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Today’s New York Times Sunday magazine, in an article about the California gubernatorial race, declares: “Test scores in (California) public schools are plummeting” – in the reporter’s voice, without attribution or elaboration.
Everything I can find indicates that California test scores have been moving upward:
California Department of Education press release, Aug. 14, 2008:
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell today released the results of the 2008 Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) Program that show California students continue to make steady gains in English-language arts, math, science, and social science.
"California public school students are continuing to make solid, steady progress learning the skills and concepts necessary for success in school and in life. Since 2003, 532,494 more California students have become proficient in English-language arts and 415,129 more students have become proficient in math. While we still have a lot of work to do to reach our goal of universal proficiency, this year's gains are particularly encouraging considering they build upon five years of steady growth," O'Connell said.
It’s an ongoing issue to public education advocates who view ourselves as resisters against efforts to “run schools like a business” that the privatization faction insists on portraying our schools in a far worse light than they deserve. Why would the Times leap into that with a flat-out inaccuracy – stated in an authoritative tone implying that no backup is even needed for such an obvious truth?
And speaking of troubled institutions, does the Times staff not realize that its survival is as fragile as the California economy? Sorry to repeat myself, but here's my message, again, to my colleagues in the press: Your existence is fragile. Your credibility is what you have left. Please try to take care of it.
Comments
The NYT reporter is obviously paraphrasing Whitman. And California does have among the lowest reading scores in the nation, due in part to having the lowest level of school and public library service in the nation. "Making gains" does not mean moving up in rank among the states. The zombies will return to the polls in June '10 and November '10 and vote for every incumbent. We do it to ourselves.
Yes, the reporter is paraphrasing Whitman -- but paraphrasing her giving misinformation without correcting it is a mortal journalistic sin. The newspaper's No. 1 responsibility is not to misinform the reader. It's the equivalent of "First, do no harm," for a doctor.
This is obviously not to say that California's schools are untroubled, but giving false information inaccurately disparaging them is wrong. That goes for Whitman too, but I don't expect ethics or honesty from a Republican politician -- it's not news when she lies. I do expect the N.Y. Times to uphold basic journalistic standards, though.
Caroline - if you think that you are a colleague of the New York Times staff, I can only "You are no Jack Kennedy." Having a keyboard and an opinion does not make you a journalist.
I saw that you asked Deborah Blair Porter about the PTA campaign against IDEA, in her Edweek article. FYI: She lied about it. I wrote an article on Allvoices about how she lied about the PTA and is the plaintiff in the case that she analysis on its merits in her article. The case is Porter v. MBUSD. She never told her readers that she was the plaintiff. She practically "stalked me" when I wrote about the "Porter" case months ago. This woman is a liar and I am not sure about her emotional stability.
To Alba Quirky (Albuquerque?),
Sorry, couldn't resist...I'm from New Mexico.
Caroline does in fact have experience in journalism. She was editor at the San Jose Mercury News for 12 years - check her bio.
More importantly, I'll bet she is dead right that the New York Times gets it dead wrong. To my knowledge, Caroline, as a parent and public school advocate, was the first to dig deeply into the KIPP miracle stories being so widely disseminated in the corporate-controlled mainstream press without challenge. She found amazingly high student attrition rates in the San Francisco KIPP schools. Even Jay Matthews of the Washington Post, perhaps the nation's most prominent Kipp gusher, respects her for her work.
When it comes to education reporting, the track record of mainstream media is appalling. Thank goodness for activists like Caroline.
The NAEP shows that CA test scores are slightly higher than in 1992 but flat since 2005. Average SAT scores in the state have been declining for a while, but a greater percentage of students are taking the test so it's hard to tell how much of an impact that has had.
Thanks, Crimson Wife. You're correct that SAT scores would not be a valid gauge at all, since those are voluntary tests and the overall average scores are obviously affected by the students who choose to take them in any given year. I was looking at the California Academic Performance Index -- the basic state accountability program. If you're looking at NAEP, "flat" is not good, but it's a far cry from "plummeting." By any measure, the NY Times screwed up, got it wrong and misled the reader.
And thank you, Tauna. It may be that a blogger and freelance writer/editor has no right to refer to a New York Times writer as a "colleague," but yes, I do have a background in mainstream journalism. And where does one draw the line -- what qualifications are required to refer to a New York Times writer as a "colleague"?
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