Appreciating Our Local Newspaper

We are fortunate in Northeast Ohio to have a daily paper like the Akron Beacon Journal.  Even though a friend recently responded with surprise when I told him my paper was not delivered today (‘you still get a daily paper,’ he asked??!!), I look forward to reading my ABJ every day.

There are many reasons.  One reason is the coverage of our struggles in Ohio to provide a quality education to our children worthy of this great state.  You can go to the ABJ page and search under Doug Livingston to read a body of work on education that is among the best journalism I have ever read and almost single-handedly makes up for the inexplicable retention of Bob Dyer on the staff of any newspaper.

Today we see another important piece from Livingston explaining that out-going speaker of the state house, William Batchelder, has taken a job as a lobbyist for a former major campaign contributor who runs the for-profit company soaking the state for hundreds of millions of tax-payer dollars to provide among the lowest performing schools in the state. 

The charter school is called Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT) and its management companies are Altair Learning Management and IQ Innovations.  William Lager, the founder of IQ Innovations, has contributed millions to Ohio candidates, mostly Republican, and more importantly including more than $40,000 to Bactchedler.

This type of revolving door is not new.  That makes it no less disturbing.  The former speaker will be lobbying to channel tax-payer dollars to the for-profit company running one of the worst schools in the state, presumably in the name of ‘parental choice,’ the rallying cry for vouchers and charters in the state.  What it even more disturbing, however, is the responses Batchelder gave to questions.  See the full text via the hot link above.  It sounds like his understanding of online education comes from a pamphlet written in 1950.

Earlier this week, the ABJ covered two stories (one as news and one in an editorial) that we should think about together.  In the news story, the ABJ reported on a meeting between our local police department and citizens concerned about police racial profiling.  Here is how that article started…

‘What is the Akron Police Department doing to dismantle the systemic racism in the department?

That question, posed by an audience member Monday night at a town hall meeting on police and community relations, didn’t garner a warm response from Akron Police Chief James Nice.

“I do not accept that there is racism in the Akron Police Department,” Nice said. “I take that as an insult.”’

In the editorial section of the paper, an EJ Dionne commentary provided this description of a recent speech by the Director of the FBI.

‘“All of us in law enforcement must be honest enough to acknowledge that much of our history is not pretty,” Comey said. “At many points in American history, law enforcement enforced the status quo, a status quo that was often brutally unfair to disfavored groups.”

He explained why he keeps on his desk a copy of Attorney General Robert Kennedy’s approval of Hoover’s request to wiretap Dr. King: “The entire application is five sentences long, it is without fact or substance, and is predicated on the naked assertion that there is ‘Communist influence in the racial situation.’ ” He calls agents’ attention to the document, he said, “to ensure that we remember our mistakes and that we learn from them.”

And who would think an FBI director would cite Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist, a song from the Broadway hit Avenue Q? His point: “Many people in our white-majority culture have unconscious racial biases and react differently to a white face than a black face.”’

Let’s assume no one in either story changes their perspective on this conflict, but the only change is the way the chief chose to frame his response.  If he chose to frame it in a way that is consistent with everything we know about racism and profiling, as the director did…what impact might that have had on the tenor of the conversation and the outcome of that meeting?