A hot-button accusation may explain one reason journalists haven’t been scrutinizing remote learning as much as they should have.

By Alexander Russo

On Friday, fresh off the news that she had received a Pulitzer Prize for her much-admired 1619 Project, New York Times reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones shared some thoughts about the remote learning her daughter was experiencing and the stories she was hearing from other parents:

“It was understandable in March why children with internet access weren’t getting virtual instruction,” tweeted Hannah-Jones. “But we are nearly two months in and school is in session even if the buildings are closed. There is no excuse why teachers cannot be offering some virtual instruction during the school day.”

Hannah-Jones’ comments set off something of a social media firestorm, resulting in a series of criticisms and denunciations from educators and others on social media — and, on Sunday, an apology of sorts from Hannah-Jones:

“Friday I tweeted about how it is time to honestly assess what virtual education looks like during the pandemic and how little instruction is occurring,” tweeted Hannah-Jones on Sunday afternoon. “Let me start by saying, if it came off as teacher bashing, I apologize.”

It was understandable in March why children with internet access weren’t getting virtual instruction… But we are nearly two months in and school is in session even if the buildings are closed. There is no excuse why teachers cannot be offering some virtual instruction during the school day. – Nikole Hannah-Jones

I’ll leave it to others to assess whether Hannah-Jones was really apologizing, for what, and whether an apology was necessary. You should read the whole thread.

However, the conflict illustrates the enormous challenges education journalists face when describing problems in the education system — and may also explain some of why reporters seem to have shied away from calling out problems they see and hear about from parents and others in recent weeks.

If the most prominent journalist writing about education in the nation, a public school parent and a Pulitzer Prize winner, can’t describe what’s happening without being swarmed by critics, denounced for “teacher bashing,” and pressured to apologize for her observations, then who can?

If the most prominent journalist writing about education in the nation, a public school parent and a Pulitzer Prize winner, can’t describe what’s happening without being swarmed by critics, denounced for “teacher bashing,” and pressured to apologize for her observations, then who can?

Remote learning, the name generally given to describe how schools are educating children since the COVID-19 crisis forced the shuttering of bricks and mortar buildings, has been the subject of increasing concern in recent weeks.

Education reporters and outlets have highlighted schools’ struggles to reach vulnerable students and distribute necessary equipment. A series of major newspaper editorials have raised concerns and questions. A New York Times oped published last week claimed that school had effectively ended for most students when school buildings closed down in mid-March.

A handful of these stories have come out raising larger questions about the sufficiency of COVID-19 remote learning programs, including a New York Times piece about limits set on instruction, the result of work agreements with teachers unions, and a US News story describing just how little instruction was being provided by many districts around the country.

Above: A March US News story that raises fundamental questions about remote learning efforts

However, media depictions of remote learning have generally focused on one or another aspect of the endeavor, rather than raising fundamental questions about its overall quality or value. Or they’ve focused on the endless speculation about when schools would go back to normal, or what normal might look like.

In some instances, remote learning coverage seems to have danced around the problem. A recent national story from the New York Times compared the amount of education being provided to first graders in a private school in Chicago with a Philadelphia public school.

Buried deep in the piece was the revelation that fewer than a dozen of the nation’s biggest districts and charter networks required live instruction of any kind.

From what I’ve seen, there has been very little appetite for writing basic stories about how much instruction is going on and whether remote learning could be said to be working or not.

Above: Slide from the Ida B. Wells Society seminar on education and the COVID-19 crisis last month.

While Hannah-Jones has been focused lately on her 1619 Project, she’s got a long background writing about education and has clearly been paying attention to the impact of the shuttering of schools on kids’ learning.

Last month, she hosted a panel about education in the COVID-19 era. Part of a series of panels hosted by the Ida B. Wells Society, the session was intended to give a broad range of reporters some helpful advice and information about covering what is generally called remote learning.

A recording of the session is not immediately available; however the lead slide accompanying the PowerPoint presentation declares that “The Honeymoon Is Over.”

The slides lay out a comprehensive plan to help reporters reveal the key details of schools’ remote learning efforts and make them accountable for distributing technology, spending additional money, providing adequate instruction and materials, and measuring their results.

“Find parents at lower performing schools and higher performing and compare weekly assignments, times of engagement,” recommend the notes attached to one of the slides. “Is actual instruction occurring, grading, feedback?”

By and large, however, too few reporters, education teams, and news outlets seem to have followed this advice.

The challenges of providing instruction via remote learning have been depicted ad nauseam. Anecdotal successes and failures are frequent topics of coverage. But some of the most basic elements —the amount and quality of the instruction being delivered to children, the progress districts have (or haven’t) been making towards improving, and the comparative successes of different schools and systems — remain woefully under-reported.

From an accountability perspective, the honeymoon period for remote learning is not at all over. It goes on and on.

I will no more act as if teachers are above criticism because of the profession they chose than I would police because of the profession they chose… This notion that journalists who write about education cannot question how this learning is being administered is wrong. – Nikole Hannah-Jones

The shutdown of school buildings puts teachers in a precarious situation in which instruction is unfamiliar, additional duties are required, and benefit cuts and even layoffs (which are already beginning to effect school workers who don’t have college degrees or certification) seem likely.

And teachers have a long history of believing that they are being unfairly blamed for systemic problems in education, and that their treatment in the media has been unfair.

However, it’s extraordinarily difficult to write about the education system without including the role teachers play; teachers are part of the system in which they work.

And teacher-bashing can no longer said to be common in the media. These days, teachers are often depicted as heroes and survivors, “essential workers” even.

However much controversy and upset Hannah-Jones generated, she raised enormously important questions about whether kids are being provided the best possible education possible under the circumstances, and whether districts are headed in that direction anytime soon.

“I will no more act as if teachers are above criticism because of the profession they chose than I would police because of the profession they chose,” she commented at one point. At another: “This notion that journalists who write about education cannot question how this learning is being administered is wrong.”

Along the way, Hannah-Jones reminded us that, first and foremost, education reporting should be focused on the welfare of students.

Related coverage:

Remote learning has been a mess. Writing it off will only make things worse.

Nikole Hannah-Jones, the Beyoncé of journalism

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Alexander Russo

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/