Today’s blog is entirely a matter of assuaging edu-geek curiosity. My pal Mike Petrilli and I got into a conversation the other week that only someone trapped in edu-land could love: we started wondering which of the Education Week subject matter blogs drew the most interest. If you don’t care, that’s completely understandable. Skip on!
Now then. In our little world, it’s well known that Alyson Klein and Michele McNeil’s “Politics K-12” blog is heavily read. But how about after that? How much interest is there in school districts relative to special education, school sports, or school law?
Anyway, with the assistance of my uber-competent and indefatigable R.A. Daniel Lautzenheiser, I thought it’d be interesting to take a look. So, for the first four months of 2011, we tallied the average monthly page visits to each of the Ed Week subject matter blogs.
Here are the results (note: We couldn’t do “Rural Education” due to a web glitch):
The most popular subjects, by far, are politics and curriculum, each average more than 30,000 page visitors a month so far this year.
Those were followed, at a discreet distance, by the blogs that tackle teachers, research, and special education. These all averaged 15,000 to a little over 20,000 visitors a month.
Averaging 8,000 to 15,000 monthly visitors were the blogs addressing the states, school law, digital education, college, and language learning.
And, finally, drawing less than 8,000 visitors a month, were the blogs tackling district affairs, sports, early childhood, and “Beyond Schools.”
It is noteworthy that four of the top five blogs address questions of direct relevance to classroom teachers, while less than half of the others do. Topics that I might think would be big draws for parents and non-educators, like “School Sports,” “Early Years,” or “College Bound,” don’t generate as many visitors as I might’ve expected. (Which is probably why it’s best for all concerned that I’m not in publishing.)
Not sure what else to make of the results, or whether there’s any seismic meaning, but what the hell. Would be curious to hear what you make of it all.
-Frederick Hess
