Have You Stopped Beating Your Wife Yet?

I've been interviewed hundreds of times by reporters.  I served in the Legislature for four years, ran for office three times, served as RUCO Director for five years, handled press for the State Senate for about two years and I've been in the private sector for seven years. 

In the years that I've been writing Espresso Pundit I've tried to make the point that reporters try to hide their biases when they write, but those biases are often visible in their more relaxed moments.  That's not true in interviews.  Oftentimes reporters are openly hostile in interviews.  Many times, it's obvious that they have an agenda and they don't even attempt to act neutral or fair.  Oftentimes they are belligerent and are trying to pick a fight so they can write a story that makes the public official look defensive. 

Unfortunately, it's hard to capture this type of bias or hostility and present it to you in blog entries, so I'm left showing you areas where they slip, or provide indications of bias in their stories. 

Now, however, I have a great example of how the interviews are actually conducted.  This interview must have been recorded and then transcribed because we get to see the reporter's agenda in the questions. 

Superintendent Tom Horne does a great job answering these questions despite the fact that the reporter clearly has an agenda and is trying to put Horne on the defensive.  Ask yourself if this unnamed reporter will be able to write a fair story in the future.

Here are the five questions.

As state superintendent of public schools, what report card would you give public instruction in Arizona? Most national studies continually rank Arizona near the bottom, just above Mississippi.

What will it take for the Legislature to properly address the funding needs of this state in terms of education? Or do retirees with no kids still rule when it comes to school taxes and funding?

Average teacher pay in Arizona is just under $43,000 a year, about $4,800 less than the national average. Is there an even exchange between the quality of education and the cost of education? In other words, if we pay teachers more, do we really get better education?

Arizona is a national leader in charter schools. Is this a good thing? Many people argue that charter schools just rob public schools for limited resources, preventing public schools from ever achieving excellence.

Most school leaders and members of the public oppose combining school districts to form megadistricts. Where do you stand?

The reporter makes it clear what answer he wants to hear.  This type of questioning is as unprofessional as it is common. 

Comments

[Ann]

My support for public schools is no secret and I will unabashedly say I think it is the back bone of our democracy. But, charter schools ARE public schools. Obviously this person had such an agenda they didn't even bother or care to get the question technically correct even if overwhelmingly biased in nature.

[TEY]

Doesn't it seem like the questions were just emailed over? If that's the case, we may need review the idea of "phoning it in". And is this the entire interview or was it cut down and molded? I think an editor's note is warranted on a story with no byline.

[TR]

This seems like a mashup; as though part of the question (such as the comment about Az ranking low) was added after the fact.
If not, the real problem is that this is bad interview technique. When you ask closed-ended questions--in order, usually, for the interviewer to sound smart rather than elicit a good answer--only the most skilled interviewee (politicians) give good answers. Or, in this case, stick to their own agenda.

[special agent johnny utah]

Let me play devil's advocate. The reporter would undoubtedly say that he/she was "afflicting the comfortable" -- that is, asking tough, adversarial questions of a professional politician who will spin if you let him. The reporter would add, no doubt, that he/she would ask equally tough questions of a Democratic State Superintendent -- albeit questions of a different sort.

[Mark]

I've got to say that I don't really see a problem with most of these questions:

TRUE: Most national studies continually rank Arizona near the bottom, just above Mississippi.

BAD QUESTION: do retirees with no kids still rule when it comes to school taxes and funding?

GREAT QUESTION: if we pay teachers more, do we really get better education?

OKAY QUESTION: (do) charter schools just rob public schools for limited resources, preventing public schools from ever achieving excellence?

SOFTBALL: Most school leaders and members of the public oppose combining school districts to form megadistricts. Where do you stand?

My real problem is not with the questions but with the answers, which reveal the true liberal bias when it comes to our education system. Our public school systems, regardless of what state you are in, is broken and has been for 50 years. Watch the Stossel report on it. It is damn near impossible to fire a teacher or administrator. There is very little discipline. The curriculum is juvenile and from a secular humanist perspective. Drop out rates and passing failing students to the next grade are endemic.

But why should any Republican be surprised by this? Why would Tom be? This is exactly what you should expect when you eliminate all market competition and hand one of the most noble and essential occupations in our society over to government bureaucrats?

[DGN]

The questions were actually part of an online chat held last week. The Republic re-printed the exchanges, some of which were from readers (ostensibly), in the print edition this past weekend.

As for there being no competition in public schools, that's not entirely true. Charter schools provide a great deal of competition and many charters are outstanding schools. In addition, there is open enrollment.

That said, yes it is difficult to get rid of poor teachers and bad administrators. There is a huge bureaucracy in place, and that always breeds inertia -- a bad place for a school to be.

[BobH]

There's no true competition because there's no penalty for failure.

[TEY]

DGN, thanks for clearing up the issue of "who's the reporter". Online chat, huh? I just wonder who is pushing which questions to Tom. I cant believe there weren't any "other side" questions involved.

