Punditocentrism
Jay Matthews is writing about a very specific issue in the education policy field, but as Andrew Rotherham points out there's a general phenomenon here. Lots of journalism in America is done by and essentially for a very narrow socioeconomic slice of the country. That results in a lot of trend-style reporting which focuses exclusively on the goings-on of the sort of people likely to read the publication. That's okay, so far as it goes. Naturally, people who read Time are going to be disproportionately interested in the things that the sort of people who read Time are doing.
The trouble comes when attitudes and ideas shaped by that sort of reporting get displaced onto discussions about politics and public policy.
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The phenonomen Jay Matthews is talking about is real but I don't think I buy his specific conclusion. Is not enough homework a real problem for most students? I would like some real evidence that it is before we increase the homework burden on the average student. Six hours in class and about an hour of homework a night should be enough.
August 21, 2006 11:21 AM | Reply | Permalink