Jay Greene's kerfuffle with the New York Times' education reporter Sam Dillon is fascinating because Times reporters rarely engage their critics. But it may be more a lesson in sloppy writing than poor reporting.
The fight started when Greene questioned Dillon's December 12 story saying that a ?notable early finding? of a Gates Foundation study on teacher effectiveness concluded that, according to Dillon, ?teachers who incessantly drill their students to prepare for standardized tests tend to have lower value-added learning gains than those who simply work their way methodically through the key concepts of literacy and mathematics.?
Greene says he examined the report and could not find any evidence to support such a claim. In fact, says Greene, ?the report actually shows a positive correlation between student reports of ?test prep' and value added on standardized tests, not a negative correlation as the statement above suggests.? (See for example Appendix 1 on p. 34.)?
According to Green, Dillon responded (I'm assuming by email), ?For your information, I contacted the Gates Foundation after our correspondence and asked them if I had misquoted or in any way misinterpreted either Vicki Phillips [Gates Foundation education director], or their report on their research. They said, ?absolutely not, you got it exactly right.'?
It gets better. Greene says that Dillon then called his efforts to correct the claim ?pathetic, sloppy, and lazy, and by the way an insult.?
Strong stuff.?Replies Greene: ?I guess Dillon thinks that being a reporter for the New York Times means never having to say you're sorry?or consult independent experts to resolve a disputed claim.?
It sure seems that Dillon doth protest too much.?But there's another problem here. What exactly was Dillon's claim about the report?? I had read the ?incessantly drill? sentence to mean that teaching to the test was less helpful than teaching the curriculum and was thus surprised by Vicki Phillips' conclusion, as reported by Dillon, that ??drill and kill' isn't helpful.?
You couldn't make such a conclusion based on Dillon's summary of the findings?a summary which, if not inaccurate (as Greene suggests), was confusing.?Are the so-called findings about a method of preparation or about what it is you're preparing for???Education Trust seemed to read the report summary as I had:??Rigorous Coursework, Not Coaching, Leads to Student Learning? was the headline in?its story about the study.
I foresee a second shoe dropping on this one. But in the meantime, that sentence should go back to the copyediting department.
?Peter Meyer, Bernard Lee Schwartz Policy Fellow
