By Anthony Cody.

In August, Louisiana teacher and investigative reporter Mercedes Schneider wrote about the dangers of having education journalism directly funded by the Gates Foundation. This morning, she followed up that post with another, pointing out that while it sounds benign to “focus on success,” this is itself a huge bias. What would stories have looked like in the 1960s if reporters covering the Vietnam War were supported with grants that encouraged them to “focus on success”?

Washington education professor Wayne Au posted this comment to Schneider’s August post.

Mercedes,
I’ve been on panels with Rowe, [Education Lab reporter Claudia Rowe] who assured me multiple times that Gates has no influence on their reporting, other than being limited to “what works.” But it is all B.S. In the last few weeks Rowe has done two puff pieces on Teachers United, a local Gates funded astro-turf group that is all aboard the corporate ed machine a la VAM and anti-unions and pro-charters. It’s just part of their continued strategy to make it seem as if there is community support for their projects. – Wayne

To which Claudie Rowe replied:

Wayne, this is Claudia. The fact is: I have had zero communication from anyone at the Gates Foundation about what to cover in the Education Lab series or how to do so. During the life of this project, we have run literally hundreds of blog posts. To single out two — one of which discusses a potential candidate for state superintendent — strikes me as rather selective. But hey, thanks for reading.

Wayne Au responded:

Claudia,
I’ve read multiple blog posts from the lab, not just those two. And I’m not saying you all “only” report on things like those two blog posts I singled out. I see a wide range (in terms of individual topics) reported in the blog. None of that is my point. And I absolutely believe you that you’ve had zero communication from Gates. I’ve never asserted otherwise and have no reason to doubt you individually.

What is striking to me is the thin political range of the Ed Lab. I see mainly “safe” stories about mainstream stuff almost no one would would question, and then I see stories like the two PR pieces about TU. A lot of this has to do with what you and the Times count or value as “what works” or as a “solution.” Why focus on TU as something that “works”/is a “solution”? It isn’t clear to me at all that they are doing anything that is “working” in education to solve much of anything, and if your point is to highlight the potential and power of teachers doing political work – like you did in your TU pieces – then why don’t you look towards other teachers and teacher organizations that are doing political work? Why not look at WA Bad Ass Teachers (WABATS), who do a ton of on the ground work in Olympia, in their respective union locals, in the state union, in the national union, in their communities, and in their schools? And they are all volunteer.

Or I might suggest Social Equality Educators, the progressive caucus within the Seattle Education Association, who are doing much more effective work organizing and shifting the SEA than anything TU has done (ever).

You should also check out the Northwest Teaching for Social Justice Conference. We’re on our 6th or 7th year at this point, and we pull in around 800 educators from around the region, sharing curriculum and discussing the politics of education.

I would define test resistance and parent activism as a solution. Or ethnic studies. Or social justice curriculum. Maybe something on Greenberg’s reinstatement and the work on white privilege he was doing at Center School…

And if you want something safer, at least highlight Proyecto Saber at Seatlh.

To me, all of these groups/programs are examples of solutions/what works. And all of them push back against the assumptive norms of what guides Gates’ definition of solutions/what works, and these things generally don’t appear in anything supported by the Times, save for the once-a-year progressive education op-ed that they allow (and I mean this literally, once-a-year).

But I’m really glad you responded here (and I’m being sincere here, not snarky), because I think it is important that you get a sense from us media outsiders of how much the context of The Seattle Times concretely shapes how we make sense of your writing. The Times has its own political agenda when it comes to education, and they’ve made this crystal clear through not only their editorials, but also op-ed pages. Even their straight ahead news stories about education are selective and fall within a particular range of politics.

So when we see the ed lab blog from the Seattle Times, funded by Gates, either reporting on fairly safe stuff or putting so much weight behind TU as something that “works” in education/an educational solution, you HAVE to expect that kind of response. In fact, it is a quite reasonable response, given that context.

In many ways you are in a similar position to the other Gates funded organizations locally – like the League of Education Voters. They tell me all the time, “Gates funds us but they don’t tell us what to do.” And my response to them is always, “Gates doesn’t have to tell you what to do because your politics and agenda align with Gates. That’s WHY they fund you. If you changed your agenda, you’d lose your Gates money…” Gates doesn’t have to pull the strings. They just need to provide resources to the right policy actors.

To be clear, I’m NOT saying this applies to you as an individual. I don’t fully know your educational politics enough to know where you actually land on this stuff. But I am saying that, until we see anything significantly different coming from the ed lab or The Times as a whole, it doesn’t matter if Gates isn’t directly “steering” the reporting – for the most part, the reporting just happens to either fall in line with the Gates agenda anyways (or pose no threat to it).

I am curious though. How much say do the Times editors have in determining not what you write, but what gets deemed “worthy” for the ed lab? Who determines what counts as a “solution” or “what works”?

Wayne Au

I wrote to Claudia Rowe yesterday to ask her to respond to Wayne Au’s concerns, but she has yet to do so.

As Schneider points out, the very reality of public education is under contention. Many of us are deeply concerned about current trends that have tests and consequences for tests dramatically increasing, provoking great stress among students and teachers. When proficiency rates on Common Core tests and pass rates on the new GED drop dramatically, this is no success. When teachers and students conduct civil disobedience by opting out of tests, risking all sorts of consequences, this is evidence of a crisis – not success. When teacher turnover rises, and urban schools cannot retain teachers, this is not a sustainable system. When economic and racial segregation rises, and charter schools screen out difficult to educate students, leaving them to over-burdened public schools, we have trouble. But if journalists are being paid to “focus on success,” which of these stories will be told? And how will those of us building a movement to push for deeper changes be portrayed? There do not seem to be any billionaires stepping forward to underwrite this angle, however. So in a time when billionaire-sponsored reform is failing, we are left with happy news of success.

Update, Mon. Sep. 8, 8 pm PST:

Claudia Rowe responded over at Mercedes Schneider’s blog:

Hi Wayne and everyone,

Thanks for reaching out to me on these important issues. I’d like to respond to the concerns that have been raised. First: The position of the Seattle Times’ editorial board on matters of class size, charter schools, teachers unions and the like has no bearing whatsoever on the news side (that is, reporters like me). I know that’s sometimes not well understood outside of a newsroom, but inside the newsroom, this separation is fiercely protected.

Second: Education Lab has reported – both in daily blog posts and our monthly long-form pieces – on a range of promising responses to problems in public education, many of them having nothing to do with test scores as a measure of “success.” For instance, we ran a lengthy story on dropout reengagement, another on ways to improve student attendance, and another on the importance of parent involvement.

Here’s a link to the web page where you can read them:http://blogs.seattletimes.com/educationlab/

We’ve also published blog posts on the surging numbers of homeless children in Washington schools, concerns about discipline rates for minority students and the enormous impact that sustained, caring relationships with teachers can have for all students. Keep in mind that Education Lab is just a piece of the Times’ education coverage. We continue to report on problems as well as promising responses.

On finances: The $700,000 referred to in the original post represents our initial $450,000 grant from the Gates Foundation, which covered many of the Seattle Times’ expenses for the project in its first year, plus a $250,000 supplement approved in late 2013 which went exclusively to support the Solutions Journalism Network. Gates made these grants to the New Venture Fund because the fund served as a fiscal agent for SJN — a common practice for new organizations in the philanthropic sector – until the Solutions Network received its own 501(c)3 tax exempt status from the IRS in mid-2014.

The primary aim of Education Lab is not to define what constitutes “success,” but to open the conversation. That is, to provide an arena for thoughtful discussion and bring more readers into it. For this reason, I appreciate you and Wayne reading our series and weighing in.

Hi Mercedes & Everyone,

I’m a co-founder of the Solutions Journalism Network. We’re working with the Seattle Times on the Education Lab (Ed Lab) series. We’ve received funding from the Gates Foundation, as well as several other foundations. I sympathize with the instinct to be skeptical and suspicious of powerful organizations. But the Gates Foundation hasn’t done anything to influence what gets reported in Ed Lab, and the Seattle Times would not allow such interference.

The fact remains that, today, more and more major news organizations are accepting foundation funding because revenues have fallen. In order to continue to do deep, long-form reporting on issues of public interest, they often have to rely on grants. Just as news organizations have long kept a firewall between advertising and editorial, increasingly they have to maintain a firewall when revenues come from philanthropy or sponsorships. Shows like the PBS NewsHour, as well as investigative news organizations, have maintained this separation successfully for decades.

The Seattle Times reporters and editors have done an excellent job selecting stories that shine a light on problems in public education and responses to those problems that are showing promise in Seattle and in other parts of the country. Over the past year, foundation watchdogs have paid close attention to the Ed Lab series, as they should, but they’ve found little to jump on because the journalism speaks for itself. It’s independent and balanced and high quality. Linda Shaw and Claudia Rowe are reporters with the highest level of integrity. I sincerely urge readers to check out their reporting.

By doing hard nosed journalism that looks to understand how schools or systems could be improved, they and the Seattle Times are helping to depolarize the education debate and make it more constructive and enlightening.

Image from the Seattle Municipal Archives, Creative Commons license.