Elsewhere in this issue, I write at length about my take on last week’s event talking about Ohio’s Third Grade Reading Guarantee and what it means to students in Columbus. As you read, the mantra was “all hands on deck,” even while hosts and presenters and audience members alike betrayed a worrying language of “reading is hard” and “tests are icky” that could easily undo a ton of great work.
And it didn’t stop at the door of the event.
Case in point: the Columbus Dispatch’s coverage of this event, which comprised two subtly different stories by the same journalist.
- The first ran online only the same afternoon. It was headlined, “More than half of city's third-graders could be held back under new law,” as if this was news to people and they should be very concerned. There followed six fairly critical comments beneath the article.
- The second ran in the print edition and online the following morning. It was headlined, “Columbus library to help third-graders improve reading scores,” presenting a tone more consistent with the event I attended. It generated no online comments at all.
So maybe this is just perception, or maybe I’m being too sensitive, but the messaging concerns me. This is an important effort that must succeed and must continue to succeed for year upon year.
