Posted on 08/04/2003 12:06:11 PM PDT by hsmomx3
On August 1, 2003, The Arizona Republic carried a front-page story on the good news of Stanford 9 scores increasing in Arizona. But instead of simply reporting the facts about the scores, the story added the opinion that school spending is inadequate in the state.
Was the story part of an ongoing public school propaganda campaign to increase per-pupil spending, or was it balanced reporting? You be the judge after reading the following. Please let me know what you conclude.
First, as backdrop, my belief and bias is that the establishment media deliberately misrepresent the facts in much of what is written on various subjects, especially public education and mass transit. Yes, I know that the words "deliberately misrepresent" are a serious accusation, especially after the experience of The New York Times with reporter Jayson Blair. But I do not know what other words to use when reporters across the nation continue publishing misinformation after being given proof that their "facts" are wrong.
For example, local eporters have been saying for years that the state ranks 48th or 49th in per-pupil spending. But as I and others have pointed out, the state ranks about in the middle when personal income, cost of living, capital expenditures and teacher tenure are taken into consideration. Newspaper opinion pages have even carried op-eds by authoritative sources that debunk the low ranking. What should it be called, then, when reporters keep citing the low ranking in per-pupil spending with no disclaimer that the number is in dispute and can be calculated in different ways? Should it be called "balanced reporting" or something else?
True to form, the August 1 story repeated the canard about the state's low ranking. It did so by quoting state superintendent of education Tom Horne, who said that the state ranks 49th in per-pupil spending. But this is interesting. For the first time that I can recall, the reporter, to her credit, qualified Horne's statement by saying that Horne was "referring to the money schools receive per student from the state." Of course, money received from the state is not the same as total per-pupil spending, because it excludes school district funds.
The newspaper has been repeating the canard about the state's low ranking for so long in so many other stories that it is doubtful that many readers noticed the qualifier. More than likely, most readers will only remember, once again, that the state ranks 49th. And once again, they will go to the polls and vote for increased spending.
For years, The Arizona Republic also has been touting increased spending as the magic bullet that will increase test scores, in spite of a lack of evidence from across the country of a statistically significant relationship between increased spending and increased test scores. Thus, the newspaper must have been in a quandary over the news that the latest Stanford 9 results show that the state ranks above average in test scores in math and at or near the average in language and reading. How can this be if the state ranks 49th in per-pupil spending, as the newspaper has been claiming?
Well, the Republic had an answer. It claimed that the schools with the "biggest" improvement in scores were those that "offered teachers bonuses for boosting test scores and those that landed money for grants or partnered with universities." It did not provide an analysis to back up the conclusion, did not say how long the grants or bonuses have been in effect, did not say what the statistical deviation in spending was between schools that saw the "biggest" improvements and those that saw average improvements, did not say how many schools out of the state's total number of schools received the extra assistance, and did not cite any longitudinal studies showing that the improvements were indeed due to the mentioned variables and have stood the test of time. For all we know, the reported improvements were simply the result of the state and federal governments recently implementing standards and threatening to hold schools accountable for the results.
Also true to form, the article did not quote anyone other than self-interested education establishment insiders about education spending. An assistant superintendent referred to "skimpy state funding," and school chief Horne said, "thank your principal and teachers for doing so much with so little." Based solely on such opinions, the headline on the jump page read, "Schools funds low but test results rise."
Give me a break. Including capital spending, per-pupil spending in the state totals $7,366, according to Horne's own department. It is hardly skimpy to spend $88,392 over 12 years to educate one kid.
Curiously, the August 1 story did not mention that the rise in Stanford 9 scores is nothing new. The scores have been rising for seven years, in spite of the state supposedly ranking 49th in per-pupil spending. Moreover, the improvement in test scores has been greater in some categories in earlier years than it was this year. For example, for ninth-grade math, the Stanford 9 scores increased from the 57th percentile in 1999 to the 59th percentile in 2000, for a 3.5 percent increase in the percentile points between the two years. The percentile went from 62 in 2002 to 63 in 2003, for a 1.6 percent increase in percentile points between these two years.
The August 1 article included tables of scores for the state overall and for individual districts in the Valley, but it did not inform readers that the scores excluded students labeled as "English learners" by the state. The Arizona Department of Education's web site (www.ade.az.gov) has the scores for this category, showing abysmal results. Neither the Republic article nor the web site says whether the definition of "English learners" has remained constant over the years. If it has changed, it may not be valid to compare test scores from prior years to this year. The comparison would not be valid, for example, if some low-scoring English learners were in the Stanford results for last year but were not in the results for this year.
The article quoted an assistant superintendent as saying that a grant helped a school to train teachers in "the latest learning techniques and high-level mathematics." It did not say how teachers can graduate with an education degree and not know how to teach, or why teacher training in high-level mathematics is needed for the grades covered by the Stanford test, grades 2-9.
As I have written in a previous article, students who take Kumon math are ahead of students who don't. Kumon is a self-paced private program that requires about 20 minutes of teacher time a week, plus coaching by parents who have neither a teaching degree nor training in high-level mathematics. Similarly, many homeschooled kids excel in math under the tutelage of parents with no special pedagogical training. They accomplish results through common sense, effort, commitment and discipline.
Lastly, the Republic quoted an analyst from the liberal Arizona Center for Public Policy but did not quote anyone from a conservative think tank.
So what is your conclusion? Was the article public school propaganda or balanced reporting?
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Mr. Cantoni is an author, columnist and consultant. He can be reached at ccan2@aol.com.
All the money in the world will not make a difference unless America does a better job at instilling proper values ( moral, social, and academic) in their children.
Accountability is positive but not the cure all for what is not being accomplished in the American family.
It's not a "separation" between Church and State that's the problem. It's the lack of "balance" between Church and State that's the problem. The State has been ruthlessly taking over issues that rightly belong to Churches for 50 years now.
Change that trend, and problems like education will fix themselves.
Of course, the article is not balanced or even competent reporting, for all the reasons cited, and some additional not cited, which point to many factors, the article totally ignores.
But whether and why, the reporter is consciously offering the same intellectually flawed premises, which dominate the thinking of NEA types in public education, is the real question. Most people putting out this sort of faulty analysis are not driven by evil intentions. They actually believe in the fallacy that per pupil expenditure is the major determinant of educational achievement. Of course, it is way down the list of even contributing factors. See Public Schools: Issues & Reality.
William Flax
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