There’s no shortage of non-journalists covering education these days, including parents, advocates, and foundation officers. But Georgetown’s Nora Gordon is the only economist and public policy professor I know of.
It’s not that the 160,000-student Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) lacks traditional coverage. The Baltimore Banner’s Talia Richman, Bethesda Magazine’s Ashlyn Campbell, and — until very recently — the Washington Post’s Nicole Asbury already covered the system.
The stereotype is that affluent, educated parents have all sorts of inside information about schools — along with undue influence. (Remember 2020’s incredibly popular series, ‘Nice White Parents’?)
But the COVID lockdowns highlighted how unfamiliar school systems can be to even the most informed parent — and how limited their influence can be, especially in a sprawling county-wide system.
And in this new interview, Gordon explains that her new Substack, called Why Is It Like This?, is needed because there’s so much more to understand about MCPS than qualifies as “news” — or that journalists have time to delve into.
“Journalists can’t probe and provide context in the same way I can,” says Gordon. However, she doesn’t “explain everything” the way journalists have to — or think that they do.
Watch or read the transcript above or on YouTube. Listen to it on Spotify or Apple.
Even those who watch the board meetings might not be able to discern what’s most important, says Gordon, given that much of the substantive discussion happens in public but less-attended ‘work sessions’ — and because of the way public comments often focus on narrower school-specific issues rather than the larger context.
It’s this deeper level of understanding that Gordon seems to be looking for — the kind of context that might be discussed in the reporting process but then cut out of a news story. (She also talks about how her desire to be thoughtful and careful may get in the way of reporters being able to use her insights.)
There are clearly some tradeoffs.
Shortly after our interview, Gordon emailed me a recent post of hers about the district budget, alongside recent media coverage of the same topic — “a great example of how local journalists can’t probe and provide context in the same way I can.”
You can see the differences looking at Gordon’s Why is the budget like this? next to the Banner’s One kindergarten teacher and 27 kids? How the district wants to limit class sizes and Bethesda Magazine’s MCPS presents tiered proposal to lower class sizes.
“I don’t explain everything,” says Gordon. “I assume people take my word for it or click on the hyperlinks, or read the MCPS slides I paste in.” By comparison, she notes, journalists “have to explain it” — often with many fewer words.
“I think I am (without intending) writing for a more knowledgeable reader. This is interesting because I would like to be useful for all parents in the county, but I think it wouldn’t be possible to get to that level of nuance if I were explaining everything.”
Previously from The Grade
Urgency, experimentation, and expansion at The Baltimore Banner
Frustrated podcaster turns up the heat
In Boston, a veteran reporter steps in where traditional news falls short
What’s it like being a citizen journalist covering a viral education story?
‘At this point, everyone’s a journalist, right?’
