Education Through Official Publicity

The extra-curricular influence of schools is far wider than their extra-curricular activities. The influence of every strong teacher upon his pupil when teacher and child are separated is more important than the influence of direct contact with the child. It is the same with the school's official publicity. Its indirect effects are of wider range and deeper import than its direct effect. School publicity affects for good or ill all other official publicity. If it is lifeless, insincere, boastful, unconvincing, slovenly edited, it is a low-water mark with which every other city department will tend to find level. If, on the other hand, it is alive, informative, direct, frank-educative-other departments will tend to compete in these respects. A school superintendent told me recently that his report had been so different from the reports of other town officers that it was necessary for other official reporters to notice the difference. He had used blocked headings in effective black face type, interesting diagrams and photographs, the short paragraph method of listing achievements and recommendations, and the square facing of taxpayer doubt with school fact. Other reporters could not laugh him out of town meeting if they would. They decided to imitate instead

Business · Listing (finance · Newspaper · Notice · Paragraph · Political science · Publicity · Sociology · Taxpayer · Law · School Choice and Performance

• Glimpsing an Alternate Construction of American Public Administration

  Open Access•Mordecai Lee•Administration & Society•2013

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