A Call to Education Journalists

Alexander Russo calls out to education journalists to do their job regarding the potential new Education Secretary:

"Do your jobs, reporters and editors. Bug someone who was on the working committee into talking to you, or report that they won’t. Track down Wendy Kopp and ask her straight out what she thinks about Darling-Hammond or Duncan (or Rhee, for that matter). Look up campaign donation records and tell us what you find. FOIA some shit. Sending out a few emails and rehashing tired claims or old speeches just doesn’t cut it."

This is an interesting piece, and I am always in favor of journalists in any area "doing their jobs". And I love the "FOIA some shit" line. Just as interesting though is the comments section to this article which debates the necessity of Russo's suggestions.

For my own two cents in this debate, I feel that education journalists should be taken just as seriously as journalists in other fields, but they aren't. The reason it doesn't is that, sadly, education in general doesn't get taken as seriously as an issue as it should be. This is not to say that there aren't issues just as important, and even more important, than education (i.e. the economy, war) But if we valued education as much as we should, we would see just as much speculation about Education Secretary as we do about Secretary of State, Defense, and Treasury. Instead, the speculation is left to us who are wonks, experts, and education bloggers/journalists.