Yesterday’s (9/15/09) Raleigh News & Observer printed a letter to the editor from Wake Commissioner Paul Coble, titled “Parents’ real concerns about Wake schools.” In it Coble objects to the N&O’s past and ongoing characterization of parents who are opposed to reassignment, including their supposed motivation for resistance.
While it is typical and necessary to edit letters to the editor for length, the process demands care in order to accurately preserve the thrust of the writer’s remarks. In shortening Coble’s comments on Wake school reassignments, and the concerns that drive parent protests, the N&O has wound up editing meaning/content as well as length.
Here is (part of) Commissioner Coble’s letter to the N&O. The italicized portions are taken from the original submission, and did not appear in print:
“True to your liberal nature, you take the opportunity to attempt to frighten voters away from change by raising the specter of racism as the only possible explanation of concerns over the current diversity policy. You defend the system of social engineering and the status quo by suggesting that everything is running well. Let me suggest that the current frustration with the school board is born not out of a desire to end balance within the school population, but rather a desire to be heard over concerns that face every family and voter, regardless of their economic or geographic standing.”
and a little further on?
“Parents that I talk to complain that there is little predictability in school assignments, and that once a student settles into a new school, there is no assurance that they will stay at that school for any period longer than the current school year. Families are separated by time and space as assignment plans change according to a formula that no one understands.”
Clearly, the missing material calls upon the N&O’s editorial board to take responsibility for imputing either racial motives, or relatively superficial motives of convenience, to parent opponents of reassignment. Coble’s letter as printed seems to suggest that predictability for the parent, rather than stability for the child, is parents’ primary concern. The shift in focus is subtle, perhaps, but real.
Could the N&O have been more diligent, better preserving accuracy in the sometimes quite heated debate over school reassignment? Hopefully so.
As published, the Commissioner’s letter allows the N&O to appear more even-handed in its treatment of reassignment critics than it currently deserves credit for.
corrected
additional note–the following comment from the N&O editorial staff appears at the end of the online version of this letter: The length limit was waived to permit a fuller response to the editorial.
