Even-Handed to a Fault

As a rule, it doesn't make sense to criticize newspapers that publicize reports you write. There's a lot going on in the world, some of which is arguably more interesting than how states inflate their performance under NCLB. One appreciates all the ink one can get.

But I'm going to make an exception in the case of this editorial from today's Fort Wayne News-Sentinel, which said:

Here’s what happens when the federal government, through the No Child Left Behind act, takes over so much control of local education. Indiana, says a new national analysis by the nonprofit Education Sector research group in Washington, ranks eighth in the nation “in the degree to which education leaders exaggerate statistics to make schools look better under federal accountability laws.” The state, says the report released by Kevin Carey of the organization, uses data that “defy reality and common sense,” falsely claiming that every teacher receives top-notch training, that student test scores are well above average and that nine of 10 students graduate from high school.

Not so, say state education officials. The federal government ensures states such as Indiana stick to reporting guidelines, said Mary Jane Michalak, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Education. But, Carey counters, Washington lets states define their own terms of success, which fuels embellishment.

This will all get sorted out, and it will be found that Carey is partly right and the state is partly right. But what does any of it, really, have to do with teaching children?

I was basically with them until the last graf. "It will be found"? That's a pretty strong statement, given that at no point has the Indiana State Department of Education said why it disagrees with the report's findings. It just disagrees on principle, because the people there are smart enough to realize that this is usually all it takes to trigger the lamentable journalistic tendecy to fall back on nominally objective, judgement-free "he said she said" presentations of public policy debates.

Then comes the final pox-on-both-their-houses flourish, "what does any of it, really...." Maybe there are people out there who really don't think that reporting accurate public information about the success of the school system has anything to do with the success of the school system. I just didn't expect to find newspapers among their number.