Principles of Public Journalism Concerning Local Education

The title sounds like a thesis project and perhaps some day it will be. However, I believe that this topic should not be held captive in the ivory tower of academia. This project has more to do with shaping popular culture rather than merely adding to the body of scholarly work.

Pop culture? Yes pop culture. I believe popular culture can be more than light entertainment and escapism. In fact there might even be a desire for people to spend just a few minutes a week to better their community and have some of their dreams realized.

I don't think this is a pipe dream. There a good chance you are using Mozilla Firefox right now. This is becoming a pop cultral icon like Wikipedia and other open source media. These are models for this project. By working as a collective we can create a phenomenon that is much more than the sum of its parts.

People who work on Mozilla and Wikipedia are directly shaping the culture of our time. We too can influence culture with our collective vision. It is impossible to see how this vision will become reality at this point but hopefully I will lay some ground work for this to possible.

This is not a radical project but one that I hope will be a common tool for people to inform themselves about education policies and the schools in our neighborhood. Perhaps there is a parent or a studernt who has a fantastic idea to change our schools and this can be the platform for their voice to be heard.

The democratic principle of public journalism key to this experiment. But then again the U.S. Constitution is an expeiment in democracy. Gandhi's autobiography was aptly called "The Story of My Experiment with Truth." The potential of this experiment is only as great as the number and efforts of the participants. And hopefully this will be a part of popular culture.

Religion in Schools?

Religion in public schools. Those four words bring the best and worst out in people. But what does it really mean? Whose religion and how much of it? What is religion? What is acceptable and what is not? New York Times recently carried an article about religion in school.

The executive, legislative and judicial branches give most of the power to the local schools to make these kinds of decisions. So in essence it is up to us as a community to make these decisions. We are the fourth estate.

I went to my daughter’s holiday program at her new school yesterday. She got a ribbon for participating in a school project. She seems to like her new teacher, school and students. So I have a bit of trust in the school.

The program was mostly about awarding the 100+ ribbons (individual!) and a few songs the third graders sung. They were all x-mas songs. And I mean x-mas not really Christmas songs, except Silent Night in German. Rudolph, Felic Navidad, and a song about a “toy catalog?” sung in discordant but cute, childish voices. All explicitly referring to Christmas.

But no other “religion” or holiday was mentioned. Not even a picture on the wall or small gesture. I assume that there is a large majority of Christians in the school. But how many might object just a little? Christian who believe in the First Amendment and don’t want the state to endorse a particular religion might also object? I felt uncomfortable because someone else might feel offended and rightfully so. However, I’m personally not going to file a lawsuit.

Is there other solutions?

What kept going through my head is there must be other more tactful and sensitive songs the school could teacher our children. What about song solely about winter or the New Year’s Day? Or some of the major religions just to know that the school isn’t endorsing one particular religion?

We need to talk about this in our own communities and come up with our solutions. Please leave a comment or email so we can start to publish this information. Together we can gather better information.

This story is also in Kearny on the Web. Check out this site it has similar principles to this one. Perhaps we can be better.

Still Working

Sorry for not posting on a timely manner but I’m not slacking by any means.

Right now I listening to a lecture by Jay Rosen and researching other Public Journalism projects. This research is critical to defining how this news project will operate.

So far it seems like this is on the cutting edge of journalism. Especially on the local level and the specific topic of education.

There are more links that I’m finding that will give a better understanding of public journalism. Hopefully this will be a resource that would show transparency to the readers and a guide to the contributors.

I will also give a bibliography of books, articles, websites and scholarly literature that has formed my concept of this type of media. I will post these in the next few days.

Anyway, I hope that you, the people, will also contribute to this body of knowledge through posts and emails. The greater the network of people eho contribute should make this project better. I’ll publish everything people send my in some form or fashion. This after all is the public’s news media.

I sincerly hope to read some of your thoughts soon.

Teacher-Student Sex Abuses Stories

An example usually helps when trying to formulate an abstract project. So here’s one to that can stimulate some conversation.

Attorney on public school issues and college professor, Charles Steele, said that teacher-students sex abuses will be bigger than the Catholic priest scandals that shocked America in the nineties. (Full disclosure, Dr. Steele was my professor for “Issues of Law in Education” course.)

A Google news search for “teacher student sex” will show a teacher charged with abuse at least once a week. However, given the 30 million teachers in America this “epidemic” appears to be a relatively small number. There is no national statistical information on the numbers of teacher- student sex abuse.