[DGN]

BobH:

I agree that there's a need for more competition in education. But parents do have a chance to see where their kid's school rates against others.

The Arizona Dept. of Ed website lists a report card for every district and charter school in the state. Every school is labeled. Some are Excelling, others are Highly Performing, etc., all the way to "Failing." Failing schools need to improve or they face sanctions which can include being taken over by the state. But even without that, parents at least can know where the school stands and make choices based on that.

[ron]

When my son decided to go to a local public school (after he rejected my offers to pay for a private education), many of my friends couldn't believe that I would allow it. Being the hard worker he is, he managed to go to that 'terrible public high school' and turn it into a an offer of four years of free tuition from a big 10 school - an offer which he gladly took.

You can go to the best schools in the state and still get a lousy education; you can go to some of the worst schools and get a good education. It still depends on the attitude of the child and the support he receives from his/her parents.

[Mark]

Ron I wish it was that simple. Have you ever seen a standard test from the 18th century for 8th grade students? How well do you think your son would score on one of those tests? I consider myself intelligent and yet I bombed it. Why were American students 150 years ago educated at such a higher level than those today? Have you ever read what John Adams was required to do to get into Harvard? And remember that Adams had to help his father on the farm and barely had the free time that our youth have today. We have lowered our standards and are paying a huge price for it. Yet the fix is so simple - vouchers. Let parents choose the best school for their children and watch how fast private schools grow in our nation and how much better our students perform. Then soon you will find public schools competing for that voucher money and within a decade your will have public schools permorming on par with private schools. It is a win-win scenario!

[Joe Baby]

Ron,

Assuming that some kids may not have a good attitude and that some parents may not be supportive, it's rather vital that our schools are academies of learning rather than warehouses for social thought or monuments to mediocrity.

DGN,

I believe the report cards to be minimally helpful to most parents. To those who have few options, it's about as helpful as a report card on Soviet-era hospitals -- it's not telling you anything you don't already know, and there's nothing you can do about it anyhow.

And the first skill of any decent bureaucrat is the ability to massage statistics.

[jdleslie]

Having volunteered for the past 10 years at my kids' public schools -- one that is excelling and one that is failing to meet AYP for the third straight year -- I have some firm opinions on this. One is that the schools aren't nearly as much "warehouses for social thought" as some people think. But the most important one is this -- the biggest predictor of a kids' success or failure in school is parental support. In schools that aren't succeeding, it's often reflective of schools filled with kids in broken homes, with little support, etc. Yes, family indeed makes a huge difference.

Is that to say that there aren't bad teachers? Bad administrators? Of course not. But often good teachers are sapped trying to play classroom cop, and that's a shame.

My kids' elementary school has lots of involved parents, and classrooms don't have much problem getting volunteers. That's the one with the excelling label. The junior high is a stone's throw away. I love the principal and many of the teachers there. But the lack of parental support is astounding compared with what happens at the elementary school, and the problems are so much more to manage. I wasn't disappointed in the curriculum for my daughter, but I was sure glad she was in honors classes, too, where the teachers had fewer problems to contend with. And I don't know how they ever will make AYP. The principal is energetic and getting after it and trying things, but if things don't change in the students' homes, I don't see how the school makes significant progress.

[Joe Baby]

Schools make progress when they hold children, parents, and teachers accountable.

Granted, #2 is the hardest to accomplish.

However, the social thought reference is in regards to obesity, sex ed, tolerance, diversity, and whatever other rub you want to put on the steak (education).

As Mark noted, our schools used to educate children. They hardly do anymore -- it's just not that important.

I would agree that part of the problem is the breakdown of the family, yet the same crowd who pleads for pouring more money on the school (like gasoline thru an bad carburetor) advocates other policies that split and destroy the family.

And those of my beliefs are often accused of "bashing" teachers and blaming them for all the problems. (In short, there are good teachers and bad teachers. The problem is they all get paid the same and generally have the same career span.) What are we doing here other than blaming parents? And if passive parents are the problem, wouldn't vouchers allow the active ones to find the education they need?

[jdleslie]

Believe me, competition already has been introduced to schools by open enrollment and charter schools. The junior high of which I spoke is desperately trying to hold on to the good families from the elementary school I spoke of, but they shop schools -- often for a nearby charter or a school that's not too far away in another district. The demographics of those schools are different.

When the local junior high loses those kids, it loses high performers on the stakes tests and it's left with the kids whose parents will never shop their kids. Thus its problem in meeting AYP is just exacerbated and everyone on the outside looks at the scores and says how bad that school is.

Believe me also, this principal is working hard at making things better -- from behavior to rigor of curriculum.

So vouchers will introduce more competition, sure. But charter schools already accomplished that, and more competition really is just going to make the divide between the haves and have nots (and I don't mean resources here, I mean high-performing kids) greater. The idea that we can get to a point where no child will ever be left behind is a myth. Children from broken homes with parents who don't give a rat's behind often will be left behind. And if we leave them all behind in certain public schools, those schools won't perform.

