FAIR ACTION ALERT: In Attack on Public Schools, Did ABC's Stossel Do His Homework?

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On 20/20's November 12 broadcast, ABC News correspondent John Stossel devoted his "Give Me a Break" segment to taking on public schools and teaching standards. But a close examination of the report reveals so many mistakes and omissions that one can only wonder whether Stossel did his homework.

The report is divided into two segments: a full-scale attack on public schools and teachers, and a comparison between failing, bureaucratic public schools and successful, high-achieving private Catholic schools.

From the beginning of the segment, it's not hard to tell where Stossel is headed. Anchor Barbara Walters introduces Stossel's report by saying, "So what's the matter with teachers today?" Stossel then proceeds with his case against "government schools" and their "Soviet-style bureaucracy."

Here are a few of the claims made in the report, accompanied by a response to each.

STOSSEL: "Lots of people are complaining about public schools, but that's not the story the teachers' union tells."

FACT: While it's certainly true that some people are critical of public education, their overall impression is not negative. According to the latest results of the Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll Of the Public's Attitudes Toward Public Schools, 49 percent of respondents give public schools a grade of A or B, and 31 percent assign them a C. Only 5 percent of respondents gave public schools a failing grade (http://www.pdkintl.org/kappan/kpol9909.htm). It's worth noting that parents with children in public school graded schools more favorably; 66 percent of these gave an A or a B to the school their oldest child attends.

It's also worth noting that one teacher's union, the National Education Association, offers plenty of criticisms of public schools on their own web site.

FACT: Data from the Department of Education show a slide from the mid-'60s to the mid-'70s, with SAT scores remaining relatively stable over the past 20 years. But using the SAT to compare students of today with students of yesteryear is a meaningless exercise. A much larger pool of students takes the test today than in the past, when they were mainly required by a small group of elite colleges. Most importantly, the questions on the test change every year, so there is no way to know how the class of 1966 would have done on 1999's test, or vice versa.

STOSSEL: "Since I was in school, America has more than tripled spending on education."

It's commonly claimed that school spending has increased dramatically--most often, it's said to have doubled in the past 25 years. But prices for labor-intensive services like education generally rise faster than prices for goods, which are held down by improvements in technology. Richard Rothstein of the Economic Policy Institute has calculated an inflation rate for services, and when this is used instead of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) to calculate real spending on education, Rothstein found that spending on public schools actually grew 61 percent between 1967 and 1991--about 2 percent per year--and much of that increase went to special education programs. Likewise, spending from 1991 to 1996 has increased only 0.7 percent.

STOSSEL: "The U.S. Education Department says that only one in five teachers feels prepared to teach to high standards."

FACT: Stossel appears to be referring to a Department of Education study released in January 1999 (http://nces.ed.gov/pubs99/1999080.htm). This study dealt with teacher preparedness, but it had nothing about teaching to "high standards." Instead, it found that 20 percent of teachers--one in five--felt comfortable integrating high *technology* into classroom instruction.

Of course, such misuse of a survey would constitute either gross dishonesty or extreme sloppiness. The Department of Education could find no study that more closely matched Stossel's description; ABC refused to provide any more specifics.

STOSSEL: "This summer, the Massachusetts teachers' union staged this protest after almost half the state's new teachers flunked the competency test and kept flunking."

FACT: First, as Dr. Penelope Earley of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education points out, many of those flunking the exam were not teachers, but members of the public trying to get teaching credentials.

Second, Stossel fails to mention the most important aspect of the Massachusetts tests-- namely, the serious questions about the reliability and validity of the test. An ad hoc committee of education experts evaluated the Communications and Literacy portion of the exam and found the margin of error to be "double or triple the range found on well-developed tests." (Education Policy Analysis Archives, 2/11/99)

STOSSEL: Stossel also relies on Martin Gross, author of "Conspiracy of Ignorance," whom Stossel says "has spent the last few years studying teacher's colleges." Gross, who calls such colleges "a sinkhole of stupidity," claims that "Fifty-four percent of all our teachers have a master's in qualification. That's a zero qualification."

FACT: Perhaps Gross meant to say 45 percent, which is the actual figure for teachers that have a master's degree, according to the U.S Department of Education. While Gross is trying to make a point about teacher's colleges, the fact remains that most teachers major in academic subjects other than education during their undergraduate and graduate years.

Stossel does find one school system "that's doing a better job for a fraction of the money"--Catholic schools. But there are a number of problems with this public/private comparison, most of which are omitted from the report.

FACT: While this is generally true, this claim magnifies the problems with Stossel's comparison. Most private schools screen students prior to admission, in effect "weeding out" the low-performers. Of course, public schools cannot do this. This accounts for some of the disparity in test scores.

Given the level of inaccuracy in Stossel's report, it's worthwhile to note the irony--an error-filled attack on the supposedly low standards of our public education system.

ACTION: Contact Disney/ABC and inquire as to whether this report was subject to any kind of review for factual accuracy. If you have written to ABC about Stossel before, point out that the network has given no satisfactory explanation for the apparent inaccuracies in prior Stossel broadcasts.