Katie Ford is the new editor of Texas School Business.
I'm looking forward to seeing what she can do. Katie was my section editor at the Austin Business Journal in part of my past. She's been TSB's managing editor since 2005.
I'm not into the fairy tale-sugar gumdrop-dollop of sweetness sort of press Texas School Business has become and probably has been for the last 54 years. I mean, this is a publication managed by the best "happy news" types of the TSPRA.
Then again, I do like to try out the questions on Cy-Fair's "Are you smarter than a Cy-Fair third grader?" So far, I've done pretty well on the questions.
Actually, Cy-Fair is a pretty good example of what I mean about ISD PR. CFISD has won all sorts of awards at TSPRA; yet the only news on the press release page is event news. David Anthony is one of the most insightful superintendents I know, but you wouldn't know from this press release list any of the issues that the Cy-Fair school district faces.
Despite the great strides that technology has made in terms of pushing information out to parents -- podcasts, broadcasts and e-mail updates -- school district PR is still a passive reactive animal. I'm a bit biased, but I tend to think you have to give the media something to work with, whether it's video or HISD efforts to use PR to address issues.
It's as if school district PR departments don't trust parents to understand education.
Okay, I'll get back to the subject. So, given how school PR is expected to work, it's no wonder that Texas School Business has failed to find its voice, either as a general education publication or one specifically targeted to business and finance.
We'll see. Katie says the magazine's transformation should be complete by this fall.
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