WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2016
Location remains undisclosed: We're off on yet another mission of national import. It will take us to an undisclosed location in Aberdeen, South Dakota.
We don't expect to post again until some time this weekend. That precise time remains undisclosed.
On Monday, we'll start the third week of our four-week report, Where the Test Scores Are. Next week's reports will explore this theme: Where the Achievement Gaps Are.
Also next Monday: the first debate. We'll provide some historical background.
Kellyanne Conway massacres Todd!
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2016
Profiles in lack of competence: Ever since the 1960s, Americans have heard repeated claims concerning press corps bias.
It's a perfectly sensible type of discussion. Individual journalists can exhibit, or can seem to exhibit, various types of bias. All too often, the mainstream press corps has exhibited apparent types of bias collectively, as a group.
We often hear complaints about bias. Much less frequently, we see discussions of press corps competence.
That said, major journalists often display a remarkable lack of basic intellectual / journalistic skill. For starters, consider the remarkable recent column by the New York Times' new public editor.
The column, by public editor Liz Spayd, appeared on Sunday, September 11. The column has been widely criticized but not, we think, quite enough.
Spayd's column dealt with complaints from readers. Those readers allege that the Times has been exhibiting "false balance" in its treatment of Candidates Clinton and Trump.
Whatever one thinks of that allegation, Spayd's analysis was remarkable. She offered a rather fuzzy definition of that term, then offered this remarkable dismissal of the complaints she has received from readers of the Times:
She then suggests that the readers who have complained are completely irrational. If they think Trump's transgressions have been under-covered, that must mean that they don't want Clinton's emails mentioned at all! Spayd doesn't quote any example in which a reader actually said such a thing. She simply imagines this request, using it as a way to dismiss all "false balance" complaints.
When we read that column, we were amazed to think that the person who wrote it has risen so high in the press corps. Today, Spayd holds a high-profile post at the New York Times. In her previous two incarnations, she was managing editor of the Washington Post, then served as editor and publisher of the Columbia Journalism Review!
How could a person with that resume possibly write a column like that? Let's put that a different way: How could a person with that level of skill possibly have attained such posts in the upper-end press corps?
In fairness, everyone can have a bad day. That said, Spayd's sneering column helps highlight the lack of intellectual skill commonly seen in the press corps.
Then too, there's the lack of journalistic skill. On Sunday's Meet the Press, Chuck Todd put that shortfall on startling display as he tried to interview Donald Trump's campaign chairman.
Todd attempted to interview Kellyanne Conway about Candidate Trump's five years as king of the birthers. Conway responded by chopping Todd to bits and leaving him for dead.
Conway's reaction to every question was perfectly predictable. She spent two or three seconds pivoting away from Todd's questions about Candidate Trump, then delivered critical orations concerning Candidate Clinton.
At some point, an interviewer has to tell such a guest to stop. He has to insist that she stop discussing the other guy and answer his actual questions about the person she represents.
Chuck Todd never did that. He kept letting Conway ignore the behavior of Candidate Trump while making accusations about Candidate Clinton, some of which were perhaps less than thoroughly accurate.
How bad was Todd's performance? In this, the very first exchange, we see one of the worst journalistic performances in the long, sometimes undistinguished history of the "Sunday shows:"
As noted, Conway spent about two seconds on the rather obvious question she had been asked. She said she didn't know how the candidate she represents reached the new conclusion he had just announced.
In all honesty, this first Q-and-A should have ended right there. A skillful interviewer would have asked Conway why she can't answer a basic question about a major announcement her candidate had just delivered.
Todd displayed no such skill. Instead, Conway proceeded to deliver an oration about the other candidate. Todd was willing to listen, then seemed to affirm what she said.
Sadly, the situation was worse than we have so far described. Conway's oration about Candidate Clinton was perhaps a bit fact-challenged, was perhaps even grossly misleading.
Whatever one thinks of Penn's "famous memo," it was a private document—and it said nothing about Obama's place of birth. The Iowa volunteer fleetingly mentioned by Conway was fired by the Clinton campaign.
