A Double-Dog Pox on All of Them!!!

(except maybe Doug - he's in the picture the paper printed to advertise their sensationalism, but he never got much "credit" in the by-lines for the hatchet job)



Hey Folks -

I mentioned a while back that I'd "let it out" in my correspondence with the slo-mo's at the Dispatch, the local newspaper. Time after time the reporters and the editors presented the same meaningless, misleading statistics in support of their attack on public schools and teachers' unions. This, in the face of numerous requests by me to clean up their numbers.

Time after time the same bolgna was sliced and again, identically placed upon the plate. UNTIL ... their switch, near the end, from pedophilia to "physical abuse," whereupon new pedophile statistics were used to support the "physical abuse" angle.

The clods at the paper showed no trepidation over reversing themselves from implying - over 15 or so consecutive articles - that only a third of pedophiles had lost their teaching licenses and then claiming that physical abusers got off easy because 80% of pedophiles lost their licenses.

That's all Popeye could stanz!! I wrote the letter below.

- Uke Man


Hey Jill & Jen (and your "bosses" in the private sector),

All this time while you were sweating over the outrageous number of un-defrocked teacher pedophiles, your favorite line has been that since 2000 there were 1,700 teachers investigated, but only a third lost their licenses. Golly ! Two thirds of the pedophiles must have gotten off.

Now that you are sweating to establish “physical abuse” as an additional horror that the system has “failed to address,” the statistics (about which I have written you several times for clarification) are suddenly broken down to the actual percentages of sexual abuse cases in which licenses actually were revoked: 80% - not 33% (of course you still haven't disclosed the actual number of sex-related matters within that number of 1,700 disciplined teachers).

Hmmmm . . . it makes one wonder.

Curiously, you seem to have made the sudden statistical revelation to bolster the argument that teachers guilty of “physical abuse” should be treated as severely as are pedophiles (whom you earlier implied were getting off lightly). It's certainly understandable that if one is taking that position, 80% of pedophiles being punished is obviously much more forceful that 33%.

Well, I'm sure you've heard what Twain had to say about this sort of thing: “There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.” I guess you have arrived.

I'm sorry, but you two are worse than hacks. More than simply bending to your masters' political will, you seem to have fully incorporated their upper-class, aristocratic attitudes into your own ideology. Even so, you don’t have the slightest clue as to what you are about.

Racist, classist structures enforced by our society and supported by the Dispatch editorial board have created terrible conditions for a large portion of society via economic segregation and exploitation. Instead of addressing these real, long-standing, and fundamental problems, you "opinion makers" flog scapegoats. "Invetigative reporting" pounds out sensational distractions helpful to maintaining the charade and avoiding reality.

I taught ten years in urban schools - four of those years at Linmoor Junior High School - and I know first-hand the effects of poverty and racism upon kids and parents crammed into ghettos on the basis of income and skin color.

Your sensational articles, far from addressing the overwhelming, systemic problem, will make matters even worse. You and the Dispatch brass live in a dream world of self-congratulatory denial. Together, you demand high standards; suggest that if only teachers taught right or weren’t so uncaring or so “corrupted” by unions, there’d be no problems; you pretend that if teachers from “good” schools took over “failing schools,” all would be well; that if “best practices” or “programmed texts” or phonics or ”new math” or some other fad were followed, all would be well; that “experts” like Yvette McGee Brown and Nadine Block, sitting in their ivory towers, have magical means, unknown to stupid teachers, to effect discipline; you assert that charter and private schools (the “magic” of “competition”) are the answer, that if only parents, legislators, Children’s Services, the state bureaucracy, conservative newspapers, experts, and businessmen can micromanage every aspect of education - without interference from teachers or their unions - all will be well.

You don’t have a clue.

Sometimes I think your bosses know exactly what they are doing; but maybe they are just stupid, too.

In any case, you all will get exactly the kinds of schools you deserve in Columbus. Most of you "well-intentioned" folks probably have not sent or will not send your kids to Columbus schools; so, maybe you don’t care. But, while your actions may hinder a handful of pedophiles who are not already in jail or already stripped of a teaching license, you have, nevertheless, done a terrible disservice to the entire institution of American public schools. You have marred the student-teacher relationship, reduced public trust and respect for a fundamental democratic asset, and made it even more difficult for anyone to truly address the overwhelming problems facing those who are impoverished and discriminated against in this land of ever-increasing inequality.

A pox on all of you!

And if that’s too Elizabethan for you, research our compassionate Vice President’s conservative comment to Sen. Patrick J. Leahy ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3699-2004Jun24.html ) and try it on for size.

Yours - Tom Harkez