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Room 104:
The Overcrowding Crisis

VOLUME 18, NUMBER 5                  FEBRUARY 2, 1998

Here is how a reporter and photographer turned what might have been a routine education story into award-winning television.

"We were reporting on it every day in the newscast, and we decided to take the extra step and see if we could gain access to a single classroom to follow that class through the course of the school year," says News Director Bart Feder. "We wanted to determine what the real impact of overcrowding was on the teacher, the children and their families," he explains.

"You saw that overcrowding has a serious impact. We had shots of kids sitting in the hallway to do their work, because being in the classroom is just too noisy!"
		Bart Feder News Director, WABC-TV

In awarding the Silver Baton, the duPont-Columbia judges wrote:

"By observing the teacher's struggle to keep the children focused, the students' efforts to learn, and the parents aspiring to do the best they could, this program brought a current urban issue home to the public in stunning personal terms."

The news managers knew that it wasn't a topic that was going to draw huge numbers.
"We didn't do it for ratings. Education documentaries on commercial television stations don't normally draw a huge audience. We did it because we thought it was important to do," says Feder.

The videotape made the crisis clear.
"What was demonstrated in the piece is that you see these children can't be learning as well as you would want them to," he says.

For example, the teacher had to work using a buddy system where youngsters who were doing better would tutor youngsters who weren't doing as well.
"The time a teacher can spend with an individual student was almost nil. A tremendous amount of time had to be spent on just keeping the class quiet and controlled. It brought a lot of the onus to bear on the parents," he says.

"If parents were involved and participating, that's great. But in many households that is not the case. It really doesn't work if the parents are not supervising homework and getting involved," he says.

Feder believes people who cared about the issue watched the program, and it had an impact on decision-making in the city. "It was definitely worthwhile," he adds.

Photographer/editor Robert Caccamise went back every few weeks to shoot tape. Reporter Ford would return periodically for interviews and chart the progress of the year.

"We did that over the course of the school year, finishing up in June. It ran as a half-hour documentary at the end of the school year," Feder says.
"It requires a tremendous amount of commitment, as any long form piece for television requires. It worked because Celeste and Bob were committed to it. They made it happen. We gave them some time to work on it, but they didn't take more time than they needed," he adds.

Ford took some time off the street to write and edit the piece. But the rest of the time (when she wasn't out on maternity leave) she worked the regular beat.

"They didn't excuse themselves from the newsroom for a year to do it," he says. "They did it as extracurricular activity for the most part. We are very proud that they won the duPont. It was a great piece of work," says Feder.

Education was an area that was under-served.
"For me, it was a perfect beat. I wanted to do something that was socially redeeming, and I wanted to have a competitive edge with contacts no one else had," she says.
"Over time, I was able to develop contacts and access that were helpful in us getting into the school. The timing turned out to be perfect," she says.

While Ford was busy covering the day-to-day stories at the start of the school year, newsroom managers suggested a documentary that might finally put a face on the overcrowding problem.

She says we have this abstract notion that overcrowding is not good. But really, we have very little information on why it is not good.
"There aren't definitive reports on it. It is very difficult to measure the impact. So, we took on a very ambitious project: we would pick a classroom, stay with it and see what happened," she says.

Ford says the request to profile a classroom was submitted during the period of the avalanche of coverage at the start of the school year. They received permission from the Board of Education and moved ahead with the project. "We did our best to be unobtrusive and flexible in scheduling," she says.

The school administrators picked the teacher.
"They wanted someone who could withstand the scrutiny," she explains.

"We picked the families, based on the parents' level of interest in their child's development," she says. She went to a Meet the Teacher night. The parents who seemed most engaged became candidates to profile. The goal was to make it representational of the school and the diverse nature of the classroom, as well as of interest to the larger audience in New York City. WABC used the three children to show how the overcrowding is affecting many children.
"We interviewed them every so often, and we tried to see how they evolved in the classroom dynamics," Ford says.

"The white middle class son of a sanitation worker was perhaps the most interesting. His parents were very upset, because it wasn't the New York City public schools they went to," she says. "They were the quintessential white middle class flight candidates," she says.
The child had headaches at the beginning of the school year, and was not doing well in class.
"We showed how his parents compensated with tutors and a lot of parental involvement. In fact, two of the three families resorted to outside tutors. That was one of the coping techniques," she says.

