Today’s meditation:

The phrase “speaking truth to power” goes back to 1955, when the American Friends Service Committee published Speak Truth to Power, a pamphlet that proposed a new approach to the Cold War. Its title … has become almost a cliche; it has become common far beyond Quaker circles, often used by people who have no idea of its origins (taken from http://www2.gol.com/users/quakers/living_the_truth.htm).

Although “speaking truth to power” orginated with the Quakers, the phrase has become a credo of the modern press, the idea being that the journalist’s job is to peel away the propoganda and misinformation spoken by people in power and to deliver to readers something like an unvarnished version of the truth. When journalists get this right it works to balance the centers of power in a culture, because ordinary people need real information, not lies and distortions, in order to make decisions about things like voting and spending private and public money. It’s fair to say, and it has often been said, that without journalism, democracy would not function.

Now, on to today’s stories.

Teachers at Norfolk school told to cheat, whistle-blower penalized, report reveals

Seems like every Wednesday (the day I write this feature) the Pilot goes back to this story. This time, however, the piece has a bit of meat to it.

A report from the school board really shows that Cassandra Goodwyn, the principal of Lafayette-Winona Middle School in Norfolk more or less ran amok in her efforts to get her school accredited, changing test results, and punishing teachers who refused to go along with the decpetion. What’s interesting here is the role the Pilot is playing in bringing this story to light. Although public schools are often depicted as underdogs and victims in an environment that favors spending money on the military rather than education, the revelations about testing show that the picture is not always so clear. Here the school takes on the role of the bully and the cheater. The implication is that the school is failing its pupils by using underhanded methods to make itself appear better than it is. And all of that is true.

The flipside, of course, is that this whole episode reveals the tremendous pressure that schools are under to perform to certain prescribed levels. Cheating and bullying are not acceptable, but they are not surprising in a system that puts such emphasis on arbitrary standards. Goodwin could not tolerate her school’s failure and she decided to do something about it. How much easier it would be, she must have thought, to adjust the scores than to fix the underlying shortcomings of the educational systems or the endemic problems that keep students from learning and achieving. This is the danger of a system that puts such an emphasis on objective measurement–the measures begin to outweigh the measured. So, again, I applaud the Pilot for pushing its nose into this story, for speaking truth to Goodwin’s power, and unmasking her continuing efforts to cover her tracks. And I hope the result of these revelations will be more than simply her dismissal–it’s a case study in how testing pressure can drive administrators to make bad decisions.

Daily Press to cut most copy-editor, design jobs

The current newsroom staff of 84 is about to lose about 10% of those positions. In the future, copy-editing for national stories will be done by staff in the headquarters of the Tribune Company, in Chicago, which owns the Daily Press. Apologies to those who will be laid off, but this seems like a reasonable approach to me. I particularly like the comments of DP publisher Digby Solomon: “Newspapers have to focus on their truly differentiating expertise, which for most local papers is local content and watchdog journalism.” There’s that old truth to power thing again, in other words. As long as they can keep doing that, I’ll be happy.

Local panel puts it in writing: justify plan to move carrier

This story can best be summarized by imagining two 15-year-olds reporting, where the first guy is the Navy, and the second guy is the panel of Hampton Roads congressmen, elected state and city leaders, and retired military officers.

There is nothing in this story about truth to power. It’s just funny.

For PETA, building’s price really was right

PETA has just opened a new building in L.A., with money donated by Bob Barker. They’re not leaving Norfolk. They’re just getting bigger. I love PETA. They are so wonderfully weird in their methods, and I hope they eventually convince more people, including me, to become vegetarians. Because they are right, of course, about all of it.

Annual Author dinner to hear from ODU poet

All-access beach park is a go

Who doesn’t love parks? A group called The Virginia Gentlemen raised enough money to get a new one built in Virginia Beach between 1st and 2nd Streets. This one, called Grommit Island, is especially cool because it will be wheel-chair accessible. I love reading good news like this.

Fairness, jobs, threatened by stance on gays

Ken Cucinelli apparently really hates gays in government. As readers of these pages no doubt know, he and Bob McDonnell have not only refused to renew a customary executive order that bans discrimination against homosexuals in government jobs, but he has even gone so far as to issue an order to Virginia Universities urging (demanding?) that they rescind any such protection that they may have instituted. The Pilot has come out strongly against this policy, warning that it will make Virginia appear backward in the eyes of the nation and discourage national corporations, many of which offer non-discrimination to gay workers, from locating here. They also worry that Cucinelli’s policy amounts to a purge of gay academics from state universities. All of this could be true. So, I stand with the Pilot in suggesting that equal protection for gays and lesbians is a fundamental right that is owed to Virginians, and that to deny it is both cruel and bad for the state. There’s some truth to your power, Mr. Cucinelli.