I’ve recently come across an interesting e-mail, from a reliable source, giving a bit of extra insight into The New York Times’ hit piece on charter schools last summer.
It’s just one data point, but it does tell something important about the credulousness of Times reporters when it comes to their favored sources — in this case, the teachers unions on the education beat.
For those who don’t remember (how embarrassed are you???), here’s what happened last summer: On August 17, 2004, the Times ran a lead story by education reporter Diana Jean Schemo under the headline “CHARTER SCHOOLS TRAIL IN RESULTS, U.S. DATA REVEALS.” The story was about an analysis of federal education data conducted by the American Federation of Teachers and fed to the Times by said group. One thing the Times didn’t disclose to its readers, however, was that the AFT, along with the NEA, is the major opponent of charter schools nationwide.
Now, there were other problems with the story — mainly that it claimed charter school students are underperforming other public school students, when that’s a gross misrepresentation of the facts.
But let’s focus on the narrow point here: The Times pretended in its story that the AFT is neutral toward charter schools. In the story, the group was described as such: “The organization has historically supported charter schools but has produced research in recent years raising doubts about the expansion of charter schools.”
A charter school group challenged this and contacted Times assistant managing editor Allan Siegal for a response. Siegal contacted education editor Suzanne Daley, who, in turn, got this e-mailed response from Schemo:
Hi Suzanne,
I’ve gone back over the AFT’s history and positions on charters, which I’d first looked into in reporting the original story on the NAEP results.
As we discussed, there is no AFT resolution against charters as an institution, and the union’s taken no formal position condemning or praising charters. In New York City, the local affiliate recently hired Jonathan Gyurko, from Joel Klein’s office, to see about opening one or two charters there. In Texas, the state AFT affiliate lobbied for and helped open two charters, the Prairie Creek Academy in Dallas and the Raul Yzaguerre School in Houston. The NEA, the larger teacher’s union, has also co-sponsored with local affiliates the opening of charters in three states, Connecticut, Colorado and Hawaii. AFT members work in charter schools in New York, Michigan, Texas, Philadelphia and Boston (where they are in quasi-charters known as pilot schools). The AFT and the NEA also represent more than a third of all teachers working in California charters, particularly those formed as conversions from existing public schools.
Historically, Al Shanker was an early advocate of charter schools. His NYT column, “Where We Stand,” first pushed for them in July 1988, saying, “American education and business face the same problem–how to change their institutions so that they are more effective.” His essay was proposing charters as a way to free up teachers and administrators to try innovative approaches to instruction, based on resolutions adopted by more than 3,000 delegates at the AFT’s convention that year. Shanker predicted politically stormy seas ahead, and wished “safe passage to charters.” Through the 1990s, he wrote more columns in our paper supporting charters.
In 2002, the AFT produced an evaluation called “Do Charter Schools Measure Up?,” that essentially concluded that they had so far fallen short of their promise, and advised caution on the part of states to opening new charters, and better oversight.
In fairness, it should also be said that the AFT, from Shanker’s day on, has produced a load of studies regularly decrying the poor performance of regular public schools, not just charters, on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. In other reports, the AFT has sometimes criticized, and sometimes praised, charters run by Edison Schools, the nation’s largest charter school operator.
So in short, I think it would have been inaccurate and misleading to describe the AFT as ideological opponents of charter schools, as the charter school supporters contended in the aftermath of our story. Our description of the group’s position was brief but accurate: “The organization has historically supported charter schools but has produced research in recent years raising doubts about the expansion of charter schools.”
It’s not more black and white than that, as far as I can tell.
Best,
-Diana.
Now, Schemo’s assertions here are not factually inaccurate, but they are selective to a fault. No one who covers education could possibly be unaware that the teachers unions are not just the major, but perhaps the only, institutional opponents of charter schools (public school administrators would perhaps come in second). In every state where charter schools have been established, it has been over the objections and fierce lobbying of the AFT and the NEA.
To claim that the AFT is neutral because once upon a time Al Shanker was in charge, or because they’ve supported the opening of a few specific schools in states that already have charter school laws, well — it’s just laughable.
I know this sounds like splitting hairs, but it is not a minor point. The AFT is the group that conducted the flawed analysis and it is the group that placed the story with the Times, looking for just the hit-piece that it got — on the front page, in the lead space, during a presidential election.
That the Times tried to obscure the motives of its source is undeniable and inexcusable. Schemo’s justification sounds plausible to a layman (perhaps), but it doesn’t pass the smell test to anyone in the know.
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