Chapter 12

Fake News About Education

The very spring and root of honesty and virtue lie in good education.

—Plutarch

Truth persuades by teaching, but does not teach by persuading.

—Tertullian

Educators are not immune to the influence of inaccurate or even fake ideas or news. How many times have educators been told that previous practices and instructional strategies are no longer appropriate? Were previous recommendations a fake? How do we know that the “latest research” provides better recommendations?

Educational practice has also been affected by a multitude of unintentionally inaccurate news supported by poorly designed research studies. Just pause for a moment and reflect upon all of the different practices that educators have applied and then rejected. How many of these practices were judged to be so important, but the importance has diminished? Here are just a few of these recent practices (Paul & Elder, 2007): self-esteem movement, whole language instruction, and character education. What evidence would suggest that these practices are no longer as important? Here are some school practices from a more distant past that are now widely rejected:

• Corporal punishment,
• Rote memorization,
• Extensive homework every night,
• Special education students should be in separate classes,
• Girls should be discouraged from taking mathematics courses.

We may laugh or cry, but those were once common educational practices.

Do educators often feel that it is difficult to distinguish between real and fake recommendations for educational practices? If so, then we can better appreciate the perspective of students who may have similar difficulty in distinguishing the real from the fake and may simply find it easier to accept easily available fake ideas or news.

Poorly designed research studies are an annoyance in trying to identify appropriate educational practices. Does it seem that every year there is something “new” from research findings? These new findings are often just the correction or further elaboration of unintentional errors in previous research.

A more difficult and ominous concern is the intentional creation and dissemination of fake news about educational practices. Cheating on tests to raise test scores and manipulating the overall grade or the rating given to a school are only a few of the ways that fake news has been used to deceive the public. In fact, school administrators in several districts have been found guilty of cheating to raise test scores.

Fake news within a particular school district about test scores is an unprofessional practice, but generally confined to particular school districts. A broader application of fake news is the criticism of the American public education system.

Free public education is considered as an important mechanism supporting our democracy and helping students to develop as informed and productive citizens. The public schools have provided opportunities for everyone to climb the ladder of success.

The U. S. Department of Education (1983), however, stated that American schools were mediocre and that public schools were failing adequately to teach students. The notion that public schools have failed America has grown as an organized movement.

Constructive suggestions to improve the educational system will always be useful. However, fake news and inaccurate information have been used to support this criticism of the public school system (Ravitch, 2013). The criticisms are often attacks that may have underlying financial, sociological, or racial reasons.

A financial reason is obvious. Annual expenditures on the American education system are nearing $1 trillion. Might some corporations look upon this amount of expenditures as an opportunity to make money? Here are some questions to consider on why financial reasons might tempt corporations or other organizations and individuals to criticize the public school system:

• Could corporations see business opportunities to generate profits in establishing alternatives to public education?
• Could some public tax dollars be directed toward these alternatives to provide a secure base of revenue?
• Could profits be even greater if traditional bargaining rights of school employees are reduced, and employees are replaced with others at a lower wage scale and with fewer benefits and protections?
• Could the alternative be marketed as offering “choice”?
• Could profits be even greater if the alternatives to public education have either reduced or no standards of accountability for showing results—or better outcomes?

Guess what the answer is to each of those questions. The answer is, of course, yes.

Sociological or racial reasons for criticizing the public schools are more subtle. Can fake news be created to support some children’s attending schools that are not economically or racially integrated?

Corporate interest to secure profits and the opportunities for some to send children to alternative educational opportunities that minimize potential school integration may be intentional foundations for many of the criticisms and fake news of educational practice (Berliner & Glass, 2014). Do we believe that observation?

Here are a few of the fifty prevalent criticisms of the public educational system reported by Berliner and Glass (2014). Can we identify any suspected financial corporate interests or sociological reasons for supporting alternatives to avoid attending integrated public schools?

• Teacher unions are responsible for much poor school performance.
• Charter schools are better than traditional public schools.
• Class size does not matter.
• Teachers in the United States are unionized and well-paid.
• Private schools are better than public schools.
• Tuition tax credits help poor children escape failing public schools.
• Preschool and kindergarten programs are not worth the investment.

We could continue to elaborate upon this list, as we see so many criticisms. Have we heard any? Do we have a belief about the accuracy of each of those above criticisms?

The topic of “school choice” is increasingly being discussed as an educational policy. Arguments for and against school choice are actively debated. Let’s take a look at those arguments and assumptions.

The rationale for “school choice” appears to rest upon several assumptions:

• Ideological assumption that everyone should have freedom of choice without government interference to avoid a “nanny state.”
• Everyone is capable of making choices in their own best interest and better than choices made by others.
• Assertions by economist Milton Friedman and others that choice and competition are the best ways to improve schools (Thaler & Sunstein, 2009).
• Recent statements by President Trump and others to equate school choice as a “civil rights issue”—by which school vouchers permit children from poor families to have choice—would have the same rights to a quality education as children from wealthy families (Superville & Lemire, 2017).

The rationale against “school choice” rests upon several assumptions:

• Funding will diminish for public schools and will adversely affect the quality of educational services that can be provided.
• Voucher programs to attend charter and private schools are taxpayer dollars and with little transparency in how that money is spent.
• Charter, online, and private and religious schools often do not have public accountability for reporting what students have learned and been tested.
• The voucher programs and the charter schools are an attempt to turn education into a competitive, profit-making business.
• The voucher program may be a subsidy for wealthy families who can already afford to send their children to private and religious K-12 schools.
• The voucher program is a subtle form of racial and socioeconomic discrimination in that only the poor and minority students will be left in the public education.

Do we see any difficulties in trying to resolve the issue? As we can observe, many assumptions for and against school choice can be easily and widely made.

What should be the role of objectively collecting verifiable facts in making a decision about school choice? What facts do we all need? Are facts optional and do we just make a decision based upon our biases or opportunities? Can we set aside our biases and objectively evaluate the news about school choice?

What can educators do in response to criticisms of educational practice? Educators need to develop skills for objectively evaluating the news. The hope is that all educators will be able to apply the checklist “look for” indicators included in this book to evaluate news of educational practices and outcomes.

Discussion questions:

1. (1) Have students identify and share fake news stories of educational programs or practices that they hear, read, or see. Ask them to identify the specific “look for” indicators that suggest the news story is fake and/or misleading.
2. (2) Have students provide a reason why groups were creating and spreading fake news about educational programs or practices.