Supplemental: Reviewing our back-to-school press-watch agenda!

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2015

The SATs make it three: In the next two weeks, we’ll be conducting our annual review of the mainstream press corps’ back-to-school journalism.

In last week’s preview posts, we offered some background concerning two questions we would be discussing:

Are black kids suspended more often in Southern states than in the rest of the country? Also, what sort of progress has occurred in the New Orleans schools over the past ten years?

Each question received a bit of attention as the press corps traveled back to school in the past few weeks. This week, we’re adding a third question to our list:

Why have average SAT scores dropped a bit in recent years?

Presumably, every education reporter on the face of the earth knows the most likely answer to that statement-in-the-form-of-a-question. But starting with the Washington Post, major news orgs have worked quite hard to avoid telling the public what that most likely answer is.

The Washington Post’s front-page report was astoundingly bad, a flat-out journalistic disgrace. And then, sure enough! Along came Slate, with an even more ridiculous piece of pseudo-analysis.

Why have average SAT scores dropped in recent years? Surely, every education reporter on earth knows where a sensible answer to that question would start.

Unfortunately, these “reporters” have been working very hard to avoid a sensible discussion. It’s stunning to see what passes for “journalism” in this, our make-believe age.

Michael Moore said it in 2003: “We live in fictitious times.” That said, we know of no other topic where the news you tend to receive is so plainly fixed, fake, phony, false, faux—is so plainly fictitious.

That Post report was a howling disgrace. The piece at Slate was worse. Other orgs followed suit.

The shape of fictitious times: Here’s the headline which sits atop Laura Moser’s piece at Slate:

“SAT Scores Continue Troubling Downward Slide, but No One Knows Exactly Why”

Good God! Even more astounding is the note of attribution atop that ridiculous piece.

As it turns out, Laura Moser writes for Slate in conjunction with a project called “Schooled.” The project is sponsored by the Columbia Journalism School!

Alas! In fictitious times, elite institutions agree to promote the established fictitions! So it went as Moser's piece turned obvious truth on its head.