Did Blumenthal do what Conway charged? One person says he did; Blumenthal says he didn't. But somehow, out of this rather thin stew, Conway created an oration in which she avoided the question Todd had asked and delivered an attack on Candidate Clinton, even taking the time to cite her lack of likability.
Technically, Conway started with an attack on some of Clinton's "associates." This is the specific charge with which her oration began:
"Associates of the Clinton campaign started this birtherism question in 2007."
As she began, Conway claimed that associates of Clinton started the birther movement. That claim is shaky enough, especially given Conway's flimsy "examples." But by the end of her speech, she had abandoned her initial attempts at nuance:
"That was Clinton," Conway said. Apparently, Clinton did it herself!
Conway had avoided Todd's question on Candidate Trump. Instead, she had delivered a fact-challenged attack on Candidate Clinton.
Conway's specific claims were misleading, unfounded, perhaps false. At no point did she cite anything that Clinton herself had ever said or done.
Readers, so what? When he reappeared on the scene, Todd challenged nothing Conway had said. Instead, he seemed to vouch for the accuracy of her account. In the process, he imposed The Reign of Moral Equivalence:
"Who cares about the Clinton incident?" Todd instantly said, thereby seeming to vouch for Conway's various statements. Then he made his most remarkable statement:
Conway continued schooling Todd throughout their interview. You see, Conway is highly skilled at what she does. Todd displayed almost no journalistic skill at all.
It's pretty much as we've always said. The more these TV performers get paid, the less skill you're likely to see them display. When people are being paid millions of dollars to maintain ratings and execute various corporate strategies, journalistic incompetence has been built into the system.
Career liberal journalists will perhaps look past Todd's performance. We've seen few of them mention this remarkable session. We're going to take a cynical guess:
Some of them may want to appear on Meet the Press! Such appearances are good for careers. Criticism of Todd is not.
Profiles in lack of competence: Ever since the 1960s, Americans have heard repeated claims concerning press corps bias.
It's a perfectly sensible type of discussion. Individual journalists can exhibit, or can seem to exhibit, various types of bias. All too often, the mainstream press corps has exhibited apparent types of bias collectively, as a group.
We often hear complaints about bias. Much less frequently, we see discussions of press corps competence.
That said, major journalists often display a remarkable lack of basic intellectual / journalistic skill. For starters, consider the remarkable recent column by the New York Times' new public editor.
The column, by public editor Liz Spayd, appeared on Sunday, September 11. The column has been widely criticized but not, we think, quite enough.
Spayd's column dealt with complaints from readers. Those readers allege that the Times has been exhibiting "false balance" in its treatment of Candidates Clinton and Trump.
Whatever one thinks of that allegation, Spayd's analysis was remarkable. She offered a rather fuzzy definition of that term, then offered this remarkable dismissal of the complaints she has received from readers of the Times:
SPAYD (9/11/16): The problem with false balance doctrine is that it masquerades as rational thinking. What the critics really want is for journalists to apply their own moral and ideological judgments to the candidates. Take one example. Suppose journalists deem Clinton’s use of private email servers a minor offense compared with Trump inciting Russia to influence an American election by hacking into computers—remember that? Is the next step for a paternalistic media to barely cover Clinton’s email so that the public isn’t confused about what’s more important? Should her email saga be covered at all? It’s a slippery slope.Good lord! In those highlighted sentences, Spayd dismisses all these complaints on the basis that the complaints were driven by partisan motives. She turns the complaints into a "doctrine"—a doctrine driven by partisan preference for Candidate Clinton.
She then suggests that the readers who have complained are completely irrational. If they think Trump's transgressions have been under-covered, that must mean that they don't want Clinton's emails mentioned at all! Spayd doesn't quote any example in which a reader actually said such a thing. She simply imagines this request, using it as a way to dismiss all "false balance" complaints.
When we read that column, we were amazed to think that the person who wrote it has risen so high in the press corps. Today, Spayd holds a high-profile post at the New York Times. In her previous two incarnations, she was managing editor of the Washington Post, then served as editor and publisher of the Columbia Journalism Review!
