Study Shows Student Journalism Improves Academic Performance
April 18th, 2008, 12:04 pm · Post a Comment · posted by vhill
California set to pass bill protecting student speech and journalism teachers
SACRAMENTO – The Newspaper Association of America (NAA) Foundation this week released a study that found students who work on high school newspapers and yearbooks are more likely to receive better grades in high school and college as well as score higher on college entrance exams. The study bolsters an argument made by proponents of a bill currently pending on the floor of the California Senate to protect journalism teachers and other school employees from retaliation by administrators as a result of student speech.
“California has always led the way in making sure true freedom of the press is alive and well on our campuses,” said Yee. “Allowing a school administration to censor in any way is contrary to the democratic process and the ability of a student newspaper to serve as the watchdog and bring sunshine to the actions of school administrators. This recent study also shows the clear academic benefit to students who work on school newspapers and who are able to exercise their free speech rights.”
The NAA Foundation research was conducted by Jack Dvorak, Ph.D., director of the High School Journalism Institute and professor of the School of Journalism at Indiana University. The study looked at the academic performance of 31,175 students who are attending or have attended colleges and universities in all 50 states and some foreign countries during the past five years.
The study found that students with journalism experience in high school earned higher scores than non-journalism students in the following areas: high school overall grade point average, ACT Composite score, ACT English score, college freshman English grade, and college freshman grade point average. In addition, journalism students also had higher grades in high school mathematics, social science, science and English courses than non-journalism students.
“Rather than retaliating against teachers who protect their students’ speech rights, administrations should be finding ways to support their faculty and journalism programs,” said Yee. “The research clearly shows that journalism programs result in better critical thinking skills, more impressive grades, and higher test scores. It is this academic performance that will allow our young people to become greater contributors to our society.”
Senate Bill 1370, which will likely be considered by the full Senate on Monday, April 21, is in response to a number of cases throughout the state where journalism advisers or professors were disciplined for content in a student newspaper. The bill follows a 2006 law authored by Yee which prohibits censorship of college press by administrators and protects students from being disciplined for engaging in speech or press activities.
Specifically, SB 1370 would prohibit an employee from being dismissed, suspended, disciplined, reassigned, transferred, or otherwise retaliated against for acting to protect a student’s speech.
A Los Angeles Unified School District case is one of many where a highly respected and successful newspaper advisor was removed from his position. In November 2006, the student newspaper published an editorial criticizing random searches conducted on campus. The newspaper advisor, Darryl Adams, was immediately removed after refusing to eliminate the editorial at the principal’s request. Adams was later removed as basketball coach and even as announcer for the football games.
“In a span of four months, they all but stripped me of my professional existence,” said Adams.
Another case involved Janet Ewell, a Garden Grove tenured teacher and certified journalism educator, who was removed as newspaper advisor in 2002 despite her students winning numerous journalism awards. The schools principal admitted to student reporters that he had removed Ewell as a result of editorials that ran in the school newspaper. The editorials focused on such issues as the school bathrooms, cafeteria food and a teacher who was unavailable to help students.
Ronnie Campagna, a journalism teacher of 18 years at San Marin High School in Novato, was removed in 2003 and replaced by a new teacher with no previous journalism experience after the student paper published stories critical of the administration. For example, one story criticized the school administration for not letting students stand up in the bleachers during varsity basketball games. The school board went so far as to attempt dissolving the entire program until parents protested and even offered to fund the class themselves.
In San Francisco, journalism and English teacher Katharine Swan was told that she must find a different school in which to teach after her students covered a first-year principal’s attempts to effect prior restraint and influence coverage of events occurring at the school.
“Since administrators are unable by law to exercise prior restraint with regard to a student publication, they lean on advisers to do what they legally cannot,” said Jim Ewert, Legal Counsel for the California Newspaper Publishers Association (CNPA). “When advisers refuse, they are punished because administrators know they will face no legal consequences. SB 1370 is necessary to close this gaping loophole in the law.”
The NAA Foundation study can be found at http://www.naafoundation.org/
Source: Office of Senator Leland Y. Yee, Ph.D.
