According to a new report from the conservative American Enterprise Institute, media coverage of public charter schools leans toward negative stories.
Although public charter schools are only one form of school choice, they are the most common form. According to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, as of the 2015-16 school year, nearly 3 million students are enrolled in charter schools.
The report found that about half of articles published by major outlets on charter schools in 2015 was neutral or balanced. But there were twice as many negative pieces than positive.
Despite its liberal slant, the New York Times was actually the most-balanced outlet. It had six negative pieces, six positive and eight neutral. In fact, the average opinion piece on charters in the Times tended to view charters more favorably than any of the other outlets in the study. The average news story in the New York Times leaned only slightly negative against charter schools, although more than the news coverage in every other outlet except Slate.
Compare that to the Washington Post, which had 14 negative pieces, 21 neutral and only one positive. The report says much of that negative coverage came from one source: Valerie Strauss’ column.
The most biased outlet was Salon: 20 negative pieces, 3 neutral, no positive.
The report also looked at the topic of race in coverage of charter schools. Charters tend to be concentrated in urban areas, so racial gaps in education are a common topic in charter school debates.
Overall, well under half the stories mentioned race. Opinion pieces were more likely to mention race than news stories. It wasn’t clear if articles mentioning race were more likely to be biased for or against charters.
The report studied 218 charter school articles from traditional news sources, like the New York Times, online news sources, like Slate, and education-specific sources, like Education Week. Three-quarters of the articles were news stories, while the rest were opinion pieces.
The report was authored by Rick Hess, Kelsey Hamilton and Jenn Hatfield. All three work at the American Enterprise Institute.
Charter schools are publicly funded and do not charge tuition. Compared to traditional public schools, charters have more independence and flexibility in their operations and curricula, which is why so many families find charters desirable. They are open to all students, but they often don’t have enough space to meet demand. In that case, they use a lottery system to determine admission.
The report seems to suggest that media coverage of public charter schools is fairly balanced, with no widespread bias for or against. “Claims of media favoritism toward charter schooling — or hostility against it — are overstated,” the authors write.
Jason Russell is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
