Be vocal, vigilant

[Catshrink]

Most states are facing severe cuts in funding. I've been listening to the language used to describe the crisis and writing every time I hear the effects trivialized, mocked, or downplayed.

Last week, a reporter interviewed one of our state's school district superintendents and asked her if she'd be willing to take a pay cut to help offset the crisis. To her credit, the Supt. responded "those kind of questions are not helpful." Zing! I wrote the station saying this kind of question trivialized the issue and that even if all the state's school district superintendents worked for $0, it would have a negligible effect on the financial shortfall. The station's news director responded to my email saying they had let us down by their reporting and were disappointed in their own coverage. :woohoo:

This morning the newsreader on our local npr station, during the local news segment, called the budget cuts our legislature just proposed, amounting to 12% this year, as "belt tightening." I immediately wrote saying again that this trivialized the cuts and demonstrated no knowledge of what that would mean to the kids in the classroom. On the rebroadcast, "belt tightening" was changed to "severe budget cuts." :woohoo:

Language is important! Please be vigilant and when you hear your situation trivialized and dismissed, let them know. I'm amazed at the result this morning. The turn around time on this was about an hour. (Maybe it was something else that caused the change in wording and not just my email. Or maybe more people than me wrote. But dang. Something happened between 8am and 9:30 that caused the wording to change.)

Do it.

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. Good for you

Vocabulary is so important in these discussion. And really, as teachers this should be an easy debate for us. :)