ABSTRACT
As education stories go, the school voucher debate features all the expected complications, excess emotionalism, and partisanship of such other long-running, unresolved feuds as bilingual education or phonics-versus-whole language. In common with many educational policy issues, the press is the main gatekeeper of information as well as a shaper of the public's perceptions of the wisdom, popularity, and practicality of differing reform strategies. The two major national political parties have staked out largely opposite positions on educational vouchers. The Republican Party has made vouchers a centerpiece of its education platform; Democrats, only a few exceptions, have limited their support of school choice to public schools and the charter school movement. The chapter reviews the media's performance in covering the voucher story, two priorities were clear. First, most reporters need, and would welcome, a better grasp of the intricacies of education research. Second, they need ready access to a corps of reliable, fair-minded experts to help put voucher developments in perspective.
