GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

Phillissa,

You all have nothing to hide and it’s nice to see the responsiveness of the blogosphere.

My concern is whether the question is raised to suggest that had you (or your colleagues) not attended public schools or if you did have children in the system it would have diminished or increased your effectiveness as reporters.

I’ve read some of your (collective) pieces and found them insightful and well-done, and I have criticized others.  But I’ve never thought that it was your K-12 education or ability to have kids that drove (directly) the quality of your insights. Certainly your education appears to have taught you all to avoid dangling your participles, and for that we should be grateful.  The fact that you guys are mostly young and don’t have kids yet is a complete non-issue.

The education reform movement, perhaps like any good revolution, seems at times to be as interested in determining what divides us rather than what we have in common.  Some public school parents I meet are incredibly insightful, others are seemingly without a clue.  And the same goes for the folks I meet at Tweed, and in the private school crowd.

I’m hopeful that all of us of good will can be sensitive to the risk of stereotyping.  It doesn’t help the quality of the debate.

RQ,

If it makes any further sense to your evaluation my impression of the crew(s) at the Post, Times and News is that they are also for the most part very young and therefore unlikely to have a child in any school, public or private.  

It’s more the nature of being able to take a job that allows you live in New York on $40,000 a year and very few retirement benefits, right? 

Oops, not formative but k-12.

RQ,

I am sorry if my reply seemed argumentative. 

I responded on the issue of report’s education and schooling of their children because Phillissa posted the question as though both points were raised.  Perhaps you only asked about the former and she threw in the latter.

I could not agree more with your point that a reporters’ biases have to be taken into account – even when they work at an institution with high integrity standards like GS.  

As a parent who follows the issues I find that at times – and this is not directed at you per se – there is a tendency to invalidate people’s statements on the basis that they don’t have enough “cred” as it were to make the statement.  As though having kids in the system or being a product of the system makes one more qualified than others to opine.

In any case I am sorry if I offended.  

Sure, you went to public schools, no kids, etc. Far more important: which are your favorite reality shows, and why does Roger Daltrey look like Mrs. Doubtfire?

Elizabeth,

You get 3 fist pumps for that one

EG,

I’ll see JH’s 3, and raise you a high (K-) five!

How quickly QP forgets that recent UES stories included big-time hit pieces on parents for daring to fight back against overcrowding that is blowing out the zone boundaries, the class sizes, and the school capacities with… (gasp)… some in-class help. The noive o dem!

Or that there has been press coverage of charter-related Space Wars, not any of which occurred on the UES.

But did QP object to Hizzoner squeaking to victory based on puffed up school grades based in turn on puffed up test scores… and greased by more money than anyone has ever spent out-of-pocket on any office in the land? Hardly. GS-ters were treated to a load (and I mean a LOAD) of false rhetoric about us all suggesting that maybe our kids weren’t somehow as blessed as suburban kids with natural smarts. Hardly. Most street-smart — and baloney-smart — kids let alone adults can see through what certain people simply refuse to.

Pardon me while I don’t hold my breath. I need it to give Elizabeth a loud “HUZZAH!”

Since we are on this topic; I always wondered how many teachers are products of NYC schools, and live in NYC. How many teachers moved out to Long Island, Westchester, of New Jersey so that they could send thier kids to a “better” school system. I am certain that many of the teachers in closing schools wouldn’t send their own kids to that school. Let’s take a poll on that!

QP,

There MOI goes again? Puleeze.

My point, quite simply, was that when the local birdcage liners have chosen to cover UES schools, it has more often than not been to excoriate parents for trying to DO something about overcrowding. Or, per recent coverage farther downtown, a story pitting the haves against the have-mores.

