There is an epidemic of tiny lies in this newspaper, and it’s time for it to stop.
Ruth Luse’s patronizing editorial (Jan. 3) willfully repeats the falsehood that the board cut the primary strings program because of budgetary concerns. The undisputed facts are these: (1) a fourth/fifth grade band teacher retired last spring, and the district chose to economize by not refilling that position (that is what intelligent folks call “a budgetary decision”); and (2) the district then reassigned four music teachers away from strings and told them to teach older kids band instead. That is what intelligent folks call “a programmatic decision.” Put another way, if the band program suffers because a retiree is not replaced, that would be “not enough money to pay for everyone’s wishes”—if a band teacher retires and strings teachers are moved so the attrition doesn’t affect the band program, that’s a curriculum change, about which reasonable adults could differ (if we could find reasonable adults on both sides of this issue).
Everyone involved knows this is how it happened—one of the ousted board members wrote me after last April’s election and acknowledged that the decision was not a fiscal one. Why does it matter that Ms. Luse (and board president Linda Mitchell, who hissed at me at a public meeting last spring with the same falsehood, and letter-writers like Kim Bruno) insist on calling this a budgetary decision, knowing as they must that this is untrue? First, this “explanation” makes strings supporters look extravagant (too blind to see that “tax dollars do not grow on trees”), rather than having an honest disagreement about priorities — sort of like doubting that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and being called “soft on terrorism.”
By hiding behind a non-existent money issue, the board and its chorus can smugly refuse to talk about what’s best for the students. Secondly, because lying sets a bad example for our children. There are many more important issues in our township and our country than music instruction, but no issue too small to be truthful about.
The hundreds (not “a few,” Ms. Luse) who protested the elimination of strings in person and by petition didn’t even presume to question the wisdom of “saving” $70,000 on a music teacher alongside the bizarre new expenditures on capital improvements, curricular oddities, and golden parachutes — all we wondered, at least until the cover-up was in full gear, was why the cut to the music program didn’t occur where the attrition occurred, but was accomplished by moving the music staff around like a game of Whack-a-Mole. Once again, I emphasize that as unwise as many of us think this decision was, the protests would have been over long ago, if the very folks who got their way wouldn’t keep bringing it up.
Journalists are not entitled to their own facts, but if I am the one whose facts are wrong, I would very much like to know so I can make amends. Otherwise, I hope we will see no more editorials or letters excusing bad judgment as fiscal necessity.
Adam M. Finkel
Hopewell Township