How could a person with that resume possibly write a column like that? Let's put that a different way: How could a person with that level of skill possibly have attained such posts in the upper-end press corps?
In fairness, everyone can have a bad day. That said, Spayd's sneering column helps highlight the lack of intellectual skill commonly seen in the press corps.
Then too, there's the lack of journalistic skill. On Sunday's Meet the Press, Chuck Todd put that shortfall on startling display as he tried to interview Donald Trump's campaign chairman.
Todd attempted to interview Kellyanne Conway about Candidate Trump's five years as king of the birthers. Conway responded by chopping Todd to bits and leaving him for dead.
Conway's reaction to every question was perfectly predictable. She spent two or three seconds pivoting away from Todd's questions about Candidate Trump, then delivered critical orations concerning Candidate Clinton.
At some point, an interviewer has to tell such a guest to stop. He has to insist that she stop discussing the other guy and answer his actual questions about the person she represents.
Chuck Todd never did that. He kept letting Conway ignore the behavior of Candidate Trump while making accusations about Candidate Clinton, some of which were perhaps less than thoroughly accurate.
How bad was Todd's performance? In this, the very first exchange, we see one of the worst journalistic performances in the long, sometimes undistinguished history of the "Sunday shows:"
TODD (9/18/16): All right. Let me start with Friday's news first. How and when did Donald Trump conclude that the president was born in the United States?Good God! Journalistically, that exchange is stunning. For the full transcript, click here.
CONWAY: You will have to ask him that. That's a personal decision. But we heard very clearly the three things he said on his own timeline in his own terms on Friday:
Number one, that associates of the Clinton campaign started this birtherism question in 2007. Mark Penn in a famous memo questioning President—Senator Obama's American roots.
The Iowa volunteer coordinator and, then, of course, as the McClatchy D.C. bureau chief at the time, now former, Chuck, has confirmed that Sid Blumenthal, big Clinton confidant, on the payroll for The Clinton Foundation, went and told him that president—oh, Senator Obama was born in Kenya. And in fact, they sent somebody to Africa to check it out. So this—
You know, Donald Trump was not running for president against Barack Obama in a very bruising, vicious primary in 2008. That was Hillary Clinton.
Number two, Donald Trump said he put this to rest. Hillary Clinton couldn't close it, get the information he did.
And number three, you heard him say that President Obama was born in this country, period. And he is moving on to all the things he talked about this week, tax reform, child care tax credits. We got the endorsement of the FOP, the Fraternal Order of Police, huge endorsement. They did not endorse anybody four years ago.
They endorsed the more popular, more likable Clinton in 1996. And so we're very happy with developments like that.
TODD: I guess— What I'm curious about, though, is who cares about the Clinton incident?
Donald Trump, for five years, perpetuated this. This has been arguably part of his political identity for the last five years. So what difference does it make whether Clinton does it? Why do two wrongs make a right in this case?
Let's talk about— Forget the Clinton incident for a minute. Why did he perpetuate it for five years after some associates from Hillary Clinton in your words?
As noted, Conway spent about two seconds on the rather obvious question she had been asked. She said she didn't know how the candidate she represents reached the new conclusion he had just announced.
In all honesty, this first Q-and-A should have ended right there. A skillful interviewer would have asked Conway why she can't answer a basic question about a major announcement her candidate had just delivered.
Todd displayed no such skill. Instead, Conway proceeded to deliver an oration about the other candidate. Todd was willing to listen, then seemed to affirm what she said.
Sadly, the situation was worse than we have so far described. Conway's oration about Candidate Clinton was perhaps a bit fact-challenged, was perhaps even grossly misleading.
Whatever one thinks of Penn's "famous memo," it was a private document—and it said nothing about Obama's place of birth. The Iowa volunteer fleetingly mentioned by Conway was fired by the Clinton campaign.
Did Blumenthal do what Conway charged? One person says he did; Blumenthal says he didn't. But somehow, out of this rather thin stew, Conway created an oration in which she avoided the question Todd had asked and delivered an attack on Candidate Clinton, even taking the time to cite her lack of likability.
