My idea of a model student
Last post I wrote, "public policy concerning public schools is too strongly affected by overly negative media portrayals."
This is most true in the urban school system, in Washington D.C. for example the Washington Post has run about one negative story about the District of Columbia school system a week for as long as I can remember. I don't doubt the truthfulness of the stories but rather the completeness of the coverage.
This isn't the old complaint that the media never covers all the planes that land safely, or in this case writing a story about all the students that don't get shoot. There are many exceptional things that happened in the public school system, and they are rarely reported and when they are they never given the extensive coverage that any event concerning violence or corruption gets.
Some students I recently finished working with attended a Washington D.C. school board meeting yesterday. They came to protest deep cuts in the number of teachers. They got their 30 seconds on the evening news, and mention in the Washington Post, but look at the article, there is only one sentence about what the students did and they basically cut and paste the school board's view of the cut backs. No pictures, no actual story, no quotes.
Protesting at the school board might not be your idea of a model student, but taking the lead and fighting for your right to a quality education is my idea of a model student, and yesterday the two activities looked pretty similar.
8:04:49 PM 
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