Currently the laws and policies for teacher student relationship explicitly forbid any inappropriate conduct.

Also traditional news handles it only in the framework of legal issues. The stories all follow the same format:

Teacher X is charged with a sexual crime by unnamed student. Teacher X is suspended from Y school. Followed by details of the incident and teacher's history.

So how should we as the news handle such a story?
There appears to be a difference when the teacher is, say, a 26 years-old and the student is say 17 years-old than if it was a 26 year-old and 8 year-old.
Is consent from a minor really consent?
Is there preventative treatment for this, like alcohol and drug abuse, for teacher that may have the urge but have not acted on the impulse? Should there be?
Is deviant behavior really “abnormal” behavior?

I have not had time to do the reporting but I have a lead on a Pittsburgh story regarding this issue. At a kids Halloween party I met a Pittsburgh detective for Sex Assault and Family Violence. He said that the Pittsburgh School Police tried to keep a report of abuse to themselves and did not report the offence to the city. Obviously the charges were finally reported to city police. I didn’t get all the details and frankly it’s not my “job.” (Yet)

Shouldn’t part of the story be how the school handled the situation and what they are doing to see if any other students were involved? What did other teachers know about this? It would be gross negligence for another teacher to not report any knowledge or suspicions to the principle.

Please let me know how else the story could be covered.
How can the community be involved in this discussion?
This is the important part of the project, your input?

Transparency in Motivation

I want to express my motivation for the purpose of transparency. My personal motivation comes from the trying to sort out the Kafkaesque system of education.

Echoes of the anxiety and worries as well as the pride reverberate inside my core as I look at photos of my only child’s first day of school. Sentimental emotions gush from me when I see her perfectly pressed blue uniform and knee-high socks with a pink book bag nearly consuming her. A short grainy video clip is proof of her bravery as she walks in line with the other children waving and screaming bye at the top of her voice in to the school doors.

Sending her to public school was a leap of faith. Faith that has let me down to some degree. I had no way of influencing policy or curriculum. I hardly new any details of the curriculum nor could find out with appearing to be a “helicopter parent,” hovering over my kid. I didn’t know the teacher, her methods or her abilities. I knew one teacher. Our daughters met in pre-school. His daughter was going to a private school a few blocks away.

So much happened that year, some good and some bad. But what I noticed most was my kid didn’t like school. Now some may say you're not supposed to like school. Though I find that rather dogmatic. School can and should be something the child can love.

Besides, in that first year she was spit on, choked by another kid, her teacher didn’t finish the year. The class size was obviously too large for one person to manage. The principle never engaged in a dialogue and would basically lecture at me. In retrospect they were also breaking some laws, like posting grades and leaving children unattended.

I felt and still feel powerless. Perhaps I can try to get her in a private school. She has already moved to a different school district and seems to enjoy it more but time will tell.

Yet there is a feeling of injustice about leaving all the other kids behind. Those parents and children who must trust the school system to educate remain at their mercy. Or are we?

If we, the public, knew more about the laws, policies and other vital news governing our schools perhaps we can better our schools. Perhaps they are not horrible but the quality of education can always be better.

We need to inform ourselves and communicate with each other to find the ways for improvement. It cannot be done in a vacuum. So I hope this will provide a platform for us to work on this project.

What we need now is to define some key concepts that so we can clearly express our ideas. That is the first step out of the labyrinth of bureaucracy.

To do this I hope to moderate some news stories for everyone's discussion. More later.

Project Planning - Your Insights

“Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel” - Socrates

What is "Local Education News" about? It is the attempt of creating a meaningful dialogue to discuss education issues in and around Pittsburgh.

So far I want to create an informal discussion involving anyone interested. You do not need to be an educator, student or parent. We were once students and perhaps we are all still students. Your opinions, insights and stories are needed to create a full spectrum of understanding about the massive edifice of education.

My idea is complex and will take more than this one entry to explain. But first let me borrow from the field of psychology to help start this continuous conversation. I hear it is helpful to talk about yourself to stimulate the conversation.

My name is Robert Park. I’m 30-something years old (I’m a bit apprehensive about the public nature of this project.) I have a fantastic daughter that truly is a joy and the inspiration of this project. My undergraduate degree was philosophy and I’m current working on my master’s degree in journalism. I live in the South Side of Pittsburgh.

I’d like to tell about my motivation for this project but I’ve got to go to work delivering food. I’d rather get paid for doing this work, perhaps some day. As for now I just wanted to get started with something, just anything will do.

Please leave comments.