Technically, Conway started with an attack on some of Clinton's "associates." This is the specific charge with which her oration began:
"Associates of the Clinton campaign started this birtherism question in 2007."
As she began, Conway claimed that associates of Clinton started the birther movement. That claim is shaky enough, especially given Conway's flimsy "examples." But by the end of her speech, she had abandoned her initial attempts at nuance:
"That was Clinton," Conway said. Apparently, Clinton did it herself!
Conway had avoided Todd's question on Candidate Trump. Instead, she had delivered a fact-challenged attack on Candidate Clinton.
Conway's specific claims were misleading, unfounded, perhaps false. At no point did she cite anything that Clinton herself had ever said or done.
Readers, so what? When he reappeared on the scene, Todd challenged nothing Conway had said. Instead, he seemed to vouch for the accuracy of her account. In the process, he imposed The Reign of Moral Equivalence:
"Who cares about the Clinton incident?" Todd instantly said, thereby seeming to vouch for Conway's various statements. Then he made his most remarkable statement:
TODD: Donald Trump, for five years, perpetuated this. This has been arguably part of his political identity for the last five years. So what difference does it make whether Clinton does it? Why do two wrongs make a right in this case?There you see the moderator creating The Realm of False Balance. Clinton did it, as did Trump! "Why do two wrongs make a right?" the pistol-whipped schoolboy now memorably said.
Conway continued schooling Todd throughout their interview. You see, Conway is highly skilled at what she does. Todd displayed almost no journalistic skill at all.
It's pretty much as we've always said. The more these TV performers get paid, the less skill you're likely to see them display. When people are being paid millions of dollars to maintain ratings and execute various corporate strategies, journalistic incompetence has been built into the system.
Career liberal journalists will perhaps look past Todd's performance. We've seen few of them mention this remarkable session. We're going to take a cynical guess:
Some of them may want to appear on Meet the Press! Such appearances are good for careers. Criticism of Todd is not.
Kellyanne Conway rules Chuck Todd!
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2016
Sunday, bloody Sunday: We knew Kellyanne Fitzpatrick the tiniest tad back in the 1990s.
Today she's Kellyanne Conway. Yesterday, she massacred Chuck Todd on Meet the Press.
Based on clips from other shows, it seems it was one of the bloodiest Sundays, journalism-wise, since the advent of the Sunday shows back at the dawn of time. But at any rate, when Kellyanne met Chuck, the result was unvarnished slaughter.
We'll plan to discuss the encounter tomorrow. A generous person might want to say that our seven- and eight-figure corporate broadcasters have never dealt with this level of dissembling and misdirection before and for that reason haven't developed the requisite skills. But journalistic culture took a very deep dive on that particular program.
By the way:
In this piece for The Atlantic, Peter Beinart arrives at the scene of the crime some sixteen to twenty years late. The modus operandi for careerists seems rather clear in his piece:
Say nothing about the New York Times—until such time as you have something good to say.
Sunday, bloody Sunday: We knew Kellyanne Fitzpatrick the tiniest tad back in the 1990s.
Today she's Kellyanne Conway. Yesterday, she massacred Chuck Todd on Meet the Press.
Based on clips from other shows, it seems it was one of the bloodiest Sundays, journalism-wise, since the advent of the Sunday shows back at the dawn of time. But at any rate, when Kellyanne met Chuck, the result was unvarnished slaughter.
We'll plan to discuss the encounter tomorrow. A generous person might want to say that our seven- and eight-figure corporate broadcasters have never dealt with this level of dissembling and misdirection before and for that reason haven't developed the requisite skills. But journalistic culture took a very deep dive on that particular program.
By the way:
In this piece for The Atlantic, Peter Beinart arrives at the scene of the crime some sixteen to twenty years late. The modus operandi for careerists seems rather clear in his piece:
Say nothing about the New York Times—until such time as you have something good to say.
WHERE THE TEST SCORES ARE: Explaining what Bill Keller said!
