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BACK TO CLASS The big education story of the week |
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TEACHER DIVERSITY; INSIDE REMOTE NEGOTIATIONS
The best education journalism of the week |
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🏆 BEST: This week’s best story is An Accidental Experiment: An Emergency Teacher License Gives An Unexpected Boost To Teacher Diversity by WBUR’s Carrie Jung. In it, Jung reports on an unexpected consequence of Massachusetts’ emergency teacher licenses, which give teachers access to the classroom without having to take the state licensure test which is overwhelmingly taken by white candidates. While under 10 percent of certified teachers are BIPOC, a quarter of emergency licenses were granted to teachers of color. At a time when other headlines are decrying teacher shortages, this story points to a place where a policy not only increased the workforce but also boosted diversity.See also: Why Black Teachers Walk Away in Edutopia and The exhaustion of being a Black teacher in a school when you’re one of too few educators of color in the Boston Globe.
🏆 RUNNER-UP: The runner-up this week is Court Documents Reveal How L.A. Teachers Union Gained Upper Hand in Pandemic Negotiations, Limiting Instruction Time by The 74’s Linda Jacobson. Jacobson gives us an inside look at one of the hot spots of reopening controversy, detailing the negotiations between the Los Angeles Unified School District and the teachers union. The district “wanted something very different, and when they lost, he (Superintendent Austin Beutner) just went out and sold the loss to the public,” said a parent who is part of a group suing the district and union. “Families in the public are saying, ‘Who is making these decisions?’ ”
See also: Let’s Talk About Teachers’ Unions on EWA Radio.
To get daily education headlines and education news events, follow @thegrade_. |
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MAKING GOOD ON BLACK LIVES MATTER PROMISES
New from The Grade |
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Ten months after the death of George Floyd, which prompted Black Lives Matter protests across the country, contributing editor Amber C. Walker revisits some of the promises made by education news outlets to address systemic racism in its own ranks.Some encouraging steps have been taken, according to Walker, but the appetite for reflection and action doesn’t yet seem to be there. Walker found just one Black education journalist willing to talk to her about their newsroom experiences — on the record or otherwise: Chalkbeat’s Lori Higgins. Writes Walker, “bringing on more journalists of color still won’t make newsrooms more anti-racist unless leadership grows more willing to listen to, trust, and yield power to Black reporters.”
ICYMI: Earlier this week, we also republished Alexis Wray’s amazing piece in Scalawag about how student journalists at a North Carolina HBCU researched and influenced racist local media coverage of the college community. |
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MEDIA TIDBITSThought-provoking commentary on the latest coverage. |
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📰 SPOTLIGHT ON PARENTS, SCHOOL BOARD RECALLS, LOCAL ELECTIONS: Parents and school board disputes were a big feature of this week’s education news, including stories about Chicago-area school board races (Tribune), a controversial Washington, D.C., parent messaging page (Washington Post), Philadelphia parents leaving the district (WHYY), Bay Area board recall efforts (San Jose Mercury News), and of course board members suing each other (SF Chronicle). The controversies are unfortunate and not necessarily helpful to kids, but the coverage is important — I’m hoping that education reporters continue to focus on parents’ views and experiences during the rest of the spring.📰 WORRISOME RETURN TO SCHOOL GUN VIOLENCE STORIES: I’ve seen a couple of school gun violence stories in the past few days, prompted in part by the return of mass shootings in recent weeks. However, I’m worried about coverage that, as in the past, amplifies risks and fears rather than contextualizes them. School gun violence is tragic and real — and infrequent, a fact that should be featured in these kinds of stories. The USA Today article is clear about the problems associated with active shooter drills — a strong point — but is also full of speculation about a future surge and fails to give readers context about kid safety risks or gun violence locations. The 74’s story also features worried educators and school safety experts, but it includes a key disclaimer noting that school shootings “remain statistically rare.” Let’s not pivot from a year spent unnecessarily terrifying teachers, parents, and kids about school COVID risks back to terrifying them about school gun violence.
📰 CAREFUL ABOUT THOSE TEACHER TREND STORIES: Stories about teachers leaving the field are a regular part of education coverage, usually signaling readers about the difficulties of teaching or the perils of making schools work better for kids. But they’re often flawed by a lack of understanding of teacher supply and demand issues and sometimes can be quite superficial in how they describe what’s going on. A recent example is the New York Times’ As Pandemic Upends Teaching, Fewer Students Want to Pursue It. “It is *way* too soon to make a conclusion like this,” notes Chalkbeat’s Matt Barnum. “The evidence in the piece is underwhelming to put it mildly.”
📰 NEW EFFORTS, NEW ANGLES: There are a handful of interesting experiments that could provide helpful lessons for education coverage. For example, the Boston Globe is teaming up with Boston University’s Center for Antiracist Research to “resurrect and reimagine” The Emancipator, the first abolitionist paper in the U.S. Editorial page editor Bina Venkataraman told us that “education will most certainly be one of the topics we cover as we try to frame solutions that can bring about a racially just society.” We’re also hoping to see some education-related coverage in Capital B, a nonprofit newsroom headed by former Vox editor-in-chief Lauren Williams focusing on journalism that serves Black communities. |
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PEOPLE, JOBS
Who’s going where & doing what? |
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EVENTS
What just happened & what’s coming next? |
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Above: She’s been taking a break from Twitter but not all is lost. The New York Times’ Erica Green will talk about “voice, agency, and untold stories” at a Yale SOM event April 13.⏰ Coming up: Sunday night’s new episode from WNYC’s The United States of Anxiety is the long-awaited sequel to Marianne McCune’s Two Schools In Marin County, one of the best examples of education journalism last year. The Atlantic contributor Amanda Ripley has a new book out on Tuesday, focusing on the spiral of conflict that has overtaken politics and infected journalism. Former Spencer Education Journalism fellow S. Mitra Kalita will be part of a Fundamedios Spanish-language journalism event April 6 on the color of objectivity. Also April 6, CJR and the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma are hosting a rethinking gun violence coverage session that has obvious implications for school gun violence coverage.
⏰ ICYMI: The Washington Post’s Moriah Balingit and Hechinger’s Liz Willen were guests on The Takeaway’s recent education segment, How the Pandemic Is Deepening the Divide in Education. The LA Times’ Howard Blume was interviewed in an EWA Radio segment, Let’s Talk About Teachers’ Unions. Dallas Morning News’ Education Lab leader Eva-Marie Ayala spoke on a panel including students, parents, education experts, and educators about ways to help students succeed. WNYC’s Gwynne Hogan reported a segment on school policing and the NYC mayoral race. (Read about the media’s little-noted role in encouraging school police programs here.) |
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THE KICKER |
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A kindergartner on his first day in person at his Oakland school told a swarm of reporters he’s “happy.” (H/t Jill Tucker)CORRECTION: Last week, we linked to a story in the Sacramento Bee by Sawsan Morrar and Alexandra Yoon-Hendricks, and we failed to credit Yoon-Hendricks. We apologize for the omission. |
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By Alexander Russo with additional writing from Michele Jacques and Colleen Connolly. |
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