UES didn’t just “discover” overcrowding. (Your sarcastic “air-quotes” not mine.) In fact, they turned out in great numbers at a rally about GENERAL overcrowding last May on the steps of City Hall, and have for nearly a DECADE seen their kids shuffled from the PS 151 zone (no school since circa 2000) to random-via-lottery schools up to roughly 2 miles away. And that’s just the K-5 kids, not counting the 6-8′s or 9-12′s. I’ll make sure you get an engraved invitation for the next such rally, though the last one WAS covered here on GS.

Of course you didn’t mind that the NYTimes and other pubs have run a number of fawning puff pieces on Bloomberg and Klein in nominal EDUCATION articles. From which we know where Klein likes Pizza (Note to Truth Squad paid lurkers: I agree with him re Luzzo’s on East 96th), and mid-Mayoral Control fight last summer that Bloomberg golfs with a follow-thru that could be a double for Babe Ruth’s follow-thru. (Wrists higher, wrists higher.)

This is not to pass any judgment or make any statement about overcrowding elsewhere, Queens or otherwise, nor to prioritize any one over any other district or borough. And yes I’ve been following — and commenting on — such stories as the high school that needs to run virtually 24/7.

But ice try with the FAUX outrage in allcaps. Maybe some newbies will be impressed.

NO parent in NYC should “expect to be overcrowded” when not only is Bloomberg taking your property tax and city income tax hard-earned dollar, Klein is taking your STATE tax dollar for class size reduction purposes, and yet class sizes — in your crib and mine — keep going (wait for it)… UP EVEN MORE.

I’m not even going to touch the who pays more taxes argument except to say if that were true, there wouldn’t be overcrowding on the UES. And yet there IS.

And yet you defend Dear Leader 1 and 2 without exception. Go figger.

Enough straw men, QP. How about a snowman today? Or a snowball fight. You and me together… vs Tweed or Gracie. Hot cocoa’s on me.

Or maybe we’ll see each other at tomorrow’s rally on East Houston re the charter school invasion of District 1. If I can get there, I’ll have the button saying “I’m with QueensParent.”

MM, would you be on my team in a snowball fight?

Elizabeth,

I’ll not attack you for you childless state, but trust someone who watches Jersey Shore?  Clearly you are biased against the outer boros and love the stereotyping that such a production contains.

Onto the serious question:  You’re right that journalism cannot be a philanthropy.  Your readers may not all be aware the extent to which even ‘established’ outlets like the Times are in fact more philanthropic than profitable lately. Presumably the Sulzbergers will run out of money at some point and their public shareholders will grow tired of losses  (collective $200 million net losses over the last 4 years).  

For what it’s worth, my sense as a reader is that the journalists in this city try mightily to cover the region. But you can’t please everyone all the time, and a micro-focused publication like Downtown Express (for better or worse) will cover the details of Tribeca more comprehensively than the Post, GS or the Times will ever care to.

So what’s the business model? Probably some low level subscription (a la WYNC, “less than the price of your morning cup of coffee!”).  plus micro-focused ad revenues.

Doubtless you’ll here the anguished cries of webmarketers everywhere when I say “put up a wall.” But you have great data on who visits your site, so play with it, try a few models and see. There’s got to be some de minimus price which engaged parents and teachers would pay.  (Too much to expect you can you get 50,000 subs from the 1,1 mil parents, 150,000 school professionals, etc?  And that they would pay $10 a year?  that’s $500,000 and at least keeps the lights on and pays for a few containers of ramen, no?)  EdWeek has a wall, as does the New Yorker.  Talk to their publishers.

Then on the advertising side, presumably you could start with Google as an inexpensive way to market yourself.  Presumably your parent readers are more engaged than average – so to your point they are more attractive than average.  they want to buy Kumon classes, read about great recommendations for books for their kids to read. The teachers who read you might want great PD opptys (since they’re above average too!).  And as I sit here typing I can see at four inches of bank space to the right of my comment box.  It doesn’t have to be replaced with classifieds, but you could use some of the space, tastefully.

Happy to look at numbers if you want to share.

ML