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2016
Interlude—One-week hiatus looms: On Wednesday morning, we'll be leaving our sprawling campus on a mission of national import.
We'll be taking part in a symposium for federal managers at an undisclosed location in Aberdeen, South Dakota. For that reason, our four-week series, Where the Test Scores Are, will be on hiatus until next Monday.
Next week, we'll proceed with the third week in our series, "Where the Achievement Gaps Are." Today, we'll jump the gun on that topic a tad—and we'll explain what Bill Keller said.
As we noted in last Friday's report, Keller is a major American journalist. In 1989, he won a Pulitzer prize for his foreign reporting. From 2003 through 2011, he was executive editor of the New York Times, a well-known American newspaper.
Keller is perfectly smart (it sometimes seems that some journalists aren't); he's also thoroughly decent. But in August 2013, he made this peculiar highlighted statement in an opinion column in the New York Times:
As we've noted in the past two weeks—as we've noted for the past many years—our most reliable data seem to contradict or challenge that claim. So why did Keller believe that claim? We offered an excuse for the lifelong Timesman:
He has a good excuse, we said. He reads the New York Times!
Did Keller hold a false or grossly misleading belief because he reads the Times? In yesterday's high-profile Sunday Review, the Times presented the latest example of what we had in mind.
We refer to six letters the Times published about a recent front-page news report. That report described a large achievement gap between some Connecticut schools.
We expect to start with that news report when our series resumes next week. Briefly, though, the report describes a large gap in academic achievement between students in low-income Bridgeport, Connecticut and their counterparts in high-income Fairfield, just a few miles away.
(Despite the presence of cities like Bridgeport, Fairfield County ranked sixth in the U.S. in per capita income as of 2005. Fairfield County's so-called "Gold Coast" is extremely wealthy.)
Those achievement gaps are real. So are some of the problems the Times news report addressed.
Those gaps are real—and they're very important. But the six letters in yesterday's Times help explain the puzzling claim described as "Keller's folly."
As we'll note all next week, our achievement gaps remain substantial and real. But so are the large score gains recorded by all major parts of the student population over the past twenty years.
The gaps remain, though they've gotten smaller, because all major population groups have shown roughly similar gains. But as we've told you again and again, newspapers like the New York Times impose a brutal journalistic regime when they report on the public schools:
They constantly report the gaps—and they constantly disappear the gains! This leads intelligent, well-intentioned people like Keller to fundamentally misunderstand the current state of play.
Yesterday, the New York Times published six letters about its news report. Several thundered about the gaps. None of them mentioned the gains.
A cynic might think that the letters came straight from a corporatist spin machine. The letters reinforced the sense of gloom which Keller so vividly expressed. None of them explained the basic reason why the gaps persist.
For today, we'll only consider one of yesterday's letters. Below, you see a textbook example of the deeply misleading way this situation is presented in newspapers like the Times:
The letter says that recent reforms "have done little to end the achievement gaps in the United States." It accurately says that "racial achievement gaps continue in nearly every district."
With the elaborate moral grandeur so commonly seen in this broken discussion, the writer reports the gaps—but fails to mention the gains! He fails to say why those achievement gaps remain, despite the large score gains recorded by black and Hispanic kids.
In fact, he fails to mention those gains at all! His letter provides a perfect example of our account of the way the reporting works in this area.
Bill Keller isn't an education specialist. When it comes to public schools, he's probably a bit like Will Rogers: he only knows what he reads in the papers.
When he reads the New York Times, he sees laments about the gaps but never hears about the gains. In all likelihood, he has never heard about the large score gains recorded by all groups of American students during the years he cited.
When we present the third week in this series, we expect to start with Bridgeport and Fairfield. Yesterday, the Times published six letters about those neighboring districts.
On our scorecard, two of the letters—those from Yonkers and Los Angeles—presented "non-partisan" reactions to the original news report. The letters focused on the funding disparities which formed the basis for much of the Times report.
The other four letters all seemed to come from a screeching corporatist playbook. We heard insinuations about our teachers (though no one mentioned their fiendish unions). We heard about basic educational practices which were said to be foolish.
