Covering education
My newspaper column
If all you read is the front page, you might think that last week was hard on Guilford County high schools.
* A teacher at Smith High School is suspended after insulting and cursing at students.
* A teacher at Dudley resigns after fighting with a student.
* Twelve students at Southern Guilford face suspensions and possible criminal charges for a fight at school.
But admittedly, the front page doesn't paint a true picture of what's happening in the high schools. Elsewhere we wrote about:
* The Dudley High School Thespians performed well enough to compete in the State High School Theater Festival last week.
* The National Honor Society of Northwest High School raised more than $1,500 for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.
* The Early College at Guilford will raise money for the school at a book fair at Barnes & Noble at Friendly Center Dec. 14.
Those stories were shorter, and we published them in the Guilford Record and the Rock Creek Record, two publications we circulate in Guilford County.
So it is a fair question to ask why the bad news about the schools makes the front page so often.
There are three reasons:
News is the unusual and unexpected -- People expect public schools to be places of learning and intellectual growth, not places of violence. Most days, schools are safe havens. But when fires are set, students are beaten up and teachers lose their cool, the news upsets the norm and bursts onto the front page. It fits the cliche, man bites dog.
News is of broad interest -- A few years ago when my daughter's high school was in lock-down because of reports of a gunman on campus, my interest level and anxiety level were high. Consequently, every story about a school in lockdown -- whether because of violence or threats -- resonates with me.
But it goes beyond the personal. Our community is close enough that people feel connected to many schools. Through my kids, I know students throughout the county, and I have visited many of the school campuses. If violence happens at one school, it's normal for people to wonder about students they know and care about.
News is important -- Public school problems are community problems. They shouldn't be glossed over or put aside. They should be on the front page to raise awareness. The more light shed on them the quicker people will begin to work for solutions.
Why don't we give equal time to the student achievement? We do, but those stories don’t seem to last as long in readers' minds.
In the past few weeks, we've prominently featured the Junior ROTC Drill Competition, the success of the pre-kindergarten program, and the achievements of the two public Montessori programs at Erwin and Triangle Lake. Each June, we produce a special section on scholastic achievers from the public high schools in our area, the only such publication of its kind.
But the reality is that students achieving great things, either academically, civically or charitably, isn't that uncommon. That is one of the wonderful things about high school students here: So many of them give of themselves all the time.
Unfortunately, for many people, the negative news stories define how schools are perceived.
Some people remember the story about a fight at Southern and conclude that discipline has gone the way of the McGuffey Reader. They don't recall the discipline of the students participating in the ROTC drill competition or the students raising money for Cystic Fibrosis.
We will continue writing about the problems in the schools as they occur, and we will highlight the efforts to solve them. Our commitment to to bringing you the news demands no less.
We will also feature student achievement. Our commitment to reflect a full picture of local education also demands no less.
Comments (2)
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John,
I appreciate your point that since we all expect school to be a place where good things happen, when bad things happen it makes the news. I expect there are just as many positive things at one end of the spectrum to act in some way as a counterbalance to the horrible things at the other end. The problem, however, is that the daily business of school takes place in the middle between the extremes of wonderful and horrible happenings. And in that middle ground the general atmosphere is awful. When we have a 30% turnover of teachers--and please don't compare us to other districts, for we are not responsible for them or their problems--we are in a crisis; I know of no business that could continue to operate well with that high a yearly turnover of employees. The reasons for teachers leaving GCS or teaching totally have to do with job satisfaction and overall working conditions . . . salary, pretty good these days, can't overcome how teachers feel about what they do. And apparently 30% feel pretty badly about what they do and the conditions under which they work, for they vote with their feet and leave.
I wonder how many administrators and teachers in the GCS system send, or have sent, their own children to private school? That would reveal how people in the public schools feel about the institution for which they work. And I suspect it would be a pretty good percentage.
Posted on November 19, 2007 12:12 PM
John knows about a business with a lot of turnover. It's his own.
And despite what's claimed here, it's not operating well. The readers' version of private schools is either the Internet(s) or books.
Well, I guess I'll look at those links about negative events. After all, I don't have access to the tiny papers that have those positive stories.
Posted on November 19, 2007 2:47 PM