In contrast to my enthusiasm-Boston/Demver for increased press coverage on education, a recent report by the Brookings Institute bemoans the dearth of media attention to education.
In my defense, the coverage increased 100% since last year but it stands at a paltry 1.4%, up obviously from .7% a year ago.

I do think the average peruser of the news is seeing the increase in education reform articles, and it feels like it’s more than in the past. The No Child Left Behind act garnered a lot of press but Arne Duncan’s personality and the Obama administration's commitment to improving public education seem to have attracted better press.
As the report points out, newspapers are in free fall, so keeping a full time education specialist is limited to very few and as a result the articles that do appear come from a reporter whose focus is something other than education.
The report does not address the quality of the reporting but does point out that the lowest coverage is for two year community colleges which enroll 6 milion studernts while college and universities have 7 times as much coverage with only 12 million students.

I did like the one of the report’s suggestions as to how to increase coverage:

Media publishers and editors should find ways to integrate quality education blogs and forms of citizen journalism into press outlets. Newspapers could develop their own blogs and community talkbacks, and also provide links to education blogs that already exist in the community. This could help fill the policy void left by staff cutbacks on education beats.

I’m available.