(I hasten to add that I do know there are plenty of schools that are broken, too.)

[ron]

The university system in this country is 'open' system. You can apply wherever your heart and pocketbook desire. There are many 'top rated' schools (Harvard being one of them). However, when you do your homework using the Princeton College guide, you will find that there are many small private colleges who far outperform the big name Ivys. One of the tests of a successful college is the number of undergraduates who go on to post-graduate study and where they go for that post-graduate study. I was shocked how poorly some of the Ivys performed on that scale. I found small private colleges who vastly outperformed these schools.

[Joe Baby]

jdleslie,

But isn't huge variations in quality (in the short term) a good thing? In short, it blatantly shows who is excelling and who stinks, and makes it much harder for the latter to justify their existence.

Also, I don't find open enrollment to be a benefit as much as it is evidence that people are avoiding public schools.

Finally, I have great sympathy for teachers/administrators who are fighting the good fight, and I agree that uninterested parents is a real problem. The former need to be celebrated/rewarded differently from their peers, and the latter is no excuse for a school to accept mediocrity.

Schools need to worry less about parents and focus on the educational mission. Our schools need to vigorously resist fulfilling roles that are the domain of parents, because when they do they encourage parents to abandon that role (free school lunches for all being but one example).

[Anonymous For No Reason]

Greg, without knowing who the reporter is, your point is moot. Let's say the person that asked these questions is a young, liberal reporter who just graduated from J-school. That would explain the unprofessional parts of the questions immediately - young people in any field might act unprofessionally. And there's nothing wrong at all with an idealistic young reporter asking questions like that -- perhaps they'll learn something when the answers are different and more complex than they imagined. It's how the finished article turns out that counts. Reporters are just lay people who parachute into unfamiliar turf everyday, loaded with their own personal bias baggage, and their questions may reflect that bias. And that's okay, as long as the reporter thinks critically about the answers and makes an honest attempt to be truthful in the article.

[Ann]

The public schools of today are what they are because we made them that way. We are the owners of the system. If today's standards are less rigorous than those of the 18th century it is because we do not want to bruise Johnny’s ego or because the overwhelming regulations applied to public schools have limited the ability to offer all that could be in exchange for what we have today.

I watched John Stossel’s report on public schools and his assertions about competition. While I will absolutely agree with him on the role of the NEA and teacher’s unions in general, I had to laugh at some of the comparisons between traditional district public schools and charters. If a traditional public school made the kids put away the folding tables and clean up the “cafeteria” after eating the lunch they brought from home because the school does not serve lunch rather than have a choice of salad bar or hot lunch then go play outside, it would be all over the news. If we didn’t offer sports, band, choir, clubs, and extracurricular activities in a traditional district high school, the parents would revolt!

Do not accuse “the system” look at ourselves and what is it we want from our schools? Honesty in the answer would be very telling. If you do not want the school to discipline children, which is different than punishment, then do not complain when there is a lack of order. If you want your child to have a full selection of sports in which to participate and a trainer at all events in case of injury and nice uniforms like the school down the street or across town, or band, choir, and drama…. where do you think the funds for those programs comes from? The same pot of money that pays teachers for Math, English, and Science must cover all of those things and we wouldn’t have it any other way. Or would we?

[John H.]

The quality of Arizona instruction, based on careful analysis of test scores, ranks 21st in the nation. This is the most scientific ranking that exists. This ranking was originally done in 1996 by RAND and updated twice by RAND, first under a contract with California and then under another contract with Tennessee. This ranking is based solely on test scores.

Separately, the Gallup corporation annually has parents rate the quality of their eldest child's school. In August 2007, (a little over a month ago), 19% of all USA parents rated their child's public school an "A" school.

Under a contract with Behavioral Research Inc., 8,000 Arizona parents were surveyed and rated the quality of their child's school.

38% rated the quality of their child's school an "A" school.

The average teacher salary question is deceptive. Over the last ten years, the number of teachers in Arizona has expanded by over 60%. As a result, we have many more teachers at the lower end of the salary schedule. The public policy comparison is to compare a teacher with ten years of experience and a master's degree with an identical credentialed teacher in another state.

The National Education Association's ranking of instructional salaries probably does the best job of this. In that ranking, Arizona k-12 instructional salaries rank 11th in the nation.

As to the impact of charter public school on district schools... Over the last ten years, the Mesa district has developed more charter public school competitors than any other district in the state. Mesa's internal measures show that the percentage of parents rating their child's school excellent in that time frame has increased from 44% to 59%. Also, the Standard and Poors corporation ranked Arizona districts under a $5 million grant from the Gates Foundation. Under that ranking, Mesa was ranked as one of only eight "outperforming" school districts in the state.

As to the last question of whether money buys better results in education. Jay Greene (Manhattan Institute) states that there are over 160 studies examining that question in level 1 peer reviewed journals. Over 140 of those find no correlation between spending and academic outcomes.