by Randy Alcorn
Jake winced when he saw the big old-style clock, white faced with black numbers and rim, just like the ones he remembered from grade school. 10:48. He had less than an hour. Utter lack of focus and direction told Jake he wouldn’t come up with a column. Experience told him he would. The Pulitzer was not an issue here. Play the hand you’re dealt. It was time to ante up, even if it meant bluffing. He knew how to write with a poker face.
Jake took one last look around the room, hoping for a vision. There was Martin over in his cubicle, turning around and glancing furtively across the room. Ah, good news. His chief competitor was also hung up. Martin’s columns came out on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, so he and Jake shared Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays as their creation days. Susan Farley also shared the same days, but she focused on politics, and Jake felt no real competition with her. Martin was a general columnist, like Jake, and every subject was fair game for both. Seeing Martins’s struggle vitalized Jake as a runner seeing signs of weakness in his challenger.
Jake jumped on the phone. While it rang he rehearsed his interview strategy, dormant for the last week. His technique, only partly conscious, was to challenge those he was sympathetic toward and to sound as sympathetic as possible to those he disagreed with. This gave him a feeling of objectivity, but more importantly, it drew out the best, most straightforward, and quotable responses.
“Jake Woods here. Can I have Barbara Betcher please?” Betcher was head of Oregon’s chapter of the National Education Association. Since this was his local column, he’d decided to deal with some current education issues, including the teachers strike now in its second week, and the school voucher controversy.
“Hi, Barbara, Jake Woods. Fine. Listen, I’m short on time. So let me prime the pump. You know how sympathetic I am to education. I’m the first to say teachers are more important than professional athletes and all that, but I admit I’ll pay a lot more to watch the 49ers play the Redskins then I will to go hear a junior high math teacher lecture on ‘Exciting new ways to teach algebra.’” Barbara wasn’t laughing, he noted. “The market is the market, and teachers are underpaid. But doesn’t it just come with the territory? You get the perk of shorter days and a few months off, good benefits, you get the downside of being paid less than a plumber—doesn’t it sort of even out?” Jake knew he’d fanned the flames.
“It’s precisely that cavalier attitude that’s hurting our children and our future.” Boy, Barbara was grouchy today.
“Barbara, I think I know what you’re thinking, but you have to say it. Exactly what was cavalier about what I said, and how does it hurt children?”
“People are willing to pay athletes and mechanics and plumbers more than they want to pay those entrusted with the care of their children. Which tells us their children are less important than their cars and pipes.”
Jake typed, “mechanics and plumbers paid more, because value cars and pipes more.”
“I hear you, Barbara. But what do you tell the taxpayer who says, look, I’m all for education, but I’m not happy with what my kid’s getting now, or I haven’t had kids in school for years and my property taxes have tripled since I moved here twenty years ago, and a huge amount of the money has gone to the schools, while the quality of education has only gotten worse.”
“That’s very selfish. And I challenge them to prove the schools aren’t as good now as they used to be. That’s unfair. They always point to declining test scores, but our state consistently scores in the top half nationally.”
“But the scores are still bad, aren’t they? I mean, Barbara, it’s great to be in the top half, but if I can play the devil’s advocate, just because other public schools are doing a worse job doesn’t mean you’re doing a good one, does it?”
“How can you blame us? Many of these children are being ignored and abused in their own homes. You think that doesn’t affect their academic performance? And I resent your characterization of our schools as not doing a good job. Given our limited funding, we’re doing a remarkable job.”
“So the problem is lack of funds.”
“Yes, of course it is. A good education requires good teachers and programs. Good teachers and programs require good funding. Also, funds represent community support. What message does it send our children when we vote down tax levies? And as for this voucher nonsense, if that legislation ever passed, how’d you like your tax money to go to schools for skinheads and Satan worshippers? I suppose you’ve been talking to the CARE group?”
“Not yet, but I intend to.” Jake glanced at his watch. Sure hope somebody’s available! He’d committed himself to this column now, for better or worse—there was no turning back.
“Okay, Barbara, I may call you back within the next thirty minutes. Could you stay near your phone?”
“Sure. Please do call back. And listen, I’ve got two pages of comparative pay scales and some excellent stuff exposing this tuition voucher thing for the scam it is. Also, a fact sheet on the CARE group that shows their hidden agenda is bootlegging religion into the classroom. I think you’d find it helpful. Can I fax it over?”
“Sure, as long as it comes quick. Still got the fax number?”
“Right here. I’ll have it to you in five minutes.”
Jake pressed the dial tone button and looked up the CARE group’s number in a master list of city organizations compiled by the Tribune. He’d never called CARE. He’d seen Carl Mahoney quoted several times, and he knew before calling he didn’t like the man.
“Citizens Advocating Responsible Education. How can I help you?” It was a woman’s voice.
“Yeah, Jake Woods from the Tribune. Need to talk to Carl Mahoney.”
“Hi. I’m Linda, Carl’s wife. He’s mowing the lawn right now.”
“This isn’t the CARE office?”
