Fraters Libertas

The Nut Which Dare Not Speak Its Name

Nick Coleman has been railing lately about the sorry state of a certain St. Paul public school named Maxfield Elementary. His research uncovered that they have a lack of books in the classrooms. His insight and knowledge of the situation identified the cause of this problem as not enough tax dollars being allocated to public school funding. Here are examples of the rhetoric Coleman used to characterize the situation at Maxfield. Excerpts from his November 14 column:

This is how nuts we have become. In order to teach kids to read, it helps if you have books. But when Zelma Wiley walked into Maxfield Magnet School in St. Paul and took over as principal a couple of years ago, there were hardly any books on the shelves of the school's 21 classrooms and not nearly enough books -- or the right mix of reading levels and subject matters -- in the school's library.

How did we get to the point in Minnesota that we have a school in a minority neighborhood of our capital city where there aren't enough books? If you don't find that situation outrageous, you are part of the problem.

"We know what happened, don't we? The poor are being punished for being poor and the politicians, instead of doing their damnedest to get things solved, are doing their damnedest to pass the buck. Highways are more important than kids.

Excerpts from his December 4 column:

YOUR SCHOOLS ARE BURNING!

We have reached a four-alarm crisis in the education of this state's children, and the people who should be responding to the fire -- the governor, the Legislature, local political leaders -- are shirking their duty. No, they are doing worse than shirking. They are wrecking an education system that made Minnesota a leader.

Criticism of Coleman's work thus far has centered on the nature of his ridiculously panicked, chicken little language and on the accuracy of his conclusions on the cause of the problem at Maxfield. Craig Westover, in particular, has provided the definitive evidence against Coleman's caterwauling about alleged under funding of the public school system.

What hasn't been analyzed is the accuracy of Coleman's assessment of the problem in the first place. We all pretty much assumed he was correct in stating that Maxfield didn't have enough books for its classrooms, that education was being impeded due to the lack of basic materials. A belief justified by Coleman's quoting of the principal of Maxfield, Zelma Wiley:

I don't want to go on the record with what I really think," Wiley said. "But I've never seen anything like this before. We haven't been adequately furnished. We don't have enough books."

Which makes an editorial appearing in yesterday's Pioneer Press all the more curious. It was written by none other than Zelma Wiley. In her response to Craig Westover, she had this to say about the book situation at Maxfield:

If Mr. Westover and Mr. Stern had visited our school, they would have seen our hard work paying off. They would have seen that all of our classrooms have the textbooks they need. They would have seen that we know with precision how every dollar we receive is being spent to help our students learn. And they would have seen students from diverse backgrounds improving and achieving.

But they never bothered to drop by our school. Which is too bad, because I would have loved to have shown them a public school that is working for its students, its community and its state.

So which is it? Either "we don't have enough books" or "all of our classrooms have the textbooks they need." Either our schools are burning or they're working for the students, community, and state. These extremes are far enough apart to prevent even a serial fabricator like Nick Coleman to claim they're both correct.

Two possibilities exist for these dual interpretations of reality. Principal Zelma Wiley of Maxfield Elementary is blatantly lying in one of her statements. And if so, we need to know, was she lying then, or is she lying now?

The other possibility is simply that Nick Coleman got the reporting horrendously wrong in his column. Twice. Wrong facts, wrong quotes, wrong conclusions. And now he's using this to self-righteously bludgeon the body politic for increased taxes on the people. Despicable. And if Coleman is at fault in this case, remember, it's not the first time he's done this. (Recall this whopper of incompetent reporting regarding the Minneapolis Police Department).

Who's right and who's wrong? Wiley or Coleman? (Actually, Coleman's wrong either way. Either he's making up facts to fit his conclusions, or he's naively accepting whatever a public official is telling him and irresponsibly running with it).

We, as news consumers, can't say what the truth is. It's up to our media institutions, those that are publishing these contrary views of reality, to sort this one out.

As such I encourage you to write the Star Tribune to ask them to explain this situation (Editor Anders Gyllenhaal: andersg@startribune.com. Readers Rep Kate Parry: readerrep@startribune.com.) Any responsible media organization would feel compelled to the bottom of this. We'll see if the Star Tribune still qualifies under the definition "responsible media organization."