The Media Fiddles While
Public Education Burns

By David Chartrand ©2004

   Robert Benchley, the funniest writer who ever lived, once wrote that anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing at that moment.

   This may explain why you can't learn much about America's public education crisis by reading the newspaper or watching television. The media works very hard at covering the controversy but not so hard at clarifying it.

   Year after year our politicians, educators and judges duke it out over standardized tests, teacher competency and how much money should be spent on schools. Year afar year our news pages are chockablock with headlines but thin on independent analysis.

    The result is that coverage of public education provides little public education. If Benchley were alive, he'd find that very funny.

   But it isn't funny. Journalists should do the work we are supposed to be doing. It's time we went back to school.

    I don't mean journalism school. I mean we should cover public education the way we cover other stories.

    Would we cover a war without sending reporters to the battlefront? Would we cover political races without putting journalists on the campaign bus? Do television meteorologists predict the weather without going outdoors?

   So why do journalists cover school systems without infiltrating schools?
Don't ask me. God knows I've tried.

    I called a large high school in my hometown and left a message for the principal. I explained that I wanted to spend a few days in the building, interviewing students, hanging out in the faculty lounge and chatting with secretaries. My goal was to snoop around and find out for myself if the school was “in crisis” or humming along just fine.

   The principal didn't return my call. But the school's “communications coordinator” did.

   “You can't walk around schools interviewing students and teachers,” she said.

   “I can't?”

   “No. But we could arrange for you to interview a few teachers here at the administration building.”

   “No thanks,” I said. “I want to observe public education with my own eyes. I want the real thing, not a chaperoned press conference.”

   A dramatic sigh came through my earpiece. “That would be very disruptive,” she said. “Besides, there are privacy laws for children.”

    I was beginning to enjoy this. “Okay, fine. I won't use the kids' real names. Are there privacy laws for teachers, too?”

   “This conversation is going nowhere, Mr. Chartrand.”

   “Really? I was just getting started.”

    As evidenced by this sparkling repartee, my idea may not be warmly received. The gates of public schools are guarded by propaganda ministers whose theory of public accountability goes like this: It's important that the public be kept informed but it is even more important that they know only what we want them to know.
This surprises no one, including me. What surprises me is that PR Woman was so surprised by my request. Apparently no local journalist had ever asked such a thing. Not once.

   Now here's what really kills me. This deferential, privacy-respecting posture is totally out of character for American journalists. On most news beats — city hall, police, courthouse — reporters are expected to prowl like thieves, placing an ear against closed doors and prying the truth from the tight grip of governments and bureaucrats.

   You might imagine that the same goes for the education beat. But you would be wrong. In most markets, covering of schools means covering school boards. We'll pause here so readers can laugh until their gums bleed. Understanding public education by attending school board meetings is like understanding professional sports by sitting in the bleachers. Unless they let you in the locker room you miss all the good gossip.

   It turns out that schools and journalists have long abided by certain unwritten rules of engagement, most of them written by school board attorneys and PR flaks. Reporters are not permitted inside faculty meetings to hear with our own ears what teachers have to say about textbooks and class loads. School disciplinary records are off limits, so we cannot see which students are committing violence and peddling drugs on school property. All information about a school district's income and expenses is provided, and manipulated, by the school district.

    Little wonder, then, that school news is no news, which is bad news for those who want to understand what's going on. When the people who run institutions and the people who have all the facts happen to be the same people, the last thing we need is an obsequious press.

   As far as I'm concerned, America's school system is a first-rate institution. But it is still a government institution. It spends our money and we have a bunch of questions about how it's spent. In my book, that makes public education fair game for independent scrutiny by journalists whose job it is to answer the questions — and question the answers.

    Educators keep telling us that this country's public education system is ablaze. If so, then we in the media should do more than just stand outside and describe the heat. I say we kick down a few walls and find out what started the fire.