In the first letter, we were offered a statistical claim about failing students and where they're found which seems highly implausible. In the final letter, we received a final, familiar blast. We were told that "Judge Thomas G. Moukawsher’s sweeping critique of Connecticut schools did, indeed, sound like an indictment of school failure nationwide...Children begin life curious and enthusiastic about learning, but schools have failed to nurture their intense urge to learn."
As usual, we were told that our public schools have failed nationwide. We weren't told about the large score gains recorded by all groups of kids, including black and Hispanic kids.
In yesterday's letters, New York Times readers were told, once again, about our achievement gaps. But how strange! In the course of publishing six different letters, no one mentioned the large score gains recorded by black and Hispanic kids over the decades in question.
Bill Keller's been reading such work for years. So has everyone who subscribes to the New York Times or the Washington Post.
Liberal journalists never challenge this grossly misleading framework. Most plainly put: For all our ballyhooed moral greatness, we liberals don't seem to care.
Bill Keller's been reading such work for years. It represents a type of journalistic malpractice.
It constitutes a journalistic offense against the American discourse, against the public interest. Our four-week report about that offense will resume next week.
Coming next week: Where the Achievement Gaps Are
Starting October 3: Where the Deceptions Are
Interlude—One-week hiatus looms: On Wednesday morning, we'll be leaving our sprawling campus on a mission of national import.
We'll be taking part in a symposium for federal managers at an undisclosed location in Aberdeen, South Dakota. For that reason, our four-week series, Where the Test Scores Are, will be on hiatus until next Monday.
Next week, we'll proceed with the third week in our series, "Where the Achievement Gaps Are." Today, we'll jump the gun on that topic a tad—and we'll explain what Bill Keller said.
As we noted in last Friday's report, Keller is a major American journalist. In 1989, he won a Pulitzer prize for his foreign reporting. From 2003 through 2011, he was executive editor of the New York Times, a well-known American newspaper.
Keller is perfectly smart (it sometimes seems that some journalists aren't); he's also thoroughly decent. But in August 2013, he made this peculiar highlighted statement in an opinion column in the New York Times:
KELLER (8/19/13): The Common Core, a grade-by-grade outline of what children should know to be ready for college and careers, made its debut in 2010, endorsed by 45 states. It is to be followed in the 2014-15 school year by new standardized tests that seek to measure more than the ability to cram facts or master test-taking tricks...As of back-to-school 2013, why did Keller believe that the United States had experienced "decades of embarrassing decline in K-12 education?"
This is an ambitious undertaking, and there is plenty of room for debate about precisely how these standards are translated into classrooms. But the Common Core was created with a broad, nonpartisan consensus of educators, convinced that after decades of embarrassing decline in K-12 education, the country had to come together on a way to hold our public schools accountable.
As we've noted in the past two weeks—as we've noted for the past many years—our most reliable data seem to contradict or challenge that claim. So why did Keller believe that claim? We offered an excuse for the lifelong Timesman:
He has a good excuse, we said. He reads the New York Times!
Did Keller hold a false or grossly misleading belief because he reads the Times? In yesterday's high-profile Sunday Review, the Times presented the latest example of what we had in mind.
We refer to six letters the Times published about a recent front-page news report. That report described a large achievement gap between some Connecticut schools.
We expect to start with that news report when our series resumes next week. Briefly, though, the report describes a large gap in academic achievement between students in low-income Bridgeport, Connecticut and their counterparts in high-income Fairfield, just a few miles away.
(Despite the presence of cities like Bridgeport, Fairfield County ranked sixth in the U.S. in per capita income as of 2005. Fairfield County's so-called "Gold Coast" is extremely wealthy.)
Those achievement gaps are real. So are some of the problems the Times news report addressed.
Those gaps are real—and they're very important. But the six letters in yesterday's Times help explain the puzzling claim described as "Keller's folly."
As we'll note all next week, our achievement gaps remain substantial and real. But so are the large score gains recorded by all major parts of the student population over the past twenty years.
