By JOSEPH KELLARD
In addressing our alleged bias on educational issues, I must point to those parents who contact us with their concerns about the schools, but who back off when we ask them to go on record. Their silence robs our reporting of a broader perspective.
"Well, I have kids in the school district," one parent said after I offered to write an article quoting him about an educator he called incompetent. Why the hesitancy among these parents? Do they fear their criticism will somehow translate into the district's making it harder on their kids in school?
I recognize that parents may have legitimate reservations about making their criticism public. But if they believe a teacher, an administrator or the school board have perpetrated some injustice that directly affects their child, their taxes, or any value of theirs, then why not speak up publicly?
Remember, public schools exist thanks to your hard-earned tax dollars. Further, even if you disagree with the ideas they teach and methods they use, vote against their budgets or send your kids to private schools, you're still basically forced to finance them. Which makes public schools relatively more accountable to you for spending your money and educating your kids. Thus, it's imperative that you speak up if you believe they've done something wrong or are failing as educators.
True, speaking up doesn't guarantee that wrongs will be righted. But what's the alternative? Silence? When you believe educators, politicians or journalists are acting unjustly or incompetently, your silence serves as a moral sanction for them to continue operating as they do -- or worse. Write letters to editors and your elected officials, attend and speak up at public meetings, phone in to radio shows -- on whatever scale, let your voice be heard.
Lately, Oceansiders have raised their voices on such issues as incorporation and proposals by Nextel and Rieco Properties to do business in town. High school students contacted the Herald in an effort to save their badminton team after the district axed the sport. Several middle-school students and their parents publicly tried to save the job of their beloved teacher, Brian Murphy, who they believe was unjustly denied tenure.
I've written dozens of letters to newspapers, started a political newsletter and created my own Web site, where I post my written opinions. A young rebel in Iran read one of them, and thanked me for criticizing President Bush for not overthrowing the premier anti-American terrorist regime there. If this freedom-lover expressed publicly in Iran what I had written, he'd be censored, imprisoned or executed.
The Herald is far from Pravda, and far from the control of Oceanside's educational bureaucrats. As a private company, we exercise our right not to publish letters we deem inappropriate, which is not the equivalent of state censorship. The deeper problem here is that our nation upholds free speech, yet too many Americans fail to exercise it when they should -- or must.
