No Child Left Behind and the Media Spin on Education Unions

by Tula Connell, Aug 3, 2007

When it comes to getting out the union message, cutting through the media spin is hard enough. But under the Bush administration, the media at times has became the tool of the Republican Party, such as when the Department of Education began pushing the GOP’s anti-union agenda—at taxpayer expense.

Chuck Porcari, AFT director of communications and John See, AFT associate director of communications, discussed how the media spins education issues during a late afternoon panel at YearlyKos here in Chicago: “Spinning Unions: Mainstream Media Has it Wrong About Unions.” National Education Association (NEA) Director of Educational Policy and Practice Joel Packer joined AFT to discuss the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law, which is up for reauthorization this fall, and NEA web strategist Cecil Cahoon shared his insights about coverage of education issues in the blogosphere with a good crowd of participants who included many teachers and parents.  

Among the problems with NCLB, said Packer, is its measurement standards: It measures schools based solely on two test scores. Meanwhile, other academic indicators that are part of NCLB only increase number of schools labeled “failing,” with 37 ways to fail—and only one  way to pass. Essentially, it mandates a one-size fits all approach to testing and education.

To meet the criteria NCLB sets, 44 percent of districts cut time spent on science social studies, art, music physical education and even lunch, said Packer. But he public hasn’t been fooled about the defects of the act: Nearly two-thirds of the public polled by Gallup want NCLB rewritten or abolished, Packer said. 

Yet not everyone is unhappy with the bill. Several George W. Bush cronies, for instance, are making piles of money off of it. Bill Bennett, former Secretary of Education under Ronald Reagan,  has made $4 million pushing NCLB in Arkansas through his education contracting firm, K12 Inc.

Before the bill is reauthorized, said Packer, both NEA and AFT agree the new act must:

• Use more than test scores to measures student learning and performance.
• Reduce class sizes to boost learning.
• Increase the number of highly qualified teachers in our schools.

Linda Perlstein, former education reporter at The Washington Post, expanded on the harmful effects of NCLB’s narrow measurements by sharing the findings from her new book, Tested: One American School Struggles to Make the Grade. Perlstein studied NCLB’s extreme standardized testing measurements at a school system in Annapolis, Md., and said she found that

the teachers who know most about what goes on their classrooms have the least say.

For example, Perlstein described an education official who saw the need for scripted testing—so that even “a bank teller could do it.”

To which Perlstein notes:

When that’s the prevailing incentive of a school system, you’re going to lose your best people. 

Countering the fallacy that tests tell you everything you need to know about children is crucial, said Cahoon, who said he finds education blogs offer much more detailed coverage of education issues than do the mainstream media. Mainstream media doesn’t adequately cover education issues because education is a low priority for reporters and the existence of “gotcha” journalism results in coverage of teachers and their unions only when something goes wrong. There’s also the factor of reporters’ “pure laziness.” After all, said Cahoon, it’s a lot easier to fly into Minneapolis with a camera to cover a bridge collaspe than it is to read the 1,100-page law that created NCLB and analyze how it would affect the local school system. Said Cahoon:

I find a great deal more detail, a great deal more nuance on education issues in the blogosphere than in the mainstream media.

An insight that brings full circle in this conference of netroots activists the need for education unions, and all unions, to join forces with our allies in the online progressive movement.

Print This Article | E-Mail This Article |Comments (1)