The gaps remain, though they've gotten smaller, because all major population groups have shown roughly similar gains. But as we've told you again and again, newspapers like the New York Times impose a brutal journalistic regime when they report on the public schools:
They constantly report the gaps—and they constantly disappear the gains! This leads intelligent, well-intentioned people like Keller to fundamentally misunderstand the current state of play.
Yesterday, the New York Times published six letters about its news report. Several thundered about the gaps. None of them mentioned the gains.
A cynic might think that the letters came straight from a corporatist spin machine. The letters reinforced the sense of gloom which Keller so vividly expressed. None of them explained the basic reason why the gaps persist.
For today, we'll only consider one of yesterday's letters. Below, you see a textbook example of the deeply misleading way this situation is presented in newspapers like the Times:
LETTER TO THE NEW YORK TIMES (9/18/16): The educational reforms of the past decade, with its Common Core curriculum, reliance on high-stakes tests and the new world of digital technology, and calls for more charter schools, have done little to end the achievement gaps in the United States. The Stanford Education Data Archive, based on school district performances on the National Assessment of Educational Progress across the country, found that racial achievement gaps continue in nearly every district. In fact, I believe that these reforms have only exacerbated the problems associated with segregated schools.Why did Keller say what he did? Just take a look at that letter!
So what is to be done? States should dissolve current local school districts and collapse them into districts that integrate urban districts with suburban districts; establish per-pupil funding levels; and provide for extended social services for families in poverty, including parent education.
Until we muster the political leadership and the courage to really address the needs of disadvantaged children and integrate our schools, the current crop of educational reforms will do little to improve the quality of public education, and schools will remain highly segregated.
The letter says that recent reforms "have done little to end the achievement gaps in the United States." It accurately says that "racial achievement gaps continue in nearly every district."
With the elaborate moral grandeur so commonly seen in this broken discussion, the writer reports the gaps—but fails to mention the gains! He fails to say why those achievement gaps remain, despite the large score gains recorded by black and Hispanic kids.
In fact, he fails to mention those gains at all! His letter provides a perfect example of our account of the way the reporting works in this area.
Bill Keller isn't an education specialist. When it comes to public schools, he's probably a bit like Will Rogers: he only knows what he reads in the papers.
When he reads the New York Times, he sees laments about the gaps but never hears about the gains. In all likelihood, he has never heard about the large score gains recorded by all groups of American students during the years he cited.
When we present the third week in this series, we expect to start with Bridgeport and Fairfield. Yesterday, the Times published six letters about those neighboring districts.
On our scorecard, two of the letters—those from Yonkers and Los Angeles—presented "non-partisan" reactions to the original news report. The letters focused on the funding disparities which formed the basis for much of the Times report.
The other four letters all seemed to come from a screeching corporatist playbook. We heard insinuations about our teachers (though no one mentioned their fiendish unions). We heard about basic educational practices which were said to be foolish.
In the first letter, we were offered a statistical claim about failing students and where they're found which seems highly implausible. In the final letter, we received a final, familiar blast. We were told that "Judge Thomas G. Moukawsher’s sweeping critique of Connecticut schools did, indeed, sound like an indictment of school failure nationwide...Children begin life curious and enthusiastic about learning, but schools have failed to nurture their intense urge to learn."
As usual, we were told that our public schools have failed nationwide. We weren't told about the large score gains recorded by all groups of kids, including black and Hispanic kids.
In yesterday's letters, New York Times readers were told, once again, about our achievement gaps. But how strange! In the course of publishing six different letters, no one mentioned the large score gains recorded by black and Hispanic kids over the decades in question.
Bill Keller's been reading such work for years. So has everyone who subscribes to the New York Times or the Washington Post.
Liberal journalists never challenge this grossly misleading framework. Most plainly put: For all our ballyhooed moral greatness, we liberals don't seem to care.
Bill Keller's been reading such work for years. It represents a type of journalistic malpractice.
It constitutes a journalistic offense against the American discourse, against the public interest. Our four-week report about that offense will resume next week.
Coming next week: Where the Achievement Gaps Are
Starting October 3: Where the Deceptions Are
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