She laughed. “Yes, this is the CARE office, which happens to be in our laundry room. I’m doing the wash, so I’m near the phone or you would have gotten the answering machine. We’re a grassroots movement, no fancy offices. Nobody gives us tax money to spend however we want.”
Her voice sounded cheerful enough, but Jake rolled his eyes at the dig. He heard a loud noise.
“Hang on just a second. The washer’s in spin cycle and it’s clunking again.”
“If you could just get Carl…”
Jake was too late. Rather than tapping his foot or reading one of a hundred miscellaneous papers on his desk, Jake resorted to his habit of typing random impressions on the screen, to be overwritten when he tapped the insert key and went into typeover mode. He typed, “Jake Woods’s column will not appear today due to spin cycle problem.”
“Sorry, Mr. Woods. I’m back. This old washer—”
“Listen, no offense, but I’ve got forty minutes to do this column, and I need to talk to your husband.”
“Sure, Mr. Woods. I’ll get him.”
Jake’s fingers busily typed, “Readers will be glad to know Carl Mahoney’s wife went to pry him from his lawn mower exactly thirty-eight minutes before column deadline.”
“Carl Mahoney here. What can I do for you, Mr. Woods?”
“Got just a few minutes to finish up a column on the teacher’s strike and tax funding of schools. I’ve talked to the president of the teacher’s union. I need another viewpoint.”
“Well, thanks, it’s nice to be called. I often read the other perspective, and it’s good to have an opportunity to give ours.”
He expects to be called on for an expert opinion when his office is in a laundry room and he’s out mowing the lawn?
“Listen, can you just briefly tell me your position, what you stand for?”
“I’m pro-child and pro-education, though I’ve been labeled the opposite. I have no gripes with the teachers, not most of them anyway.”
“Well, that’s interesting, because everybody seems to think you do.”
“Maybe that’s because they don’t read our materials or listen to what we’re saying. My wife was a public sc
hool teacher for ten years, and she still subs once in a while. One of our concerns is that most of our tax money never ends up in the classroom. We’re paying huge salaries and retirement programs for lots of administrators. Some of them do a good job, but when funds are limited we should be cutting some of the nonessential positions, not hamstringing our teachers.”
“But I’ve heard you think our teachers are doing a poor job.”
“Well, some of them are. Others are doing a great job. There just aren’t any standards to assure quality. The NEA blocks every move to measure teachers’ performance so the good ones can be rewarded and the bad ones can be helped to improve or weeded out. There’s no occupation where job performance means less than among unionized school teachers. If public education was self-supporting or if it was on a level playing field with private schools, I wouldn’t be concerned about it. Bad schools would improve or disappear, just like bad businesses do. Incompetent teachers would be fired just like in real life. But there’s no incentive to improve, and the public always gets the blame—we’re not providing enough money. But the truth is, there’s some fundamental problems money doesn’t help. It’s like trying to put out a fire with gasoline. A lot of the taxpayers’ money is being wasted.”
Jake jotted down, “teachers incompetent, schools waste of taxpayers’ money. Putting out fire with gas.”
“Okay, what else?” This guy’s gripes would fill up the whole forum section.
“What’s the focus of your column?” Mahoney sounded nervous.
Jake rolled his eyes. “It’s what I told you. I want to be fair, so I’m interviewing both sides.”
“Okay, I needed to ask, because even though I’ve only been called by the Tribune twice before, I was misquoted both times.”
Jake shook his head in disgust. These bozos always think they’re being misquoted. They just don’t know how bad they sound till they see it in black and white.
“Look, Mr. Mahoney, I’m not going to misquote you, and I’m running out of time. Can you just tell me a few more of your complaints?”
“I don’t think of them as complaints, but we do have concerns. For one, test scores are way down. Studies show nearly half the people graduating from high school are functionally illiterate. But instead of teaching children to read, schools are pouring their energies into self-esteem and sex education and diversity training.
“Then there’s sex education, where sex is divorced from morals and values. Kids are getting birth control from the schools, which isn’t working, no matter what your moral perspective. Many of our schools will drive kids to get abortions when their parents know nothing about it.”
Jake had jotted down a few key sentences, but now his fingers rested on the keyboard. These guys always have to get abortion in somewhere.
“Am I going too fast, Mr. Woods, or are you getting this?”
“You’re doing fine. Keep going.”
“Are you taping this?”
“Taping it? No, I’m just taking notes.” Jake looked at his screen. He’d typed six partial sentences and a few phrases he’d fill in later, if he needed them.
“I’m just wondering how you could possibly write fast enough to get down what I’m saying.”
“I’m not going to use all of it. That’s not how it works.” This guy thinks I should get every pearl of wisdom dripping from his mouth!
“I know you’re not going to use it all. I’m just wondering how you’re going to accurately reflect what I’ve said.”
“Look, Mr. Mahoney, I’m taking notes with you the same way I take notes with Barbara Betcher from the NEA and everyone else. You don’t get special treatment, okay? There’s no plot to misrepresent you, if that’s what you’re thinking.” These people and their media conspiracies—what a bunch of loonies! “I’ve got a column that has to be done in thirty-two minutes, and I certainly can’t record you and have it transcribed.”
