Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Education Bloggers; Filling The Education Journalism Void

I was fortunate to spend last night in the company of some amazing people, including the incomparable NYC teacher bloggers Gary Rubinstein and Arthur Goldstein, at the Class Size Matters 5th Annual Skinny Awards

If you have not checked out their work, please do. They are both tireless public education advocates, using their blogs to bring attention to issues ignored by the ever dwindling corps of mainstream education reporters.

Gary wrote and delivered, as Diane Ravitch described it on her own blog, an "hysterical spoof... to describe the terrible crisis stalking the land: mediocre education journalism"  

Watch for yourself. 



Those of us engaged in this movement have no big financial backers. We blog, organize and lobby in an attempt to right the wrongs we see inflicted upon public schools by the corporate education movement. We are the true Davids, and our blog posts are the rocks we toss at the Goliaths out to dismantle public education.

Words do have power.  And the nationwide dearth of education reporting is allowing corporate interests that both own the papers AND spearhead ed reform efforts, (yeah, I'm looking at YOU George Norcross!!) to drown out the voices of those of us who still believe in public education.

This is why we need education bloggers like Gary and Arthur. Bloggers who can't be bought and won't be silenced. 

Here in NJ, we too have a formidable line-up of nationally recognized education bloggers. The prolific and pointed Jersey Jazzman offers incomparable insights on all things education, while the scholarly yet searing Bruce Baker debunks topics like charter superiority and VAM reliability with aplomb. 

And every once in a while, when I'm not chasing twin six year olds, I try to throw in my two cents worth and shake things up a bit.

Long live the education bloggers!

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