Bloggers Creating Issues in Education

We read about blogs, bloggers and blog readers for class this week and we discussed the influence most blogs have on the political world. They inform citizens by linking to various news media websites and other blogs and they also have an advocacy function and some (mostly liberal apparently) urge their readers to take some sort of action, - write to their local politician, attend rallies, etc.

A NYT article entitled, "Bloggers Challenge President on Standardized Testing," suggests that a blogger's role extends beyond just informing and advocating already existing issues, but they can actually create issues that the government then needs to address. Education bloggers commented on Obama's speech last week and how he said that there are too many "high-stakes" standardized tests in his school. Meanwhile his Department of Education is producing additional standardized tests that will be administered several times per year as opposed to just once a year.

The bloggers seem to have cornered Obama into addressing an issue that the traditional media outlets didn't think was an issue. Obama and his administration answered the accusations by saying that the additional tests were for assessment and are meant to test how much the students are actually learning, and are not given for grades. This would take pressure off the students for the year-end standardized tests which are graded. It's just interesting how much muscle power bloggers have obtained. Do you know of any other issues that bloggers have created recently?