Another coping technique was the buddy system, with the faster learners helping the slower learners. "The teacher made no apologies for that, in fact, in overcrowded situations it is quite a widespread practice," she adds.

The school officials saw nothing wrong with it. "So much of what astounded us is so deeply ingrained in their school culture and their way of doing things that they felt no need to apologize or excuse their techniques," she says.

"This wasn't about 'Celeste Ford goes to a classroom.' This was about the classroom. "We gained extraordinary, unlimited access to PS 114. This allowed us a rare opportunity to develop a story beyond statistics and news releases."
		Celeste Ford WABC-TV, New York

Here are some of the unique angles they captured on camera and used to illustrate the impact of overcrowding:

1. They captured the classroom outbursts on the part of the teacher and her students.
2. They went to private parent-teacher conferences.
3. They went home with a latchkey child. Many of the problems in the classrooms today stem from the fact both parents work.
4. They watched a father tutoring his daughter.
5. They went on the field trip that was reduced to a stop at a pumpkin stand, because they couldn't get any parent volunteers.
6. They spent a day at the class photo session, which gave them a chance to talk about overcrowding in a visual way by illustrating how long it takes to do class photos with 44 youngsters.

"It was video-driven. We tried to find visual events that would allow us to discuss the issues we needed to cover," she says.
"Some of the pictures spoke very loudly for themselves. When you see kids in a hallway tutoring one and another, you realize there is a problem," she says. "When you realize kids take gym in the cafeteria, because the gymnasium has been converted into classroom space, the pictures speak for themselves," she says.

She says the biggest problem with stories about overcrowding and many other education issues is that people speak in abstractions.
"We ferreted out examples of overcrowding that you could point to and touch, then worked our story around what we had," she explains.
"One of the hardest things was to measure the impact," she admits.

Ford found a teacher at the school who was also a student there the last time it was overcrowded. She also interviewed a woman who went to school there, as did her own parents and her children. She is a counselor there and discussed all the family problems the kids have and how the school substitutes as a family for many children.

Ford was flattered to win the DuPont, but even more heartened to have helped bring about change.
"This is a situation where you really can make a difference. I am thrilled to think that our coverage contributed to a wider understanding of this and action," she says.

"They really are dealing with this in ways they have never dealt with it," she says. Following the documentary, a lot of money was spent on "portables," annexes, new schools and leasing more space.
"They became innovative, because they had to be. They were under such scrutiny here that the media really fulfilled their duty," she says. The school that was profiled received portables, money for renovations and an annex that will be built this summer.

For other reporters wanting to develop an effective education beat or who want to look specifically at overcrowding, Ford says it is a story that is relationship-driven.
"Because most educators want to do good, they respond when there is sincere interest in their problems," she says.

"Many reporters think education is very boring, until they meet the people, they get access to the classrooms and they can get a hold of the flesh and blood that is these stories," she says.

Showing exteriors of schools, reports or statistics is boring, she says.
"You have to get into the schools, and realize that just a few key relationships can pay off big time," she adds. She believes this kind of reporting is something any reporter can do "with an ounce of sincerity and a pound of persistence."

Ford says the relationship with sources is what she describes as "the difficult tango."
"They know they need you to tell their stories. But they know you are looking for a story they may not like. My motto is: 'You may not like what I have to say. I can only tell you that I'll be fair.' That has carried me a long way," she says.

The 1988 Winners: How They Did It
Here are details of three winners:
--- Florida: State of Neglect.  Severe mistreatment of abused children, the mentally challenged, and the elderly was revealed by WPLG - TV, Miami.
--- Jacksonville's Roads: The Deadly Drive Home.  Highway hazards and construction design  help kill many motorists.  This was documented by WJXT - TV, Jacksonville.
--- Sauget: City of Shame.  A tiny town was being operated by politicians as a haven for virtually unsupervised alcohol sales and consumption.  The story was broken by KMOV - TV, St. Louis.

Broadcast Journalism:
Creating A Culture For Award Winners
Three of the duPont - Columbia awards for 2000 went to stations that devoted time and resources to major investigations.
We spoke with the news directors who helped to create newsrooms where investigative reporting was encouraged and valued.

Check the duPont-Columbia Web site for full background.
Here are th entry rules, past winners, and the full explanation of the awards. 
See also: Winners awarded in 2000.