The Media Rethinks Teachers’ Unions and Charter Schools
If you’ve been thinking that the mainstream media has been more critical of teachers’ unions of late, Terry Cowgill at Big Journalism confirms your observations and names names.
For instance:
A story in yesterday’s Washington Post on the recent ratification of a new D.C. teachers contract, which calls for using student improvement as a measure of teacher evaluations, was as balanced a piece as you will ever see. In addition, the Post’s progressive editorial board has been remarkably supportive of D.C. school Superintendent Michelle Rhee’s plans to make it easier to remove chronically underperforming teachers from the classroom. Commendably, the Post’s editorial page has also been a proponent of nationwide school reform in general.
Cowgill notes, too, that charter schools are getting a fairer shake these days:
Nowadays, for every news story or thundering editorial about crooked charter schools, you’re just as likely to see stories about non-traditional schools in which students from modest backgrounds succeed as innovative teachers and administrators are relieved from the crushing burden of repressive bureaucracies.
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