The content of the Nov. 23 FOXNews Sunday-night special on schools called “Breaking Point” was selected badly. Hosted by E.D. Hill, the show presented public schools as either over-tested or under-tested, and implied at points that poor student performance in these schools may be due to the accountability burden of the No Child Left Behind law.
At points, No Child Left Behind advocates came off looking like a bunch of obsessive test-givers, with several teacher/interviewees implying that NCLB requires testing for the sake of testing itself.
Testing advocates were all No Child Left Behind supporters, suggesting that if one is pro-testing and pro-standards, one also supports the new federal law. William Bennet and Chester Finn, among others, weighed in heavily on the “standards” side of the issue.
An odd choice for contrast was the (private) New York Free School. Its philosophy, a no-tests, no-stress, “hakuna matata” approach, was spoken for by the hippie holdover-looking teachers and administrators. I think the choice of this school has as much to do with the visual message as the actual goofy educational philosophy they espouse.
Speaking up against the “children direct their own interests better than adults” perspective was Charles Sykes, who remarked, correctly, that “children don’t know what they don’t know,” and need direction.
So, between Stalin and Summerhill, what is there?
Gaston Prep Charter KIPP Academy in North Carolina got a very strong plug. FoxNews obviously liked the market-mimicing aspects of Gaston (like the contracts with students and parents), and the measurable achievement gains of students in the school.
Even so, it’s unclear what message FOX means to convey to the American public with this program. Do they mean to suggest that children can escape the testing straightjacket of regular public schools, or the unproductive goofiness of “free” schools only by going to a Gaston Prep? On the whole, I think they missed an opportunity to provide some useful information to the public, and opted for some fairly shallow and silly presentations instead.
