Starving America’s Public Schools
How Budget Cuts and Policy Mandates Are Hurting Our Nation’s Students
By Jeff Bryant
Campaign for America's Future
October 13th, 2011
How could there be such a disconnect between a national narrative about public education and opinions about local schools?
Debate about public education on the national level generally draws on evidence from macro-sources of data: scores from standardized testing, reports on the nation’s dropout rates, samplings from various student populations, and comparative assessments in various subject areas. But people get their school news from far more local, personal, and qualitative sources — from hometown newspapers, from local television and radio broadcasts, from neighbors, and from their own personal observations and experiences.
The national data sources obviously add value to the national discussion about reforming and improving public schools, but getting a full and comprehensive view of American public education also requires looking at the information flow and data from the local level.
This report looks at American pre-K-12 public schools — from the perspective of what Americans are reading and hearing in their local newspapers and media broadcasts. The intent is to see how this bottom-up view of the system might further inform our discussions about improving and renewing America’s public schools.
More at:
http://www.ourfuture.org/report/2011104111/starving-america-s-public-schools