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Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Media Coverage of Immigrants in Public Schools Is Uneven, and Journalists, Scholars Share the Blame

by William Celis — December 04, 2006

There is a disconnect between the scholarship about immigrant children and the media that report it. Reasons abound for the uneven coverage in print and broadcast outlets, and this commentary explores the reasons why: From tainted research to uneven journalism, the American public is often left in the dark about the contributions and impact of immigrant children on the nation's public schools.

Pity the typical American who sits down these days to read, listen, or view a report about immigrants and public education. When they have finished digesting the news, they are likely to be left with a report that is incomplete or lacks context, if the immigrant experience in schools is even covered. Journalists, always easy targets, are only partly to blame for the muddle of voices we hear.

"We're overwhelmed in North Carolina trying to pay for the people who aren’t supposed to be here," Ron Woodard, director of N.C. Listen, a group in Cary that advocates greater restriction of immigration, recently told the Raleigh, N.C., News & Observer. "Why are we having to spend money on people who are here illegally?"1

The News & Observer, a well-regarded newspaper, never bothers to answer the question, which would have been easy enough to do. Public schools in North Carolina and elsewhere pay for the education of immigrant kids, whether here legally or illegally, because they are required to do so under federal law. The Plyler vs. Doe decision, a 1982 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, rarely cited in education stories about immigrant children, overturned a Texas law that allowed the state to withhold funds from any school district that enrolled illegal immigrant children.2 In its opinion, the Court said the state law violated the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment because “the Texas statute imposes a lifetime hardship on a discrete class of children not accountable for their disabling status.” The 5-4 decision arguably altered the face of public education as much as Brown vs. Board of Education.

Context, among other anchors of good journalism, has been lost in the sometimes ill-focused coverage about immigration and education, leaving many Americans with blurry notions about what, if anything, immigrant children are entitled to, how much their educations cost, who they are, how they learn, and what they have contributed.3 Some of these stories are admittedly difficult to cover because there are only estimates for the number of illegal immigrant children in the nation’s schools, generating more coverage that is less than precise. The Raleigh news report, for example, asserts that it costs more to educate immigrant children because of special education materials they need, but KHOU-TV in Houston, Texas, reports that it costs substantially no more to educate immigrant children in city schools than it does American-born children.4 Is the glass half-empty or half-full?

Meanwhile, Community of Peace Academy Charter School in St. Paul, Minn., would be happy for any coverage. The 600-student charter school, one of the oldest in the nation, has tried without success to interest local media to write about its successes and challenges in educating the children of Hmong immigrants. Or reporting how the school earns a sterling bond rating from Standard & Poors. Or writing about the accolades the school has won from the U.S. and Minnesota’s Department of Education.5

“There is a lot of available information about schools and charter schools in particular,” says Dr. Nancy Healy, the school’s instructional facilitator. “It’s hard. There’s a lot to learn, but I’d like journalists to ask. They just don’t ask.”

With the obvious overlooked, it is no surprise that nuance is also lost. There’s little understanding or recognition in coverage that not all immigrant children are recent arrivals; they may represent the second or third generation in the U.S, but they may still view the U.S. through the eyes of an immigrant and may still need services, and that has enormous implications in how immigrant children are educated, said Jill Kerper Mora, an associate professor of teacher education at San Diego State University, who studies immigrant students and their English language acquisition. Few stories explore those issues, she says.6 Scholars and education school professors who track immigrant populations and children and their impact on schools know and understand the court rulings and the nuance of the still-unfolding immigrant story. So do many journalists. Where the breakdown occurs between researchers and journalists is another story, and much of it can be tied to the quality of research.

In these politically polarized times, a report stripped of ideological taint is a rare document indeed. Charter schools, test scores, and the federal No Child Left Behind legislation are favorite targets of think tanks, foundations, and other groups whose political leanings often drive the findings of a study. Look for immigrant children to join the list. The dearth of straightforward research leaves the education journalist trying to discern a report’s scholarly worth, sometimes on deadline. These reports will sometimes get the ink or air time they don’t deserve, but journalists are better at spotting the agenda-driven study.

One former Florida newspaper editor spiked several education stories because he couldn’t tell whether the studies and reports upon which the articles were based were suspect. “When I was in the journalism business, I tried scrupulously to paint as fair a picture as I could and often killed stories because I perceived a slant or bias,” Mark Pudlow wrote me via email. “But I often wasn't equipped to recognize the bias, which I understand is one of the biggest challenges facing journalists today.”7

Framing stories around sturdy data isn’t the only challenge. In the media’s continuing downsizing and realignment—sending more resources, for example, to their online ventures—print and broadcast outlets have pushed veteran reporters and editors into early retirements, layoffs, and buyouts. The resulting hemorrhaging has resulted in fewer journalists doing more work, even as news holes in newspapers shrink because of declining advertising revenue. Specialists aren’t created overnight, and the impact of downsizing and realignment has been fewer and shorter stories at a time when domestic issues, particularly education, and now immigrants’ impact on schools, have become increasingly complex.

