DOCUMENT RESUME ED 340 081 CS 507 696 AUTHOR Kaplan, George R. TITLE Images of Education: The Mass Media's Version of America's Schools. INSTITUTION Institute for Educational Leadership, Washington, D.C.; National School Public Relations Association, Arlington, Va. REPORT NO ISBN-0-937846-57-0 PUB DATE 92 NOTE 159p. AVAILABLE FROMNational School Public Relations Association, 1501 Lee Highway, Arlington, VA 22209 (1-9 copies, $14.00 each; 10-25 copies, $12.00 each; 26+ copies, $9.00 each prepaid); Institute for Educational Leadership, Inc., 1001 Connecticut Ave., N.W., #310, Washington, DC 20036 (same conditions). PUB TYPE Books (010) EDRS PRICE MF01 Plus Postage. PC Not Available from EDRS. DESCRIPTORS Cultural Images; Elementary Secondary Education; Government School Relationship; *Mass Media Role; News Reporting; *Public Education; *Public Schools; *School Attitudes; *School Business Relationship; School Community Relationship IDENTIFIERS *Media Coverage; Media Government Relationship ABSTRACT Offering insights and ideas for school leaders, the news media, and the public to consider, this book examines how the print and electronic media portray one of the crucial news stories of our time: the education of 50 million American youngsters. The book maintains that, while tne school-media connection should be "a natural" for both sides despite the underlying incompatibility of a slow-moving story and a fast-breaking profession, the media provide only infrequent and perfunctory acknowledgment of the nation's school children and are poorly informed about education and schools. Chapters are as follows:(1) Dilemmas and Dimensions; (2) Journalism's Dirty Little Secret: Everybody's Wrong; (3) Crusaders, Paladins, and Their Civilizing Mission; (4) Names Make News; (5) The National Storyteller; (6) Television's Endangered Species; (7) The Indifferent Pundits;(8) The Great Cable Caper;(9) The Business Connection; (10) Between Two Hard Covers; (11) More Than a Newspaper, Less Than a Book;(12) Constant Companion, Minor Medium;(13) Message Pix Gotta Be Good; and (14) Learning about Learning in the Nineties. An epilogue, 121 references, and a 63-item bibliography are attached. (RS) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. *********************************************************************** Ware.WYO. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office al Edutatkonai Research and inicivovomoni EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) EI This document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization criginatutg4 nMinor changes have been made lo improve reproduction quelity PIS"! Points of view or opinions stated in this clocu ment do notneCestarily repralettl official OC OEFfi MalliConor Policy Ci) r PERMISSION R.) REPRODUCE TIIIS MATERIAL IN OTHER THAN PAMER COPY HAS BEEN GRANTED BY )( t TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES k INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) ."7:41r7477511E 4 BEST COPY AVAILABLE © 1992 by the Institute for EducationalLeadership, Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America ISBN 0-937846-57-0 Images of Education: The Mass Media'sVersiod of America's Schools is a joint publication of the National SchoolPublic Relations Association and the Institute for Educational Leadershipand can be ordered from: National School Public or Institute for Relations Association Educational Leadership, Inc. 1501 Lee Highway 1001 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., #310 Arlington, VA 22209 Washington, D.C. 20036 1-9 copies 814.00 each 10-25 copies 812.00 each 26 + copies $ 9.00 each All orders must be in writing andprepaid. Billed orders will be charged an additional$2.00 per copy for postage and handlit.g. lior a complete list of NSPRA orIEL publications, please write to the addressees above. 3 IMAGES OF EDUCATION THE MASS MEDIA'S VERSION OF AMERICA'S SCHOOLS GEORGE R.KAPLAN The National School Public RelationsAssociation and the Institute for Educational Leadership are pleased toco-publish George Kaplan's Images of Education: The Mass Media's Versionof America's Schools. The nation's schools have been receivingunusually heavy coverage from the news media. Interrelated concernsabout the quality of our schools and the nation's economic competitivenesshave thrust education into the arena of public debate since themkl-1980s. More recently, Presi- dent Bush's widely publicized America 2000 strategy to"reinvent" the schools as well as the growing involvement ofpolitical and business leaders have intensified the print and broadcastmedia's interest in how America'.; children are being educated. It is against this backdrop that GeorgeKaplan explores this hereto- fore largely ignored but increasinglyimportant issue. His