Revelatory Communications with the Inept Reporters at the >Star Tribune<--- Introduction

 

Introductory Comments

 

Revelatory Communications with the Inept Reporters

of the Star Tribune, August and September 2021

 

From time to time I send emails to reporters and columnists at the Star Tribune, commenting on their inevitably cowardly and uncreative journalism, revealing their lack of understanding of the key vexations pertinent to K-12 education.

 

The reporters and columnists to whom I send these communications include Mara Klecker, Anthony Lonetree, Erin Golden, Ryan Faircloth, Jenny Berg, Jenna Ross, Myron Medcalf, Lee Schafer, Neal St. Anthony, Zoe Jackson, and occasionally those who cover urban issues such as Alex Chhinth,  Paul Walsh, and Libor Jany.  I also copy Star Tribune education editor Katie Humphrey to these communications.

 

Many of the articles filed by beat reporters are serviceable reportorial ventures conveying what happened at school board meetings, financial and budgetary issues, the Minneapolis Public Schools Comprehensive District Design, scores on the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs), and during these last societally challenging months matters relevant to Covid-19 and decisions district leaders have made as to masking, vaccinations, and testing for the virus.

 

One can read any given article and find the piece entirely acceptable---  but not a single one of these journalists demonstrates any comprehension of the actual dilemmas of the public schools relevant to failure to provide a knowledge-intensive, skill-replete curriculum that serves as the basis of vigorous discussion, including contentious issues and matters concerning ethics.

 

And not a single reporter or columnist at the Star Tribune gives any evidence of caring about K-12 education.

 

They give every indication of just drawing a paycheck or, in the case of the columnists, seeking a bit of status for gaining featured recognition.

 

Journalists are among the many culpable parties who serve as enablers of the education establishment administrators and teachers who sent forth those who manage to graduate (having walked across the stage to claim a piece of paper that is a diploma in name only) to become members of the ignorant citizenry that we have in the United States.

 

For society to rise above this ignorance, we must overhaul K-12 curriculum and teacher quality so as to give our students firm knowledge bases and opportunities to debate major issues pertinent to ethics and morality.

 

The quality of society is dependent upon the quality of public education.

 

Those education professors, administrators, and teachers who give us the current abysmal quality of public education must be called out for their prime roles in producing this system.

 

And so must those, very much including journalists, who aid and abet the persistence of such a system.

 

In that spirit do I in this series call out the inept and irresponsible reporters and columnists of the Star Tribune.