“I understand. I’m just wanting it to be accurate. I hope when you look at your notes you’ll remember what I said, in context. And the way I said it. I’m not asking you to agree with me—I’m just asking for fairness and accuracy.”
Jake’s face flushed red. “I’ve been a journalist over twenty years. I have a reputation for fairness and accuracy. If you don’t want to continue the interview, fine, I’ll just go with what I’ve got. But don’t complain when most of the quotes are from the other side, if your side won’t talk.”
“I’m glad to continue the interview. I just want to be quoted accurately.”
“You will be. Now, please, time’s running out. Do you have anything more to say?”
Jake heard a sigh on the other end, and it irritated him.
“It’s important for your readers to understand that if the public schools were a private enterprise and people were choosing them, that would be different. I mean, I might not like the car you buy or the mechanic you hire, but that’s your choice, and its none of my business. But if you choose a car and hire a mechanic and it’s my money that pays for it, then I’ve got a right to give some input, right? If taxpayers think certain programs are faulty and destructive, and it’s their money that’s paying for them, they’re entitled to say something about it. The public schools don’t just belong to administrators, teachers, and the NEA. They belong to the public, and especially to parents.”
“Are you saying public schools are destructive?” As Jake asked the question he typed in “programs faulty and destructive.”
“Not generally. They’re doing fine in a lot of areas. But in those I’ve mentioned, yes, sometimes they are destructive. I don’t doubt the teachers are sincere, but value-free education is by nature destructive. No wonder kids have no regard for life, no wonder all the gang violence, when they’re taught it’s okay to throw someone off the life raft for the good of the others, or to kill innocent unborn children.”
Here we go again.
“Schools certainly aren’t the only ones to blame—we all are—but they have to take their fair share of blame too. I mean, if you can’t talk about real values and standards higher than whatever kids happen to feel like at the moment, what’s the point of ringing the opening bell? Don’t we want the next generation to rise above us in their integrity and morality, rather than fall further down? Of course, I realize the first responsibility is with parents. We take that responsibility very seriously in our home, and I encourage all parents to do the same. That would sure make it a lot easier on our teachers. They’ve got a tough job.”
Someone walked by and handed Jake the fax from Barbara Betcher. Jake nodded a quick thanks. The fax was filled with good stuff. Concise and quotable. Jake underlined a few things as Mahoney continued.
“Everybody knows the quality of any industry improves because of competition. But the NEA doesn’t want competition. They want a monopoly. They think they have the right to teach our children whatever and however they want to, using them as guinea pigs for every liberal social experiment they can come up with. School vouchers would put them on a level playing field. By opposing vouchers to allow school choice, they’re admitting they can’t compete when put head to head with private schools.”
“So you’d like to see public schools shut down?”
“No, of course not. All the good schools, public and private, would thrive. The only schools that would close are those that are so bad no parents would send their children there if they could afford any alternative. Should schools like that remain open? Why? We’d all be better if they were closed, wouldn’t we? Meanwhile, all the other schools would get better. You have to offer a better product if people are going to buy it.”
“Well, that’s easy to say if you’re in the middle or upper class. What about the poor and minorities? They’d be hurt most by school vouchers.” Jake paraphrased the question from the NEA fax in front of him.
“Mr. Woods, are you serious? Haven’t you read the polls? Poor and minority people favor the school voucher system in far greater numbers than the w
hite middle and upper class, precisely because they’re the ones who lack choice and are saddled with the worst public schools. They want their children to be able to go to schools like higher income people send theirs to, where they’ll actually learn to read and write, and won’t have to walk through drug deals between classes. I’d be glad to give you the names and telephone numbers of dozens of minority people who’ve gotten involved with our voucher efforts. They’d give you some great interviews.”
“That’s not necessary, Mr. Mahoney. This is just a column, not a feature article. By the way, you have kids, right? Where do they go to school?”
“They go to Good Shepherd School. Up until last year our oldest daughter went to Evergreen High, the public school down the street. Unfortunately, she was told she couldn’t get a certificate of mastery unless she was able to demonstrate certain attitudes toward diversity that violated her convictions. So we put her back in a private school.”
Jake felt the rush of adrenaline that comes with pivotal information. He typed, “Pulled kids from public school for religious reasons. Couldn’t agree with diversity. Sends kids to church school. Evergreen nearby.”
Mahoney sounded nervous again. “I hope you’ll include in your column that 22 percent of NEA teachers, more than twice the national average, send their children to private schools. In Milwaukee, the figure is 50 percent. Obviously, they believe in having the choice to send their children to better schools. I applaud them for this. But why should the poor and minorities have to choose between paying tuition or paying the rent, and be forced to send their children where many public school teachers wouldn’t dream of sending their own children? These people have the same hopes and desires for their kids as we do. Why should we force them to go to schools that aren’t educating their children?”