BEST OF THE BEST
It’s been a pretty good week for education journalism, including a beautifully-reported NYT look at how liberal white Manhattan parents contribute, decision by decision, to the segregation of schools.
There were some complaints on Twitter about the lack of diversity of voices in the piece, which focuses mostly on white parents. But that was also sort of the point of the piece. As Nikole Hannah-Jones put it, “White parents say they’re bothered by whiteness of schools, choose them anyway.”
On roughly the same topic, Patrick Wall’s long-awaited deep dive into school segregation came out in The Atlantic this week. Depressing stuff, and extremely long at more than 8,000 words, but also powerful and important.
Kyle Spencer’s latest came out in the NYT, focused on homework. “Homework is so last year,” she says, (which makes me wonder whether people still say “so last year”?).
DC/FEDERAL NEWS
In terms of news coverage, there was a slew of coverage of the Trump executive order calling for DeVos to roll back any overreaching education mandates from the federal government (AP, NYT, USA Today, CBS News, The 74, Washington Post). My favorite was the LA Times story pointing out from the get-go that the EO was unlikely to have much real effect.
(Behind the scenes, education reporters waited 45 minutes to get a White House press briefing about the EO, which ended up ending abruptly after just 6 minutes.)
The Minneapolis Star Tribune got a great little scoop that the national teachers of the year sang Lift Every Voice during their White House visit with President Trump, led by the Minnesota teacher of the year (pictured below). The Washington Post’s Valerie Strauss noted that the White House visit was a much-diminished affair compared to some previous years.
The MN teacher of the year who got President Trump and his other STOY’s to sing Lift Every Voice.
STATES/DISTRICTS/SCHOOLS
This EdWeek piece got specific about how much private donations to schools vary by area, thanks to parent and corporate fundraising. Great stuff, original reporting.
The 74/LA School Report tells us that spending on the mid-May LAUSD school board elections is ridiculous. Seriously.
The NYT gave us a peek of what could happen if webcams come to US classrooms, as they have in some Chinese schools.
Democracy Now reminds us that, yeah, no, Al Shanker didn’t invent charter schools, or even coin the term.
Speaking of charters, EdWeek reports that the charter school unionization picture remains “mixed at best.”
Oh, and also: Charters dominated this year’s US News ranking of high schools, notes The 74.
Beyonce and Michelle Obama were at an education event together.
FAKE NEWS
No, President Trump didn’t mistreat that kid at the Easter Egg Roll, reports Snopes.
Also: ShareBlue claims that Trump didn’t invite DC public school kids to the Easter Egg roll, but hasn’t provided the email backing up the claim.
No, Gorsuch, SCOTUS didn’t ban teaching of Islam, reports AP.
No, there was no return to separate entrances for boys & girls encouraged in little-noticed provision of latest Trump executive order.
FROM THE GRADE
One column this week focused on which stories were and weren’t included on the EWA 2016 award finalists lists. Some folks – Reuters, for example, and Nikole Hannah-Jones – aren’t applying, which is a problem. Nobody knows exactly why.
The second column focused on what education reporters do – or should do – when faced with public officials and sources who question the integrity of their work. (This happened in January when a union leader denounced the LA Times’ education coverage in front of a room full of journalists.)
UTLA’s Alex Caputo-Pearl and the LA Times’ Howard Blume
Last but not least, data visualization guru Kaiser Fung weighed in on the NYT’s recent attempt to map school quality, commute times, and property values, which was the focus of last week’s column. Basically, Fung found even more issues and problems than I did, on both the data and the visualization sides.
PEOPLE, PLACES, THINGS
There’s an education reporter job opening at AJC http://ow.ly/H84130bgjE9
There are travel funds for Solutions-y Freelance Projects if you want to apply for them.
The @IBWellsSociety will be holding its next training May 6 @HowardU on investigating law enforcement. Sign up here: http://idabwellssociety.org/training/
The NYT’s Dana Goldstein’s book, The Teacher Wars, is on this list of “10 Books I Wish My White Teachers Had Read.”
I’ll be giving a “Lightning Talk” in DC on 5/31 about using #edGIFS, dataviz, interactives, etc. to reach more readers.
KICKERS
Where are all the #fidgetspinner stories I was expecting to see already this spring? These things are everywhere right now.
Apparently, there are Facebook meme wars going on among elite college students (and those who would like to be).
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Alexander Russo
Alexander Russo is founder and editor of The Grade, an award-winning effort to help improve media coverage of education issues. He’s also a Spencer Education Journalism Fellowship winner and a book author. You can reach him at @alexanderrusso.
Visit their website at: https://the-grade.org/
