Lessons on Student Journalism from a "Bigmouthed troublemaker"

This from David Hawpe at C-J:

Cosmo, spit shines and HB 43

There are a couple of sensible ways for school officials to deal with student journalists who they believe have gotten out of hand.

One is to counsel with them, talk through questionable stories they have published or broadcast, and try to reach some kind of voluntary understanding about future coverage.

Another is to let the dust settle. Give it some time. See what the allegedly offending story produces in the way of reaction or consequences. Then decide whether further action is needed.

The way not to react is to conduct a purge, like some second-rate scholastic dictator -- confiscate undistributed papers and/or archived tapes, fire the student editors and/or their adviser, insist on red pencil review of all future stories and scripts by somebody in the principal's office.

It happens.

And when it happens, it's not much of a lesson in journalistic responsibility for the young folks involved.

That's why the General Assembly should pass House Bill 43, the Kentucky
Student Press Bill, which was introduced by Rep. Brent Yonts, D-Greenville. It
would extend free speech and free press protections to high school
journalists...

Read on for Hawpe's "Cosmo," and "spit shines" stories.

Yonts bill seeks protections for high school newspapers

This from AP by way of KSBA:

Student journalists working for public high school newspapers would be entitled to free speech and freedom of the press protections similar to their professional counterparts under a proposal before the Kentucky House.

Students would be allowed to publish stories without interference from school administrators under Rep. Brent Yonts’ proposal. If the measure passes, Kentucky would join at least seven other states that have enacted some form of protections for high school journalists.

“It’s important for the future of journalism, that students are taught about the responsibilities of journalism,” said Josh Moore, a sophomore journalism student at Western Kentucky University, who’s pushing the legislation.

So far, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts and Oregon have passed laws giving various levels of protection to student journalists who operate school newspapers.

The Illinois law does not include protections for high school journalists, said Frank LoMonte, executive director of the Student Press Law Center in Arlington, Va.

The bill is aimed at offsetting a 1988 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Hazelwood School District vs. Kuhlmeier, which ruled administrators in a St. Louis, Mo., school district could censor school newspaper articles, said Yonts, a Democrat from Greenville.

Protections under the bill would extend to young journalists regardless of whether their publications were school-funded or produced as part of a class. Local school boards would be required to adopt written freedom of expression policies for students....

Predictably, the bill is not being warmly embraced by the Kentucky School Boards Association whose members may lose some authority under the bill, but it does have its supporters. They are not surprising either. The Bowling Green Daily News opines,

...This bill has a lot of merit and sends a strong message that the First Amendment should not be tampered with in any way.

It sends a bad message to young Americans who are writing for their school papers to have their work censored by school principals. That message is that our constitutional freedoms are not that important.

David Greer, administrator of the Kentucky High School Journalism Association, said allowing school officials’ final say in what gets published could deter serious investigative journalism that is sometimes controversial.

We agree.

Young students who are interested in pursuing a career in journalism should have the freedom to publish the facts, regardless of whether it makes a school look good or bad.

The knowledge they gain while working for a high school paper will help prepare them about the journalism profession and all that it entails...

State's goals in education can be met

This from the Kentucky New Era:

By Brent Yonts

Looking for Kentucky at the top of any list that ranks states by educational achievement would have been like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack 20 years ago. Our state was nowhere to be found. Not so today. Education in Kentucky has changed so much in recent years that within the next 11 years our state could possibly be ranked among the top 20 states in school performance. A recent report by one of the state’s leading education advocates, the Prichard Committee on Academic Excellence, explains that the state now has the foundation to move from the bottom to the top of the national rankings and be in the company of top tier states by 2020!

We are already pretty close to being in that elite group in some areas, having already surpassed or met the performance of these states in science and 4th grade writing. Plus we are only a few points behind Top 20-ranked Iowa in 8th grade math performance, catching up with top-tier Delaware in the number of students earning AP college credit in high school and almost tied with Illinois in the area of preschool enrollment for three and four year olds. The reason for this success has much to do with our work in 10 areas that the report calls the “Ten Steps Forward.” Improved performance by Kentucky students on state and national tests, better classroom performance, an increase in high school graduates and increased college enrollment and graduation rates are among the 10 areas, which are as follows:

* National ranking. We have the nation’s 34th best education system, based on a 2005 index developed by the Kentucky Long Term Policy Research Center. A matching index had us ranked 43rd in 1992.

* Science education. Kentucky students’ have the highest science test scores in the nation. They are also tied with the nation in reading, 4th-grade writing and 8th-grade mathematics.

* State tests. Every student group in Kentucky improved their accountability test performance from 1999 to 2006.

* AP exams. Students across the state making passing scores on Advanced Placement exams rose by 76 percent since 2000, a growth rate surpassed by only 7 other states.

* Preschool. Before 1990, there was no state-funded preschool in the Commonwealth. Today, more than 21,000 children attend free preschool statewide.

* Technology. Our state is a leader in school technology, tying for fourth place among all states in the 2008 ranking of “Technology Counts”, an annual report of the national newspaper Education Week. Our individual technology score was a B+ compared to a C+ national average.

* College enrollment. Over the last decade, college enrollment at our four-year colleges and universities has increased 40 percent. At the community and technical college level, the increase in enrollment has soared 106 percent. Of the individuals included in those enrollments, the number receiving bachelor’s degrees annually increased 28 percent while associate degree holders increased 53 percent over the period.

* High school graduates. The number of adults under age 25 who are high school graduates in Kentucky has risen to 80 percent, up 10 percent since 1980. Up by five percent over the 28 year period are the number of adults under age 35 who hold at least a bachelor’s degree.

* Investment by the state. Over the past 18 years, the state of Kentucky has invested over $2 billion in the replacement and renovation of school buildings to give our children a safe, modern study environment.

* Return on academic investment. In 2005, Kentucky ranked 8th nationally in the return we received on our investment in education from preschool through 12th grade. The ranking was based on reading and math performance versus spending and student challenges.

Other achievements that the Prichard Committee celebrated in its report —although they cannot be tracked statistically—are changes in state law made by the Kentucky General Assembly that affect school governance. By changing the culture of education, we lawmakers believe that we can make our schools a better place. And indeed, that seems to be true.

What is also true is we have much work to do. We still need to raise teachers’ salaries, we have a student “achievement gap” to bridge, the CATS test is still an issue, and we need to prepare more students for careers in the math, science and technology fields. I will speak more about the challenges next week, along with other challenges that the Prichard report has flagged. Have a great week ahead.

BRENT YONTS (D) is a state representative from Greenville.