![]() A solutions framework can also bolster a journalist’s efforts to hold public officials, institutions and schools accountable: If there’s evidence an idea is working elsewhere, why hasn’t it been tried here? On the flip side, using solutions journalism methods allows reporters to draw a realistic picture of a program’s promise and its shortcomings. ![]() Reporters can use the tools of solutions journalism to analyze innovations and discover established education models that might be replicated or adapted elsewhere. School board meetings, Congressional hearings, test score results, financial mismanagement, superintendent searches, teacher-of-the-year features, along with first-day jitters and graduation day stories are the bread and butter of the beat.īut a solutions lens helps journalists fulfill an important responsibility of the education beat: helping the public understand which ideas, plans and programs hold real promise for fixing the array of problems in schools, and revealing the real-world challenges involved in changing mindsets and behaviors or institutions and systems. Solutions stories shouldn’t replace all or even most traditional education reporting they complement it. ![]() ![]() It was a hit with readers, and it earned praise from educators and experts who were thankful both for a fresh angle in the Common Core story line and for an article that provided lessons others might put to use as they dealt with the reality of the new requirements. The story of their relative success included examinations of the school’s struggles along the way and its remaining shortcomings. Educators there had tried a variety of methods to meet the new expectations, though, including “going rogue” on the state education department’s plans for the Common Core roll out, and – counter-intuitively – ending test prep, deciding not to spend the days and even weeks that many schools currently use to give practice exams and teaching students test-taking strategies. So the writers asked a different question: Are there any schools that are doing better than expected on the new tests?Ī data analysis turned up a small, working class district in upstate New York where teachers and parents had been skeptical about the standards at first. The political fight had been well covered in the local and national media. Adopting a solutions lens – digging into the evidence and explaining how various responses work, or don’t work – can help journalists navigate these debates, bring fresh angles to their reporting, and go beyond the political fights that dominate education news.Īn example: As the debate over the Common Core standards reached a fever pitch in the 2014-15 school year, a pair of Hechinger Report writers took a look at New York State, where the new, harder Common Core tests were fueling a revolt among teachers, parents and students. And in higher education-where tuition rises quickly while graduation rates only increase incrementally-ideas for improvement burst into the limelight with great fanfare, but often languish: Online courses open to all? Free community college? Competency-based credit?Įducation reporters can find themselves wading through competing claims about success and failure.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |