The leaders of higher education in our town thought they had something important to say this month about student achievement in San Diego City Schools, but the news people at the Union-Tribune shut them out. That's right, I'm talking about Robert Dynes, Chancellor of UCSD, Augustine Gallego, Chancellor of the San Diego Community College District, Alice Hayes, President of USD, and Stephen Weber, President of SDSU. You'd think that any report issued by this illustrious group would be newsworthy. It would seem especially so in this case because the topic is highly controversial and the colleges here have a huge stake in whether or not K-12 education is getting better.

Exec. Dir. Chuck Nathanson

What's more, the chancellors and presidents were joined in this report by the deans of the schools of education at SDSU and USD, and also by seven prominent education scholars and researchers in the area.
(See the list of members of the San Diego Achievement Forum.)

This was not a casual report. About a year ago, the Hewlett Foundation asked San Diego Dialogue to convene an impeccable panel to review the data on student achievement in city schools. The idea was to clear the air -- to rise above the clash of personalities, the shouting on the school board, the struggle for power between the teachers union and the superintendent -- and help the public focus on what really matters:

• Are all children learning better than before to read and do basic math?

• Is the achievement gap closing between white students
and students of color?

• Are English Language Learners learning English?

• Are the lowest performing schools with the highest
concentrations of poverty doing significantly better?

• Are the high schools doing better?

• How does San Diego City Schools compare to other major
urban school districts in California?

So why didn't this distinguished panel's report make it into the news columns of the Union-Tribune? When I called the news department to ask the education editor, he told me that most of the data had already been reported in the newspaper. He suggested that the opinion pages, which are controlled by the editorial department, might be more appropriate.

(In case you haven't noticed, there is something of a war going on between the news section and the editorial section of the newspaper, especially on the topic of the reform underway in City Schools. The editorial department is focused on questions of student achievement, the news department on the controversy over the superintendent's manner, the grievances of teachers, and the incivility on the school board.)

As it turned out, the executive summary of the Achievement Forum's report did appear in the Union Tribune's opinion pages on Sunday, October 27, along with a list of signatories. But far fewer people read the opinion pages than the news pages, and the credibility and overall impact on the public is much less.

It's curious because the front page of the local news section on Sunday had a long story, as part of election coverage, focused on Superintendent Bersin and repeating many of the complaints about him that have been thoroughly aired in the past. So the newspaper is not really against repeating itself if it likes the sound of the tune.

"Curiouser, and curiouser," said Alice.

Click here for the full text of the Achievement Forum Report.