analysis is provocative, timely, and informative. Webelieve that it makes a most valuable statement on a crucial yet underappreciatedtopic. Though the views expressed by Mr. Kaplan may notbe fully shared by our organizations, we are proud topublish this stimulating volume. Images of Education offers provocativeinsights and ideas for school lead- ers the news media, andthe consuming public to conskler. Joseph J. Scherer Michael D. Usdan Executive Director President National School Public Relations Institute for Educational Association Leadership F WORD AGO, WHEN TELEVISION WAS Bur A GLEAM IN A FEW PEOPLE'S EYES, Variety, the entertainment industry's weekly bible and often its soul, proclaimed, "The public will buy message 'pix' but they gotta be good." Variety shouted a mouthful, and not just about the visual media. In Images of Education, George Kaplan has given us a disturbingly vivid portrayal of how today's print and electronic media are treating one of the crucial stories of our time: the education of 50 million youngsters. For the most part, they don't do it as well as they should. Fair and accurate messages about America's schools, both thegood and the bad, aren't always getting through. The effects of this communications gap could be frightening. Walter Lippmann wrote that the journalist's job was to provide a portrait of reality on which the citizen could act. The comprehensiveanaly- sis Images of Education providesthe product of countless hours of viewing and listening to television, films, and radio, of digesting newspapers and magazines, and of burrowing deeply into education's contemporary litera- tureyields an unsettling picture ol how the education beat is covered. Among many other things, Mr. Kaplan is concerned, and justifiably so, about the sensational immediate driving out the long-term substantive the tired stories of inept school boards, poorly prepared teachers,leaking classroom ceilings, overpaid custodians, drugs and crime in the stairwells and the playgrounds that customarily dominate the media's educational agenda. Lamentably, the media, all of them, offer us too little hard reporting and informed commentary about the imaginative, hope-inspiring solutions tnat are unfolding in cities and towns across the country. George Kaplan's examination of education-oriented motion pictures, to take a glaring example of how one medium views theschools, shows us how films glorify heroic male charactersRobert Donat in"Goodbye, Mr. Chips" (1939), Glenn Ford in "Blackboard Jungle" (1955), Jon Voightin "Conrack" (1974), Edward Olmo in "Stand and Deliver" (1989), and Robin Williams in "Dead Poets Society" (1989)while virtually ignoringth ? female role models who comprise all but a small fraction of the national teaching force. He quotes Martin Quigley's infamous defense of the film industiy: "The entertainment picture is no place for social, political,and economic argument." But why shouldn't it be? The television journalists, if that is not becoming an oxymoron, rou- tinely neglect complex substantive news about education because there is such an acute shortage of air time. Images of Education generously spares the industry in not documenting the sad statistics on howfew networks and local stations support a regularly scheduled education beat. Mr.Kaplan has analyzed the output of the heavy-hitting newspaper pundits and colum- nists, and points out how ineffectively they use their space and influence to probe the ever-rising tide of educational dilemmas. The citizen needs to understand both the historical background and the many-sided ongoing social changes that affect the educational system before we as I society can work our way out of some of these seemingly intractable problems. A growing number of competent reporters have began to dig deeply, sometimes brilliantly, into these gut issues, but many education writers are still shortchanging the developing story. The homework gap is not only in the classroom; itis also in the newsroom. And the media are not the only culprits. Many of education's top-of-the-line leaders persist in underestimating the crucial necessityof erecting bridges of understanding to our ever-more-potent mass communications media. Recently I found myself conducting a seminar on education for a dktinguished group of captains of industry in a large eastern city. As an opener, I asked if any members of my large pand of bankers, lawyers, and industrialists had children or grandchildren in public schools. None did, nor did the moderator, nor do many of the journalists andpundits who comment about great social issues. They may watch an occasional film or a television program, and they read the serious newspapers,but they (we) do not relate to w:Iy Johnny can't read or why Johnny or Janey's