Letters to the Editor

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Untitled Document We welcome letters. Please include your full name, address, and telephone number. We edit all letters. Send them to Letters, Illinois Times, P.O. Box 5256, Springfield, IL 62705; fax 217-753-3958; e-mail [email protected].
FOCUSEDONREALITY, NOTTHEORY The article “Counting the wrong thing,” in the Feb. 28 edition of Illinois Times, is more than a bit perplexing. The writer, Peter Downs, repeats some old claims made by David Comerford, a publicist for a teachers’ union, the Illinois Federation of Teachers. First of all, who is this writer Peter Downs? Illinois Times describes him as a member of the St. Louis school board and a freelance writer. That’s accurate, as far as it goes. If one does a quick Google search you’ll find that Mr. Downs worked extensively for teacher union publications and received substantial campaign contributions from American Federation of Teachers affiliates. In fact, here is how Mr. Downs is described in a 2006 article in the AFT’s magazine American Teacher: “Peter Downs and Donna Jones can thank the St. Louis Teachers & School Related Personnel Union for their election to the city’s school board earlier this year. It was the unwavering support of the AFT affiliate that helped these parents overcome the odds and beat their heavily favored -- and funded -- opponents.”
It’s clear that Mr. Downs should have disclosed his obvious conflict of interest instead of writing such a piece. Unfortunately, responding to Mr. Comerford’s erroneous claims and counterclaims has become old hat. For example, Mr. Comerford questioned in a magazine article, a news release, and an Internet posting a statement in “The Hidden Costs of Tenure” that a school district could reasonably expect to spend $100,000 in a tenure teacher-dismissal case. He contended it rarely costs more than $50,000 and added:
“The point I’m making is that Reeder blew the dollar figure way out of proportion to add even greater slant to his hit piece” [see Capitol Fax, Dec. 7, 2005]. In response, I filed Freedom of Information Act requests for every attorney billing paid by an Illinois school district over a five-year period in a tenure teacher-dismissal case. The average came out at $219,000. (Forty-four percent of those were still under appeal, so the ultimate cost will be considerably higher.) I invited Mr. Comerford to come over to my office and review these attorney billing documents. For some reason, he never took me up on the offer -- or publicly corrected his earlier assertions. Now he’s making another flawed claim that somehow the investigation significantly understated the number of tenured teachers fired each year. Among the findings of the 2005 series “The Hidden Costs of Tenure” was that an average of seven tenured teachers are fired each year. How do I know this? By reading every tenure-hearing-officer ruling made over an 18-year period. As a practical matter, an Illinois school board can only recommend to a tenure-hearing officer that a teacher be fired. When a school board recommends the dismissal of a teacher, there are two choices: Go before a hearing officer and fight to keep the job or quit. In theory, they could forego a chance to remain employed, the possibility of a severance package and choose to deliberately go through life with the stigma of being fired by simply doing nothing. (But the investigation focused on realities, not legal theories or aberrations.) “If someone is contending teachers are choosing to get fired rather than fight it or quit, there must be something in the water they are drinking,” said T.J. Wilson, an attorney specializing in education-employment law. Quotes used in the series were based on audio recordings, meticulous notes, and e-mailed statements. At times when quotes were ambiguous, sources were recontacted for further clarification. In the case of Cicero Superintendent Clyde Senters, specific quotes were discussed and approved prior to publication to ensure not only their accuracy but their context. (An unfortunate reality in journalism is that occasionally someone making controversial or inflammatory statements will try to back away from those comments.) Mr. Comerford also claims the Illinois State Police investigator Dennis Kuba was misquoted. It’s an interesting assertion, considering Kuba doesn’t contend he was misquoted. I quoted Kuba saying: “In all the years I've investigated sex crimes I have never found a case of a child lying about being abused by non-family member.”
When I talked to Kuba recently, he acknowledged making the statement but added that what he meant was: In all the years he’s investigated sex crimes he has never had a case prosecuted in which a child lied about being abused by non-family member. The distinction may seem subtle, but we had no problem running the clarification in both our online and print editions.
He also said that Mr. Comerford’s comments that children frequently lie about being sexually abused by non-family members are ridiculous. But don’t just take my word for it; you can listen to a voice-mail message he left in that regard at www.hiddenviolations.com. Mr. Comerford absolutely has the right to advocate on behalf of the union members who pay his salary. But the most successful media-relations professionals I have known understand that their own organizations are not perfect. Instead of arguing with reporters about the embarrassing facts, they often argue internally for reforms to improve their organizations. That is not the public face Mr. Comerford has shown, and that is understandable but disappointing. Scott Reeder Springfield
Editor’s note: Peter Downs has written about schools and other public-policy matters since the early 1980s. Downs has never worked or written for any teachers’-union publication, although some may have republished his stories. He was elected in 2006 to the St. Louis Board of Education with the support of teachers’ unions, as well as the endorsements of the school administrators’ association, parents’ and neighbohood groups, parochial-school organizations, Democratic Party ward organizations, and the local Republican and Green parties. 9/11 QUESTIONS LINGER After the release of the 9/11 Commission’s report in July 2004, more than 100 prominent Americans signed a petition urging Congress to immediately reinvestigate 9/11. The petition asked such questions as:
• Why were standard operating procedures for dealing with hijacked airlines not followed that day? • Why were the extensive missile batteries and air defenses reportedly deployed around the Pentagon not automatically activated during the attack? • Why did the Secret Service allow Bush to complete his elementary-school visit, apparently unconcerned about his safety or that of the schoolchildren? • Why hasn’t a single person been fired, penalized, or reprimanded for the gross incompetence we witnessed that day? That investigation has yet to take place. Beni Kitching Springfield
RENEW THE EFFORT FOR JUSTICE Our culture has a very deep-seated violent nature that we have yet to face or understand. Another university shooting brings it home. My daughter was teaching her class in the building next door to Cole Hall [on the NIU campus], where the carnage took place. We see ourselves as a Christian nation but are in some ways morally far from it. We unwittingly support economic, emotional, and physical violence against others as the solution to interpersonal and international problems. Violent dispositions and actions are always counterproductive and certainly not Christ’s way.
I experienced a very safe childhood in north Alabama. I could go for miles from home on my bicycle. We never locked the house. But now I realize that in those “ideal” days for people like me, my majority society was sowing the seeds of present-day violence -- by not owning the reality of discrimination against various groups of people and not providing a realistic fairness and justice throughout the culture. Perhaps this presidential election-season can [bring to the] surface some of our wounds so that our nation has another opportunity to face some of its own shadow, seek healing, and make the sacrifices needed to bring about a renewed effort for justice and equality for all. Jesus’ example is that all discrimination, domination, and nonvaluing of others is to be opposed without violence. This is what he did and why he was violently killed. Our failure to follow his example, as we move along in history, generates the seething anger and violence now regularly happening locally, nationally, and worldwide. But God is merciful. God save us from ourselves. Rev. Jim Hibbett Riverton

CORRECTION
Eric Robinson is employed by Frontline Public Strategies. His name was reported incorrectly in a recent story [“Counting the wrong thing,” Feb. 28].

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