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    Home » Media Reporting: Asleep at the Switch?
    Editorials/Opinion

    Media Reporting: Asleep at the Switch?

    December 13, 2012No Comments7 Mins Read
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    By James Bishop, Jr.
    (December 13, 2012)

    photo_bishopOur doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt 
    – From Measure for Measure

    Sunlight is the best disinfectant
    – Mr. Dooley

    As time goes by, life is becoming so complicated that even Fourth Estate reporters shun delving into challenging conundrums. Consider our energy and our food distribution systems which often cause veteran reporters to stumble all over themselves trying to understand how the global economy actually works. Such is the case with the nation’s educational dilemmas asserts prize-winning Arizona teacher, Elaine Watkins: “In my opinion, the media does a surface job with education. It may be that they can’t understand it.”

    Confirming her view pile up like apples falling from a tree at harvest time. In that regard, few illustrations trump an article in Newsweek Magazine in March 2010. Enticingly, the cover said “The Key to Saving American Education.” Behind that promising sounding headline was a blackboard upon which was written ever and over again, “We must fire bad teachers. We must fire bad teachers.” Why because the article stated, “Once upon a time, American students tested better than any other students in the world…..no longer.” Shockingly, according to Newsweek, American students now have steadily dropped down on the list of nations, down to the student performance in Lithuania; “a national embarrassment as well as a threat to the nation’s future,” Newsweek charged. Quite a story of decline, a narrative of failure and redemption was that article wrote Diane Ravitch, foremost influential scholar on education and well aware of other shortcomings. However, there was one hitch in her view: “The story was a fairy tale because there was no time in the past when American schools were first in international tests.”

    Indeed avowed the late philosopher Aldous Huxley, “facts do not cease to exist just because they are ignored.” Despite Newsweek’s “fairy tale,” and others which followed it pick up the pace of the so-called “reform movement” the thrust of which is that students would be performing ever so much better if not for “bad teachers,” protected in their positions by unions and tenure. To be sure, reform movements were nothing new to our public school systems, driven by dissidents pushing for better salaries and working hours. Few in the media bother to report about the history of “reform movements.” From the 1820s to now, self-styled reformers belly ached about low standards, ignorant teachers, and incompetent school boards During the Reagan presidency, “A Nation at Risk” was published telling the world that low student performance due to “a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people.” How many in the media try to define “a rising tide of mediocrity? No did they harken back to New York City in the early 1900s when there was a movement to ban spelling and grammar to make school more fun; when William Maxwell, superintendent of New York City schools insisted that “vertical penmanship” was the answer to all educational problems; when another reformer maintained that recess was a “relic of barbarism.” In those days, sunlight was the best disinfectant and “yellow journalism” was daily fare. This time around, it was a scholar and author, not a journalist who dug into the forces driving the current reform movement—Diane Ravitch, a Research Professor of Education at NYU, and the recipient of Daniel Moynihan Award from the American Academy of Political and Social Science “for her careful use of social science research to advance the public good.”

    This writer encountered her work reading The New York Review of Book in 2012. Reacting to another jeremiad, this one put out by the Council on Foreign Relations and stating that public schools are so bad they threaten national security, she asked: “How is it possible that this nation became so successful if its public schools, which enroll 90 percent of its children, have been consistently failing for the past generation?”

    Because of spotty reporting by the mass media, the public only sees flashes of the forces behind the current reform movement which is led and financed, for the most part, by people with little or no background or expertise in education. This time around, the reform movement in the early 21st century is led by Wall Street moguls, millionaires, conservative foundations, leaders of technology firms bound together by the belief that the real problem with the nation’s public school system is because of a large number of “bad teachers.” This group of so-called reformers, many disciples of Ayn Rand and the Tea Party movement believe that the private sector, meaning businesses, always perform better than the public center. Unreported by the mass media, including the big eastern press is that a major scandal is brewing. For-profit charter schools rake in some $30 billion a year in federal student loans and grants so what do they have to show for it? Their loan default is twice that of traditional schools, and only 20 percent of their funding on actual instruction vs. much more on marketing.

    Talk about a story which was mostly ignored by the press/media. Talk about another story that was essential ignored, what determines a “bad teacher.” Talk about the real motive of the money-driven reform movement, to replace big city public school systems in the name of so-called free market competition with charter schools fueled by taxpayer money. Do students do better? Doubtful!

    In all fairness to the media, the time has passed long ago when magazines and newspapers hired education reporters. The result is that many of the true problems facing the public school systems are reported by general assignment reporters without deep backgrounds in education. At the same time, although funding comes from the Nation’s capital many of the best stories—like the last of the one-room schoolhouses, like schools running against the trend, teaching art—are to be found in the states, in one state, and not yet a national trend. Idaho is a good example what with the teachers going to court to stop computers and their on-line programs from driving teachers away. Such resistance has not been reported elsewhere in the U.S.

    To be sure there examples where the media/press has performed well in the public interest. Leading the list is Time magazine’s takeout on the revival of vocational education on May 14th, 2012. To be sure, the prior way of regarding vocational schools was that they were for dumb kids because they were not fit for classroom learning. According to Time “the old notion of vocational education has been stood on its head.” Indeed it is now called CTE for career and technical education and it is becoming an attractive route for college-bound advanced-placement students.

    No question, a new reporter on the education scene would have trouble deciding where to focus, where to start. Questions arise. Are teachers really to blame for poor student performance? If elected officials stopped chopping teacher salaries would that improve student scores? Are rigid testing programs a help or a hindrance to public school students? Will public schools survive the rush to charter schools? What does it take for a student to want to learn? Are parents responsible for their children’s poor grades? Why has No Child Left Behind Failed? Can the Internet make a difference to educating children?

