moskowitz in particular brings the debate down to a personal level that breeds acrimony.
“Maybe we just need to declare a moratorium on quoting these people,” the reporter suggested.
One idea that won favor was that reporters should seek out more people on the ground, living the school experience every day. Stop quoting the “usual suspects” – the Randi Weingartens and Eva Moskowitzes – and find some teachers and principals in the trenches. To keep going back to the same sources with their predictable sound-bites is to feed the anger and bitterness that’s fueling the increasing nasty debate over changing public education.
The debate in Colorado is at least as polarized as it is elsewhere. Some of the healthiest give and take in recent months has taken place in comments on the Education News Colorado blog, where educators like Mark Sass, Jeff Buck and J.J. Miller have put admirably nuanced thinking and ox-goring on display for all to read and appreciate.
My pledge to readers is that we will keep pushing this kind of debate to the forefront. If we can’t always avoid the “usual suspects,” we will augment their views with those of people closer to the ground.
Even if this kind of dialogue seems frustratingly inconclusive at times, that ambiguity accurately reflects the reality of school reform in 2010.
Popularity: 76% [?]
Thank you, Alan, for this pledge. It is this kind of honest, self-searching journalism that keeps me reading Education News Colorado.
I agree with Josh! I am encouraged by the reformers, but I watch many of my teacher friends get more and more cynical as educators continue to be diminished in the media. My brother teaches 5th grade in Tennessee, winner of the national “Race to the Top”. He has motivated and pushed students for over twenty-five years. He has had it! There is so much accounatbility paper work at this time, he can’t adequately do his job anymore. He complains that more and more is asked of teachers, often without asking more of students and parent. He has successfully guided students for years, only to be battered regularly by educational leaders and the media.
It is, indeed, refreshing to read that Alan Gottlieb is becoming more open to the notion that true reform must include parents, students and teachers. SB 191, just passed by the state legislature, is part of the problem because it fails to bring all stakeholders to the table. Instead of focusing on the student, the focus is solely on the teacher. As Alan says, it’s time to involve teachers instead of ignoring them.
OMG, as the kids might say! As one who has been the frequent object of scorn and ridicule from contributors to Ed News, and the editor himself, I am extremely heartened to now hear there just might be two sides, or even more to the discussions concerning education reform. Is it possible that firing teachers and charterizing all schools are not the only solutions? Perhaps not even the best solutions? It would be gratifying to see broader, open discussion on these “pages”. “Advice from people on the ground”? What a concept! We’ll see.
Mike, these pages are always open to you, and I’d welcome your contributions as a blogger. I’ve talked with you about this more than once, and you have sounded interested. But nothing has ever come of it. So, if you want broader, open discussion on these “pages,” why not contribute?
Between running a campaign for county commission, continuing to fulfill my responsibilities as a state legislator, maintaining my health and fitness, taking care of family members, it is difficult to find time. However, I will definitely try to find time to respond to any really egregious articles. My hope is that the criticism you spoke of will open the eyes and minds of you and your contributors a bit wider.
It’s hardly worth even pointing this out, but the absurd claim that Ed Reform proponents (or anyone alt all) believe in “firing teachers” and “charterizing all schools” is the kind of intentional sophomoric stereotyping that actually contributes to the lack of a dialogue. But I guess it’s better than just sending us all to purgatory.
And the scorn soaking each sentence containing the letters NEA or the word union is righteous rather than sophomoric stereotyping.
Jeff – I don’t see in the original post or anywhere in any of the comments either the words “NEA” or “Union” so I honestly can’t tell where your comments are directed.
Demonizing opponents as somehow wanting to fire all teachers or charterize/privatize all schools, in my mind, does not have much of a place is a reasoned debate. Nor would a belief that all union teachers are unfit or that there are no good traditional public schools. Both are the sort of arrogant and simplistic views to which Alan’s post draws attention, and I’ll object to both views.
I don’t think any one person or body speaks either for teachers or reformers. I’d like to see if we can get past a zero-sum dialogue where one side is accused of being “anti-teacher” or in favor of any specific type of school regardless of quality. I’ve written about this plenty:
http://blog.ednewscolorado.org/2009/01/02/education-resolution-diminish-dualism/
Finding and focusing on permanent shared interests is the challenge. I hope we get closer to it.
My comment was directed at the conversation swirling around 191 and reform issues in general. I thought that was pretty obvious at the time I wrote it. Maybe I made a transition in my head that didn’t follow in writing.
You were quick to point out the over-generalizations about reformers so I pointed out the corresponding over-generalizations about teachers unions.
The rest of you comment indicates that once again, we agree.
Rep. Merrifield, I am proud to be counted with you, among the numbers of the scorned and ridiculed! I will tell you, however, that Alan is a true gentleman. Plus, my dad has him on notice.
Just kidding, Alan.
Ha! Jorge is a true gentleman too. Plus I’m younger and can outrun him ;]
I think Ooms makes the journalists’ points pretty well.
Interesting thoughts. It is good to see that maybe the Emperor has no clothes or maybe just his underwear on. But as a Proud educator with 29 years, out of the past 41 years, of experience in both private and public schools, I feel beat. I am proud of my years as an educator and dismay at the suggestion that there is only one way to educate our kids. And that is the way of the professional bean-counter. I welcome the opportunity to speak with policy makers about teacher evaluation and educational reform, but there do not seem to be any takers. The Michael Johnstons and educational gurus with little or no teaching experience with real students seem to get all of the credit and the interviews. Allen, you want to talk to professional educators, well let me know when you are available. I would love to have a face to face dialogue, not a cyber pissing contest. Are you interested?
[...] — and covering school reformers — from the Brookings Institution, Jay Mathews, Alan Gottlieb of EdNews Colorado and even Big Edreform Andy #1 (as in Rotherham). I’ve already written [...]
Parents and the students need to be part of the story gathering process too. High school students know enough and are articulate enough to be queried and believed.