TEACH THE JOURNALISTS WELL: Easy listening!

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 26, 2014

Part 3—Cue the familiar old tripe: We were struck by a familiar pattern in Motoko Rich’s report.

Rich was reporting new data from the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights. Given the source, her headline was unsurprising:

“School Data Finds Pattern of Inequality Along Racial Lines”

Needless to say, there are many “patterns of inequality along racial lines” found in our public schools. In most cases, the difficulty begins when you try to explain them.

Early in her report, Rich presented her first three examples of inequality. Or at least, she attempted to do so:

RICH (3/23/14): In the first analysis in nearly 15 years of information from all of the country’s 97,000 public schools, the Education Department found a pattern of inequality on a number of fronts, with race as the dividing factor.

Black students are suspended and expelled at three times the rate of white students. A quarter of high schools with the highest percentage of black and Latino students do not offer any Algebra II courses, while a third of those schools do not have any chemistry classes. Black students are more than four times as likely as white students—and Latino students are twice as likely—to attend schools where one out of every five teachers does not meet all state teaching requirements.

“Here we are, 60 years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the data altogether still show a picture of gross inequity in educational opportunity,” said Daniel J. Losen, director of the Center for Civil Rights Remedies at the University of California at Los Angeles’s Civil Rights Project.

In a familiar journalistic pattern, Rich turned to the famous Brown decision, thereby framing her report as a study in classic discrimination.

In another familiar pattern, Rich was bungling her statistics right out of the box.

In the second paragraph we have posted, Rich presented her first three examples of the “pattern of inequality” found by the Department of Ed.

Her first example, concerning suspensions, did involve a striking difference in suspension rates, with black kids getting suspended and expelled much more often.

Her third example also seems striking, although we’re now in somewhat murky statistical and conceptual waters. But uh-oh!

In Rich’s second example, she doesn’t present a “pattern of inequality” at all! As we’ve often noted, the Times isn’t real good with statistics:

“A quarter of high schools with the highest percentage of black and Latino students do not offer any Algebra II courses, while a third of those schools do not have any chemistry classes.”

In that example, Rich’s basic statistic is extremely murky. (How many high schools are we talking about? How many kids attend them?)

More strikingly, no racial disparity is displayed in this, her second example. How many high schools with lots of white kids don’t offer Algebra II or chemistry classes? In paragraph 3 of her report, Rich (and her unnamed editor) failed to include this information. It’s startling to see how poorly the Times functions with basic stats.

Whatever! By now, Times readers were immersed in a very familiar type of story, a story built on a very familiar “discrimination” framework.

In effect, readers had already sunk into “easy listening” mode. We’ll guess that few readers noticed the problem with Rich’s second example, or noticed the conceptual problem which occurred later on, when she fleshed out that bungled statistic.

This was an easy listening piece. At the Times, readers know how to put it on cruise control, listening to familiar tales about racial discrimination, of which they of course disapprove.

Midway through her report, Rich devoted four paragraphs to suspensions rates in preschool. Familiar outrage was expressed by a person who acknowledged that she didn’t know what the heck she was talking about. (For our previous report, just click here.)

That outrage maintained the easy listenin’. After that manifest waste of time, Rich returned to the topic she’d bungled earlier.

How many kids attend high schools which don’t offer a full range of courses? This time, Rich managed to report the contrasts between different groups of kids:

RICH: In high school, the study found that while more than 70 percent of white students attend schools that offer a full range of math and science courses—including algebra, biology, calculus, chemistry, geometry and physics—just over half of all black students have access to those courses. Just over two-thirds of Latinos attend schools with the full range of math and science courses, and less than half of American Indian and Native Alaskan students are able to enroll in as many high-level math and science courses as their white peers.

Let’s use some actual numbers. According to Rich, (something like) 50 percent of black kids attend high schools “that offer a full range of math and science courses.” Meanwhile, (something like) 70 percent of white kids attend such schools.

To us, those numbers seem unfortunate, though perhaps not in the intended way.

Why do fewer black kids attend schools which offer those courses? We’ll assume there are several reasons.

