Bringing energy and creativity to literacy coverage

In the first of our month-long literacy series, a veteran education journalist urges others to double down on reading coverage.

“What’s written into legislation and what happens in classrooms are often two different things.”

By Alan J. Borsuk

I crossed paths with a former member of the Milwaukee school board a while ago.

He had moved on from the school scene, but I was still writing about K-12 education, as I had across more than 50 years.

“Do you feel like you’re living ‘Groundhog Day’?” he asked me, referring to the movie in which the protagonist repeats the same day over and over.

“Yes. All the time,” I told him.

At that time, I often felt like I was writing pieces I’d written so many times before.

But I was still doing it.

Why? Because damn it, it’s important.

That’s why I’m still at it all these years later — and why I decided to make what might be my last big project as a journalist a multipart series on longstanding problems in how most schools teach kids to read.

Education coverage should be energetic and powerful. I hope that showed in the recent pieces I wrote about literacy. But I also know there is more I could and should do.

There is more all of us in education journalism could and should do.

Good public affairs reporting keeps important matters in the spotlight. This is particularly true for education.

Especially in a high-poverty, low-academic success city such as Milwaukee, the need to look for ways to improve education outcomes is great.

Yet policymakers and shapers rarely go after this with the sense of grave concern and urgency that the situation merits.

A lot of people don’t care that much, especially if they live in more affluent communities where most children fare better.

Worse, even some editors fall into this thinking, especially when “clicks” on education stories are low and the problems seem old and even alienating to many people.

Damn it, it’s important.

I repeat this because it has been the song playing in my mind for so long. I think it should be the song playing in the minds of all education reporters. If it is, though, that’s too often at a muted volume.

In recent years, many education reporters were too accepting of the way things were. Test results got decreasing attention because little was new.

There was little discussion of what might change things. Not to mention that the number of education reporters as a whole was declining.

In Wisconsin, and generally nationwide, high school graduation rates remain alarming, absenteeism has increased, and scores on standardized tests – especially fourth grade reading – have stalled or declined.

A recent survey of major employers in Wisconsin found that 73% were concerned that many high school graduates were entering the workforce without adequate reading and math skills.

Education reporters need to spotlight educational shortcomings such as these.

We need more fire, more energy, more dedication to telling the big-picture stories, the most urgent stories of what is going on in education.

We can and should make sure serious education issues — and not just the hot-button and quick-breaking stories we often cover — are getting the attention they deserve.

The future not only of the kids but of entire metropolitan areas such as Milwaukee rides on increasing the overall level of educational success.

In recent years, many education reporters were too accepting of the way things were.

This brings me to the subject of reading.

We all know that too many kids from too many marginalized groups aren’t becoming capable readers. That’s why there has been a surge of interest in reading. Among low-income and Black and Hispanic students, the situation is especially dire.

Milwaukee and Wisconsin as a whole are leading examples of the problem.

According to NAEP data, Milwaukee has some of the lowest percentages of proficient students in the nation and Wisconsin has some of the biggest gaps in the nation between white and Black kids, with some of the lowest scale scores for Black children.

Those statements have been true for at least 25 years, and I have written numerous stories saying that for about the same number of years.

At least we can be grateful for the recent attention and urgency around reading. I can’t think of an education reporting project that has had — and deserves — the impact of Emily Hanford’s podcasts, especially the “Sold a Story” series from late 2022.

A handful of other reporters and news organizations also have taken on crucial issues around how reading is taught. Praise to all of them. But the list is still relatively short.

A handful of other reporters and news organizations also have taken on crucial issues around how reading is taught.

That’s why, at the end of 2022, I decided to delve into the topic again.

I felt strongly that if reading was so central to all manners of educational success (and it is), it ought to be central to what I was writing.

I’ve been lucky to have the time and resources to go deeper on the subject of reading.

I left the Journal Sentinel staff in 2009 and, since then, have been a senior fellow at Marquette University Law School, where my work has included writing weekly columns on education for the Journal Sentinel.

Fortunately, I haven’t felt too much of the “Groundhog Day” problem this time. I’ve been able to focus on reading issues, looking at the research and following the action elsewhere, talking to some of the leading experts and advocates in the nation, and, most important, visiting classrooms and spending time with students, teachers, and school leaders.

Among the results has been a set of stories for the Journal Sentinel, both on the broad aspects and specific examples of new developments.

I wrote a three–part series about the working-class Milwaukee suburb of Cudahy, where the “science of reading” approach has been embraced, with early indications of real gains.

I also wrote a two–part story on what is developing in Milwaukee, which I referred to as the state capital of reading problems.

Reading is drawing some fresh attention there, but not with the driving commitment that has been shown in places such as Cudahy.

And I wrote several stories about the nationwide surge of advocacy around improving reading outcomes for students and how that surge was arriving (a bit later than in other places) in Wisconsin.

Indeed, momentum has built in Wisconsin to tackle the reading crisis.

In July, Wisconsin’s Democratic governor, Tony Evers, signed a bill passed by both houses of the Republican-controlled legislature requiring use of “science of reading” instruction statewide.

The law had some degree of bipartisan support but was criticized even on the day Evers signed it by the state teachers’ union and the Wisconsin State Reading Association.

Enacting the law, of course, is only the beginning of a complex and demanding process that is needed in order to succeed.

What’s written into legislation and what happens in classrooms are often two different things.

The way this all unfolds across Wisconsin — and nationwide — will call for attentive, committed, and knowledgeable efforts by education reporters for years to come.

The reading stories I have written in recent months might be my last sizable reporting project — I’m over 70 and, at some point, I’d like to retire.

So I hope some of the skilled education journalists in the area will diligently follow the reading story.

If this is somewhat of a farewell tour for me, I’m glad to make it one in which the focus is on something crucial that deserves major continuing attention.

It’s not “Groundhog Day.” It’s doing the job.

Alan J. Borsuk was a reporter and editor at the Milwaukee Journal and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel from 1972 to 2009 and has been a senior fellow at Marquette University Law School in Milwaukee since 2009. He has written about education across that time and especially since the mid1990s. You can follow him at @alanjborsuk.

Previously from The Grade

How I missed the phonics story (Patti Ghezzi)

How to report on whether district reading programs are any good (Colleen Connolly)

How do we get Black kids’ literacy to matter? Have more journalists cover it. (Colette Coleman)

Cracking the code on reading instruction stories (Holly Korbey)

Why reading went under the radar for so long – and what one reporter is aiming to do about it (interview with APM Reports’ Emily Hanford)

The reckoning over reading (newsletter)

How the media missed the 2000 National Reading Panel report (Will Callan)

After ‘Sold a Story,’ what comes next?