Combine that with the fact that the beat itself is still considered “soft” by some newsroom managers and less important, say, than covering politics, city hall, or business. A decade ago, when I was an education correspondent at the New York Times, a colleague met with a top editor at the paper to plan her next move. When she mentioned education reporting as a possibility, my colleague was aghast at the editor’s response.

“We don’t care about education,” he said.

That misguided attitude is changing, thankfully. More editors recognize, as they should, that the education beat is a key newsroom crossroad because to write about education also means writing about immigration, race and class, business, taxes, crime, housing and health. Few beats in the newsroom have the potential to cover as much terrain or more important stories. The Education Writers Association, whose members are increasingly seasoned journalists, has long called for a break-down-the-walls approach to education coverage by removing the increasingly meaningless barriers between newsroom beats and encouraging editors and reporters to approach education coverage broadly.8 The Dallas Morning News, for example, produced a multi-part series in 2004 about the redevelopment of South Dallas, long a heavily minority and economically impoverished section of the city. Central to the paper’s series, updated in 2005, was a package of stories about public schools, the impact of more tax revenue for schools, and the public schools’ significance as community anchors in a new South Dallas.9

Similarly, the Oregonian produced a lengthy series in 2004 about high schools in that state, offering readers a thorough and thoughtful examination about what’s good and bad about the Oregon high school in the new century. The series, which the paper tracked with updates in 2005, looked at family life, community violence, poverty, and a host of other issues that young people bring with them to school.10 More recently, the paper dispatched a reporter and photographer to cover the immigration story in Guatemala for a forthcoming package of stories. Education is expected to be a prominent theme.

More contextual journalism is possible, even on deadline and even during the current downsizing. But journalists could use help from education policy experts, state education officials, and professors at schools of education. They can assist by guiding reporters—the veteran and greenhorn alike—in discerning the good research from the bad, helping journalists avoid the studies whose underpinnings lean to the left or to the right, with little regard to historical context or contemporary realities. Journalists can also help themselves by asking researchers whether their studies were peer reviewed, whose money supported the research, and whether the academic, researcher, or think tank has discernable political leanings.

Katrina’s demolition of New Orleans helped generate discussions in newsrooms—even in journalism schools—about the need to improve the coverage of race and class. Perhaps immigrant children and their impact on schools will do the same for public education, always at the center of important readjustments. Backed by unassailable research, and supported by editors who extend education equal footing with “prestige” beats, journalists can’t fail in recording one of our era’s most important stories.



Notes

1. Schools Bear Burden of Immigration, The News & Observer, Raleigh, N.C. Feb. 27, 2006. http://www.newsobserver.com/1155/story/412207.html

2. Plyler vs. Doe. U.S. Supreme Court brief.
http://www.tourolaw.edu/PATCH/Plyler/

3. Plyler vs. Doe, 1982 U.S. Supreme Court decision regarding undocumented children and youth.http://www.americanpatrol.com/REFERENCE/PlylerVDoeSummary.html. Immigrant students and their rights. What schools are obligated to provide immigrant students, from the Washington state Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction. http://www.k12.wa.us/MigrantBilingual/ImmigrantRights.aspx. Celis, William, “Forgotten History of Immigration.” Education Week, Oct. 4, 2006. http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2006/10/04/06celis.h26.html

4. Immigrant education report. KHOU-TV, Houston, Texas, Oct. 12, 2006. http://www.khou.com/news/local/stories/khou061012_ac_immigranteducation.2ffd1081.html

5. Dr. Nancy Healy, telephone interview, Nov. 17, 2006. Dr. Healy is instructional facilitator at Community of Peace Academy Charter School in St. Paul, Minn.

6. Jung Zhang, U.S. newspaper coverage of immigration in 2004: A Content Analysis, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas. https://txspace.tamu.edu/bitstream/1969.1/2464/1/etd-tamu-2005A-STJR-Zhang.pdf. Dr. Jill Kerper Mora, associate professor of teacher education, San Diego State University, San Diego, Ca., telephone interview, Nov. 17, 2006. Prof. Mora’s web page outlining reporting about test scores of limited English students: http://coe.sdsu.edu/people/jmora/Prop227/celdt.htm

7. Mark Pudlow, former Florida newspaper editor, email conversation. Nov. 14, 2006.

8. Lisa Walker, executive director, Education Writers Association, telephone interview, Nov. 20, 2006. Education Writers Association. www.ewa.org. See web site for compilation of award-winning education coverage.

9. “Dallas at the Tipping Point.” The Dallas Morning News 2004 series on rebuilding South Dallas. http://www.dallasnews.com/s/dws/spe/2005/tippingpoint/tpmain.html

10.“Fixing High Schools” The Oregonian 2004 series about high school reform. http://www.oregonlive.com/education/index.ssf?/education/fixingschools.frame

Cite This Article as: Teachers College Record, Date Published: December 04, 2006
http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentId=12862

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