Meanwhile, we note that thirty percent of white kids attend schools which lack the full range of courses. These were our reactions:

Given the framework of the report, we were plainly supposed to get angry at the difference between the 50 percent and the 70 percent. We weren’t invited to wonder why so many kids in all demographic groups attend high schools which don’t provide all those courses.

We also weren’t encouraged to ask an obvious question: Given the different achievement patterns which still obtain between white and black kids, is it really super-surprising to see those different rates?

According to our most reliable data, black kids are doing much better in school. We regard that as glorious, encouraging news—and the New York Times simply refuses to report it.

What will it take to make newspapers convey this very good news to the public? What will it take to make the fiery liberals on MSNBC stoop to the task of reporting such news?

News like that might get the public off the backs of public school teachers. It might encourage the public to see that our “government schools” seem to be making real progress.

How much do you have to hate black kids to keep this news a secret? Whatever the answer to that might be, it’s clear that mainstream newspapers and millionaire career liberals don’t care enough about black kids to share this very good news.

According to our most reliable data, black kids are doing much better in school. But alas! According to those same data, white kids are doing better too! Large “achievement gaps” remain, although the gaps are now smaller.

This brings us back to our reaction to the point Rich initially bungled. Let’s look at that point once again:

“In high school, the study found that while more than 70 percent of white students attend schools that offer a full range of math and science courses...just over half of all black students have access to those courses.”

Manifestly, we were supposed to get upset and think about Brown versus Board. For ourselves, we feel sorry for black kids when we encounter this tired old pattern.

Among other things, we were struck by the large number of white kids who don’t attend such schools. We didn’t think the difference in those rates was especially large, given what we know about the achievement gaps which still pervade our schools.

What if they offered Calculus III and nobody came? We’ll take an uneducated guess: Many schools may not offer those courses because few students would qualify or sign up to take them.

Is that why schools don’t offer those courses? We found ourselves asking that question as we read that part of Rich’s report.

We also found ourselves asking questions like these:

What happens in the earlier grades to create a world where 30 percent of white kids don’t have, and may not need, access to those types of courses?

What happens in the earlier grades to establish those different achievement rates between our black kids and our white kids? What happens before they even go to school? What happens in the first few years of life?

We didn’t think much of Rich’s report, which followed a lazy, familiar pattern. We didn’t think much of the manifest crap she shoveled about pre-K suspensions.

We didn’t think much of the reaction from that NAACP official, who ran directly to tired old script in reaction to a topic she didn’t understand. We didn’t think much of the way the New York Times bungled the second statistic it tried to present

We’re tired of tired old slackers like Rich churning easy listening pieces designed to tickle the fancy of New York Times readers. We’re tired of the tired old crap in which we’re instantly herded into a familiar, feel-good Brown v. Board framework.

We want to hear about black kids’ improving NAEP scores—the story the New York Times won’t report. With that encouraging song in our ears, we want to hear about why so many kids, in all major groups, may not be ready for those advanced courses in high school.

Can we talk? On its face, there’s nothing shocking about the pattern described below. There is no blatantly obvious way in which this pattern says “discrimination:”

“In high school, the study found that while more than 70 percent of white students attend schools that offer a full range of math and science courses...just over half of all black students have access to those courses.”

Can we talk? Based on current achievement patterns, that difference may be pretty much what you’d expect in our schools. Rather than explore such facts, Rich burned a hole in our brains as a clueless but scripted person sounded off about the treatment being dished to an unknown number of our “babies” in pre-K.

Rich told a very familiar story. We feel sorry for black kids when we see journalists pushing these patterns.

Rich’s story is sixty years old. In many ways, its sell-by date is gone. When will the New York Times get off its self-satisfied, know-nothing keister and talk about the actual problems shaping today’s world?

Rich came out of Yale summa cum laude. Assuming she had the best courses in high school, what pattern explains her work?

Tomorrow: Completely and utterly clueless

Your Daily Howler keeps getting results: Rich makes a rare trip to the real world today. We’ll praise her more fully for this piece before the week is done.