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Saturday, November 20, 2010

Seattle Public Schools community blog: The Story isn't the Story

Seattle Public Schools community blog: The Story isn't the Story

The Story isn't the Story

This past week we saw something I had never seen before, a complaint about Board-adopted materials, Brave New World as a 10th grade Language Arts text.

Dorothy, Mel and I were in the auditorium and heard the presentation by both sides, the Board's questions and the answers. Phyllis Fletcher from KUOW was also there.

I had gone over to Ms Fletcher when she entered the room and congratulated/thanked her for her story on the matter from that morning. The story described the problem at the root of the matter and fairly and accurately represented the perspectives of each side.

That contrasts starkly with other stories written about the situation.

The story in the Times didn't misrepresent the situation, but didn't explain it either. Consequently there were 207 comments about PC or totalitarian efforts to "ban" the book before I posted a comment that stated the actual situation.

The story in the P-I, however, was just plain wrong. The headline read: "Parent seeks to ban 'Brave New Worl