by
Kathleen Jeskey
On Sunday, October 19, Portland area teachers in
Pioneer Square.
The included a book giveaway, a
pumpkin give away, free face painting and henna tattoos, and a booth from
Outdoor School among the activities designed for family fun. There were also
performances from local area schools which included theater, music and dance.
Oregon Save Our Schools sponsored a booth at the event designed to educate
parents on their rights to opt their children out of high stakes standardized
testing (also handing out stickers, pencils and clown noses to the kids).
The
overall theme of the Festival was that our students are more than a test score
and that they deserve to be a priority when it comes to funding. It highlighted
many of the programs that students enjoy, which make school meaningful to them,
that our schools have lost due to funding cuts and an inordinate focus on test
scores as the only possible measure of student achievement.
Many volunteer groups that participated paid for their booths at
the event, including ours, which was provided by our own Joanne Yatvin. The
funding for the event came from local area teachers associations members’ dues. Hours and hours of
volunteer time were put in by local teachers, as well as support from (whose salaries are also paid by the
local teachers’ dues) to
organize the event. The event was
on Pioneer Square’s
calendar as well.
The calendar the event was apparently not on was the calendar of
the Oregonian.
Many teachers and other local volunteers who helped organize the
event, including members of Oregon Save Our Schools, eagerly awaited the
Oregonian’s coverage to
see if their picture, or their child’s
picture, appeared in the O. But in spite of the fact that the Oregonian routinely prints news
about events in Pioneer Square as well as stories which
question the quality and commitment of Oregon’s teachers not a peep was heard in the
Oregonian about this event.
One has to wonder if this is because
The OEA staffer who
was designated to communicate with the Oregonian about the event tried three or
four times unsuccessfully, as reported to this writer, to have news of the
event included somewhere in the paper. Those attempts included the following: a
request to submit a guest opinion promoting the Festival and its mission, an
invitation to send a reporter and/or photographer to the event, a follow up
reminder prior to the event, and a press release after the event.
After all the hard work that many community members put into this
event and not so much as a human interest report on it, educators and their
supporters are troubled by an impression of editorial bias from the Oregonian.
We hope that as a news organization, the Oregonian will report all sides of the
complex education issues that face our state, not just those with which its
editorial board agrees.