Dismantling Public Education: Poor Reporting and Right Wing Education Experts: Misinformation is destroying Public Schools.

http://www.alternet.org/education/how-bad-journalism-driving-collapse-our-once-great-public-education-system?akid=12898.294211.InkFhU&rd=1&src=newsletter1033376&t=7

Over all cable news channels, only 9 percent of guests in education segments were educators. This would be like CNBC reporting on the stock market and hardly ever consulting with experts on finance and investing or the CEOs of publically traded companies.
Print and online news outlets aren't much better. Tone recently came across a study that found "education experts" often cited in print and online news stories "may have little expertise in education policy." The study found that the "experts" who are cited the most often are neither career educators nor scholars who've published and achieved advanced degrees; rather, they tend to be individuals from influential right-wing think tanks, with little to no scholarly work or graduate-level degree work in education.
Tone links to a write up of the study in ScienceDaily that explains the researchers found so-called education experts associated with the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank based in Washington, DC, “were nearly 2.5 times more likely to be cited” than were career educators and education scholars. In the online world, experts affiliated with AEI and the libertarian group Cato Institute were, respectively, 1.5 to 1.78 times more likely to be mentioned in blogs.
The authors conclude their findings are "cause for concern because some prominent interest groups are promoting reform agendas and striving to influence policymakers and public opinion using individuals who have substantial media relations skills but little or no expertise in education research."
In some sense, then, the Economist is following a pattern of reporting – one that tends to spread misinformation and promote shallow opinion on very important issues.

"Good schools, however constituted, have good teachers, inspiring principals and respond to their surroundings,” the article states. “Some of these things are easier to achieve in private schools."
The writer does not substantiate this conclusion with any links to research studies, citations from any research literature, or interviews with acknowledged research experts.
Yet had the Economistdone its homework, it likely would have come to a very different conclusion.
Warnings Out of Milwaukee
In fact, there is substantial research evidence that while voucher programs like the one operating in Milwaukee may help a few students and their families, generally, they damage the well-being of students overall.
For years, Julie Mead, a University of Wisconsin education professor and expert on K-12 policy, has warned that school vouchers "undermine public schools." Mead contends that statewide plans for vouchers in Wisconsin will put more than $210 million in tax dollars meant for public education into the pockets of private and charter schools – schools that "would not face the same scrutiny as traditional public schools."
Mead's fears are reflected in a recent report by author, journalist, and education scholar Barbara Miner. In an op-ed in the Milwaukee, Wisconsin Sentinel-Journal, Miner explains,

"For those who worry about taxation without representation, vouchers should send shivers down your spine… Voucher schools do not have to abide by basic accountability measures such as releasing their test scores to the public or providing data on teacher pay. They also can ignore basic democratic safeguards such as open meetings and records laws or due process rights for expelled students."

Further, a research study conducted by Duke University economics professor Helen Ladd examined the results of voucher and parent choice programs. Ladd found vouchers tend to create a "hierarchy of schools" where students with the lowest ability, from families with the lowest income (two factors that are always strongly correlated) end up in schools at the lowest level of the performance hierarchy.
Schools that are outliers – those private and charter schools that excel at educating the most disadvantaged children – tend to reach their vaunted status because of how they control the characteristics of students they serve, either by cherry-picking better performing students or having high student attrition rates. As a result, their year-to-year performance looks good, as struggling learners are winnowed out.

So for all the "good schools" the Economist believes are produced by vouchers, there remain lots of "bad ones" left in the wake. Vouchers, essentially, are no more than a glorified sorting system -- one that continues to expand inequities and further harm the schools that serve the highest-need children.

Over and over, we are delivered delirious pronouncements about "innovations" like vouchers and "choice," rather than keen insights from experts who can explain the strong evidence base for real improvements -- like class size reduction, early childhood education, and rich learning environments that include the arts and music and well stocked libraries.
What we're left with is a grand echo chamber of garbage, spewing out myth and misinformation that misdirects us from what would really be best for children and families.
And that really is scary.