Teaching about racism, reporters back in classrooms, how Black advocates are depicted: best journalism of the week June 18

MEDIA TIDBITS
Thought-provoking commentary on the latest coverage.

Above: Detroit student Victoria Bradley, featured in a recent New Yorker story, whose mother Bernita recently tweeted “This is Resistance Work, Not a Bribe!”

📰  COVERING BLACK PARENTS’ ADVOCACY: There hasn’t been the usual wave of journalistic praise for Casey Parks’ most recent New Yorker story, The Rise of Black Homeschooling, which highlights the inadequacy and toxicity of the education too many Black children are being offered and raises important questions about the long-held emphasis racial diversity in schools.

One reason may be that the piece includes prominent, repeated mentions of Black parents receiving support from conservative-leaning funders (including some who fund The Grade): “Often underserved by traditional schools,” notes the first of several references to funders, “Black families are banding together to educate their children, sometimes with an unexpected funding source: the Koch family and other conservative donors.”

For some readers, the effect of these mentions is to disqualify Black parents’ decisions and undercut their agency — a concern that’s come up in education journalism before. Just a few weeks ago, parent advocate Sarah Carpenter wrote an impassioned plea to education journalists to avoid overfocusing on funding sources, noting that “writing articles this way keeps dangerous stereotypes about Black and Brown people going.” It also came up a few years ago when coverage of parent protesters demanding attention from US Sen. Elizabeth Warren focused on the protesters’ funding sources. My column noted that the best approach, illustrated by New York Times reporter Erica Green, mentioned funding sources and moved on.

I’m glad Parks wrote this piece and the New Yorker published it. She’s an extremely talented feature writer, known for her detailed human portraits of subject who in the past have been deeply appreciative of her efforts to capture their stories. We need more journalism that pulls parent voices toward the center of education coverage. However, I do wish that she’d kept focus on the experiences of her subjects and the schools they are exiting. And I’m guessing that parents in this piece are not nearly as pleased with how they were depicted as previous subjects have been. For good reason.

📰  PROTEST COVERAGE REQUIRES CONTEXT: The understandable temptation when covering heated topics like CRT is to focus on the emotions (angry parents, teachers and students in tears) and the possible implications (if the proposal passes, or doesn’t). But don’t just present the show on stage; take your readers backstage and fill them in on what’s going on behind the scenes.

According to an NBC News’ investigation, Critical race theory battle invades school boards — with help from conservative groups, co-reported by former education reporter Tyler Kingkade, much of the current surge of debate over CRT has been coordinated by political advocacy groups. The controversy (and the glut of right-wing coverage) have “all the red flags of a dark money astroturf campaign,” according to the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer, who’s written about these kinds of things. What’s happening is “a well-planned Republican misinformation strategy,” according to Nikole Hannah-Jones, whose 1619 Project is the focus of some of the debate. That doesn’t disqualify anyone’s viewpoint if they happen to agree. Left-leaning organizations like teachers unions are also campaigning to have their viewpoint advanced in indirect ways, notes Chalkbeat’s Matt Barnum. And, of course, situations vary widely across 13,000 school districts. But the backstory is a crucial thing for readers to know. Please include it. Otherwise, you’re letting your coverage become part of the outrage machine.

Related: School privatization lobby places fake news on local stations (The Intercept) . Also: Researcher Uncovers ‘Critical Race Theory’ Astroturfing Campaign (Vice)

📰  COMPARE AND CONTRAST TWO WEST COAST OUTLETS: One of the most vivid contrasts when it comes to education coverage these days can be seen between the LA Times and the SF Chronicle, especially when it comes to school reopening. For example, the LAT’s recent education newsletter promotes what can easily be read as a sort of pro-closed schools (pro safety) stance: “The L.A. Unified School District has been slower than many to fully return to normal, but as my colleague Howard Blume writes, there’s an upside to that: So far, the number of known COVID-19 cases transmitted at L.A. schools has remained constant at zero.” At the same time, SF Chronicle’s education reporter Jill Tucker takes a much different approach, scrutinizing the possibility that local school districts will try to find loopholes to keep kids home rather than sending them back to school: Bay Area school reopenings still have cloud of uncertainty despite unity from health officials. In the Bay Area, writes Tucker, school reopening decisions “were not typically based on science, coronavirus case rates or expert advice, but rather political will, leadership, labor negotiations, etc.”

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