| I think that articles like this, and about all sorts of other subjects that show up in the news media, are intended simply to sell the particular medium through shock not real information. Unfortunately, the news media is looking to create news through what amounts to staging media events. It is happening all over the place. School ratings by Bus Week and USNWR are not really intended to provide information but to sell magazines. This requires some turnover in the lists, which magically appears to happen. Could not have same school #1 forever, and worse yet the top ten or twenty.
It is the slavish following of this mis and myth information that creates the uncritical and lemming like behavior that we see as people then rush to adopt the next new thing whatever it is. Or believe the media is correct. The "I saw it on TV or read it in the newspaper" syndrom.
As I said the problem goes beyond articles on education (which pray on parents' and students' anxieties) to pretty much most facits of the media "reporting". Look carefully at the election coverage, the media is shilling pure and simple. A few in the media recognize it an worry, but most are just counting the $$.
I suggest charting your own course, not based on what comes out of the media in the forms of articles. There are many ways to succeed, some are better bets than others, so chose what works for you. |