Tabloid-style education news is all the rage at the New York Times and the Washington Post

Despite all the issues facing K-12 education right now, some of our biggest news outlets are focused on tabloid fodder like culture wars and school violence.

By Alexander Russo

Three years after the pandemic began, K-12 education is facing a small but daunting set of challenges. Chief among them: the reckoning over reading, pandemic recovery, and parental choice.

Since at least last year, states and school districts have been attempting to revamp the inadequate reading instruction programs that have been provided to many kids over the past decades.

At the same time, schools are trying to help kids recover from interruptions to their education during the pandemic through additional instructional time, extra tutoring, and engagement and support programs.

Partly in response to the pandemic and the subsequent debate over how schools responded, several states have created or expanded parental choice programs that go far beyond charter schools and targeted voucher programs.

All three of these challenges include large investments of money, energetic state and local policy activity, and — most important — a large number of kids affected.

All three are happening now, in the present.

And yet, you’ll see relatively little about these core challenges and changes looking at the education pages of some of our biggest national news outlets.

Instead of covering core education issues, the Times and Post are focused on stories about culture wars and violence.

Intentionally or not, tabloid-style coverage has become a mainstay.

Instead of covering core education issues, the Times and Post are focused on stories about culture wars and violence. 

A look back at the stories published on the Times education page since the beginning of January reveals that the section has mostly focused on school violence, culture wars, and political controversies.

This includes the Idaho student murders, the Michigan State shooting, the Florida rejection of the AP African American Studies course, and various red-state limits on books and instruction related to race and gender.

I count five stories about the AP conflict and another five about the shooting of a teacher by a 6-year-old in Newport News. I see just one lonely news story about the effort to revamp reading. The only other pieces about reading, academic recovery, or parental choice are columns from Nicholas Kristof and David Brooks. Great stuff, but it’s not reported news.

Don’t take my word for it. Scroll back yourself or use my handy-dandy Google doc.

Above: A selection of school violence, outrage, and culture war stories published by the Times in recent weeks.

By comparison, the Post education page does a bit better — especially when it comes to coverage of parental choice and academic recovery.

For example, I see at least two Post stories during the past 10 weeks that address the expansion of choice. And at least four stories cover the issue of academic recovery.

However, culture war conflicts, school shootings, and other outrages dominate the Post education news coverage, too.

I count at least 12 culture war stories (about gender, race, religion, sex ed, and book bans), 10 about the AP debate, and 13 about school violence (shootings, murders).

And the Post hasn’t addressed the literacy story at all since the start of the year — unless you count a recent editorial.

Again, take a look for yourself, or use my Google doc.

The Post hasn’t addressed the literacy story at all since the start of the year — unless you count a recent editorial.

Both of these papers employ some amazing education reporters, and so as you might imagine there’s some great journalism in there — some of which addresses the biggest topics of the day.

To be sure, the period I’m looking at is arbitrary and brief. The Times published a piece about literacy in late December and a couple of pandemic recovery stories in October and November.

And my categories and characterizations of the coverage aren’t authoritative. You could argue that the Post’s recent piece on peer mental health coverage is a pandemic recovery story, or that columns and editorials should be considered as part of a newsroom’s overall output.

Finally, others might feel that school shootings, off-campus murders, and Florida’s rejection of the new Advanced Placement course warrant the amount of coverage that they have received. This is clearly what these two papers believe readers want and need.

Perhaps the editors at the Times and Post know what readers want more than any of us is willing to admit.

Perhaps the editors at the Times and Post know what readers want more than any of us is willing to admit. 

In the end, I guess it comes down to how much coverage you think different kinds of stories should get, and whether outrage and readership are as important as scope and importance.

I come down on the side of wanting stories that affect large numbers of kids in concrete ways and in favor of stories that feature information and context. Basically, I want the Times and the Post education coverage to be more like the Associated Press and less like The Guardian, Politico, or the New York Post.

Nobody’s suggesting that the papers completely ignore dramatic stories or political conflicts. It’s just a matter of how much coverage they are given and whether that coverage pushes aside larger, arguably more fundamental stories.

Previously from The Grade

Messy times ahead for school spending
The case against covering school gun violence
How to cover school culture war stories
‘Squid Game’ school board coverage isn’t helping
Beyond ‘Sold a Story’
What’s happening to national coverage of big-city school systems?
When good news goes missing