The Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute has published an evaluation of the sorry state of education journalism. They came to three conclusions.
1) Newspapers rely on the public school industry to set the education news agenda.
2) Newspapers? education news coverage is largely a conversation of, by, and for the public school
industry.
3) Newspapers disenfranchise other constituencies with a stake in the public education service and an interest in reforms and innovations to deliver the service more cost-effectively and better.
Here are two notable statistics from the study:
? In 261 public school funding-related articles, individual taxpayers were quoted six times (less than 1%) and taxpayer advocacy groups were never quoted.
? Only two of the 403 articles evaluated addressed vouchers and tuition tax credits.