    Ironically, the preeminent reporting on the nation’s public school challenge has been done by reporters and writers from overseas, namely the London-based Economist which was the first report that “non-school factors”

    Such as family income account for as much as 60% of a child’s performance in school. It is interesting that back in 1899, John Dewey, academic theorist, published “The School and Society” in which he argued that schooling should reflect the lives of children. Nowadays the name of the game is every one wishes to measure outcomes. The magazine also reported that when one compares Western reforms with Eastern practice the main difference was that in Hong Kong, “the effective teacher is seen as a figure of authority, morality and benevolence…. Some Western parents might like a taste of such Confucianism in their own children’s classrooms.”

    What is the answer?

    Kicker are letters

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    samaireformayor
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     THE MOMENT IS UPON US

    Dear Sedona,

    The moment is upon us. The time for a united effort to shift the focus back to our community is now.

    The ability to thrive in our community, our environment, our workforce, and the tourist industry, is entirely possible because we have all the resources needed for success.

    Still, we need a council that isn’t afraid to ask the hard questions, that makes decisions based on data and facts, and through discussion, rather than moving and voting in group unison as they so regularly do.

    This is my home. I have been a part of the Sedona community for 28 years. I witnessed the road debacle, the lack of planning, the city circumventing the local businesses ability to thrive, while making choices to expand the local government and be in direct competition with private industry.

    I am a unique candidate because unlike the incumbents, I don’t believe the government should expand in size, nor in operations, nor would I attempt to micromanage every aspect of our community.

    City government should stay in its lane and allow the competitive market of local private industry to prosper. And it should defend our community from corporate takeover and infiltration of our town.

    I do not agree that we should sign onto International Building Codes and regulations by signing Sedona up to the ICC. It is imperative that we remain a sweet, rural community.

    Where are the arts? Where is this organic thriving element that we allege to be animated by. Where is our culture? Where is our community?

    The discord between the decision making process and the desires of the community have never been more clear. It has been nearly a decade in the making.

    It is time for a new era of energy to take charge. An energy that is reflective in the ability to succeed rather than be trapped in out of date consciousness.

    It has been a great honor meeting with each of you. I hear your concerns over the insane and out of control spending and I echo them. A budget of $105,000,000 in a town of 9700 residents is completely unacceptable. A parking structure (that looks like a shoe box) originally slated to cost 11 million, now projected to cost 18 million, is incomprehensible. Especially, considering there is no intention of charging for parking.

    For those who are concerned that I lack the political experience within our established system- that is precisely what Sedona needs… Not another politician, but instead a person who understands people, who listens to the voices within the community, and who will act in service on their behalf with accountability, for the highest good of Sedona. What I am not, will prove to be an asset as I navigate the entrenched bureaucracy with a fresh perspective. Business as usual, is over.

    Creative solutions require new energy.

    Every decision that is made by our local government, must contemplate Sedona first.

    • Does this decision benefit the residents?
    • Does this decision benefit the local businesses?
    • Does this decision actually help the environment?
    • Will this decision sustain benefit in the future, or will it bring more problems?

    What we have now is a city government that expands to 165 employees for 9700 residents. Palm Desert has 53,000 residents and 119 city employees. Majority of our city department heads are not even in town. I find this problematic.

    Efforts towards championing in and courting new solutions for our medical needs are imperative. We are losing our doctors. We must encourage competition with other facilities rather than be held hostage by NAH, who clearly have their own set of dysfunctions.

    We must remember that so many move to Sedona for its beauty, hiking, and small town charm. Bigger, faster, and more concrete does not, in broad strokes, fit the ethos of Sedona.

    The old world must remain strong here in balance, as that is what visitors want to experience. Too many have noted that Sedona has lost its edge and charm.

    As Mayor I will preserve the rural charm of our community, and push back against the urbanization that is planned for Sedona.

    As mayor I will make it a priority to create opportunities to support our youth.  After school healthy, enriching programs should be created for our kids, and available to the Sedona workforce regardless of residency and regardless of school they belong to.

    As Mayor, I will create an agenda to deliberately embody the consciousness of our collective needs here, allowing private industry to meet the needs of our community rather than bigger government.

    I hope to have your vote on Aug 2nd. I am excited and have the energy to take on this leadership role with new eyes, community perspective, and the thoughtful consciousness that reflects all ages of the human spectrum.

    Thank you deeply for your consideration.

    Sincerely,

    Samaire Armstrong

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    Armstrong vs. Jablow: The Main Event
    Ready to Rumble

    By Tommy Acosta
    In the Blue Corner stands Scott Jablow and in the Red Corner of the ring stands Samaire Armstrong, ready to rumble to the bitter end in their fight to become the next Sedona mayor. Jablow weighs in with 1,137 primary election votes (36.13%) under his belt, having wielded his advantage as sitting Sedona City Council vice-mayor to his favor. He brings his years of serving in that capacity into the fray and waged a solid fight in his campaign to make it to the run-off. Armstrong, however withstood a blistering smear campaign from the other opposing candidates and their supporters to make it to the final bout with 967 votes under her belt (30.73%), an amazing feat for a political newcomer. Unfortunately, for the other two candidates, Kurt Gehlbach and sitting mayor Sandy Moriarty, neither put up enough of a fight to make it to the championship bout. Read more→
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