Eye on Education, Boston, MA 2002
Partners:
WGBH radio and television (PBS)
The Boston Globe
El Mundo Newspaper
WRCA-AM
The “Eye on Education” initiative addressed such issues as character education, vouchers, charter schools and high-stakes testing. In addition to regular reports, the project featured a special week of TV programming, March 28-April 4, 2002, culminating with “A Day in the Life,” a one-hour verite film that documented a single day at Jeremiah Burke High School from different perspectives.
By presenting personal and revealing moments, the film went beyond the headlines to depict the impact of school reform in the classroom. On Oct. 15, 2001, the day the film was shot, 63 percent of the Class of 2003 faced not graduating because they had failed the new Massachusetts MCAS exams. The statistic raised the question that ran through the production: What does it really take to leave no child behind?
The radio component, English and Spanish “Teen and Teacher Radio Diaries,” aired April 1-5, 2002 on WGBH and WRCA. Early in the school year, producers selected three English-speaking students and two English-speaking teachers as well as two Spanish-speaking students and two Spanish-speaking teachers to record audio diaries of their public school experience throughout the year. The English language diaries were broadcast on WGBH and the Spanish on WRCA. The audio from all the reports was available on the Web site, www.wgbh.org/eyeoneducation, along with additional information, essays and a Pop Quiz on public education.
The partners distributed more than 100,000 parent information fliers in five languages. The Globe inserted 30,655 fliers in its March 27 edition and El Mundo printed the flier in Spanish in its pages. The partners also conducted workshops to train parents in how to use “Eye on Education” resources to conduct school-based parent discussion groups and help them take steps to improve schools.
The project brought the voices of students, parents, teachers and administrators to a broad local audience, providing detailed information to parents and generating positive feedback. WGBH planned to continue the project in the 2002-03 school year.
Contact:
Elaine Laughlin
Senior Program Manager
WGBH-TV
125 Western Avenue
Boston, MA 02134
Phone: (617) 300-3432
Email: elaine_laughlin@wgbh.org