Newsday's 1996 Interview of The Waking Bear

On March 28, staff writer Jessica Kowal of Long Island's Newsday contacted us via the internet. An exchange continued through the 6th of April. On the following day, Newsday published the story behind the efforts of The Waking Bear. It is a story about some of the how and a big part of the why for the Bear's emergence.

he following is the verbatim account of that dialogue. Ms. Kowal's e-mail connection and phone number have been eliminated, nothing more. If truth bothers you, go back to watching television.

Date: Friday, 03-28-96 at 16:53:08 EST
From: [Omitted]
To: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Hi. My name is Jessica Kowal, and I'm an education reporter at Newsday. I'm writing to you because I'd like to interview you about your views of education funding and the Three Village School District.

Preceding the May 21 budget and school board vote, Newsday is preparing a series of stories on Long Island schools and school-district voters. I attended the Three Village School District meeting on Tuesday, May 26, and several people attending the meeting told me about the Waking Bear.

In reporting about Long Island's schools, it's very important to me to know what Long Island residents think about the process and about where their tax money is going.

I'm not sure how many people are involved in the Waking Bear, but I'd like to speak with anyone who is putting it together. You've obviously put a lot of thought into what you're writing, and I'd like to ask you about it.

Unfortunately, I do not have an e-mail address of my own. My phone number at Newsday is [Omitted]. You can also reply to this e-mail address, and I will check it frequently.

Thank you,

Jessica Kowal

The Waking Bear response was made on Monday 04-01-96, with great trepidation and the hope that the date did not prove an omen.

Subject: The Waking Bear to Jessica Kowal
Hello, Jessica. And, thank you [Omitted] for the e-mail link. We look forward to the Newsday articles. How may we help you?

Ed...

Date: Tuesday, 04-02-96 at 11:41:48 EST
To: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

I haven't received a reply to my last e-mail message, so I'm writing again because I'd very much like to speak with you about your views on the Three Village School District.

I'm currently planning to write a story for this Sunday's paper on the district, including, of course, information about the Waking Bear and community members' reaction to it.

Many people have told me that they view the Waking Bear as a destructive effort, rather than a constructive effort, and that they are concerned with the level of rancor in your writing, as well as what they see as threats against board members and school administration officials. Members of the Three Village community also say they believe that your work represents only a few people, rather than, as you say, a majority of residents.

So I ask again to speak with you about your views. I believe you are clearly the person/people who can best represent yourself in a fair and balanced article.

Please e-mail me at this address, or call me at [Omitted]. Thank you.

Jessica Kowal

Received the above on April 2 and wrote the following in response:

We responded to your March 28th e-mail request from the above address on April 1, at around 11.:30 p.m., with the following message: [Repeat of last message provided]

Today, as part of a second request, dated 96-04-02 11:41:48 EST, you included the following paragraph:

Many people have told me that they view the Waking Bear as a destructive effort, rather than a constructive effort, and that they are concerned with the level of rancor in your writing, as well as what they see as threats against board members and school administration officials. Members of the Three Village community also say they believe that your work represents only a few people, rather than, as you say, a majority of residents.

Jessica, it's not nice to bait The Bear.

It appears you've gotten the official policy statement touted by the beneficiaries of district policy. If your local research efforts have been confined to the Board of Education meeting of March 26th, you have fallen victim to the "smoke" they have been inflicting upon themselves for months. The same 100 people - if you'd come in early March, you could have interviewed hundreds more of their non-voting children - have filled the meetings for months. Did you hear anyone speak against Board actions? Were there even more than a few people in attendance over fifty, that were not teachers? No, they've stopped showing up. And, they are the far greater majority of the community voting block than the room full of folks you saw. If they don't show up, should you or I or the district think there are no problems to solve and everybody is happy?

Then there is the prattle about ours being a destructive effort, vindictive and rancorous. Perhaps your not aware of dismissive rhetorical devices but we, "the few" you say, are. Their comments are NEVER supported with fact, only a quick dismissive expression of contempt or sorrow for greedy, self-centered and selfish people. Jessica, put your cynicism in gear here. The Waking Bear is the ONLY voice in this community, to contradict the actions of the Board and administration. We were originally barraged with the suggestion that we were speaking for the, what appears defunct, Taxpayers' Association. Here we are, just weeks from the budget vote and elections and not a vowel to be heard from them. There was a 95% increase in the "no" votes for last June's budget over those of the preceding year. Do you believe those angry votes, 3,000 of them, just moved away? Don't you believe those votes represent a still larger contingent of people similarly predisposed but perhaps not yet quite angry enough to get off their duffs to turn up at the ballot boxes? We do.

We are on the receiving end of the e-mail. And, we're not seeing what you've been told. Oh, we get the "Why are you so angry?" stuff. And, "Did somebody fail your little darling? Find out what enabling means." Obviously a priest, huh? You wouldn't believe how many of the writers are supportive of tenure. Something every parent sees as important, right? Nothing ever written in The Waking Bear has ever been as rancorous as some of the "stuff" we get to read. And, it's usually from people having something to lose and not born of altruism. At least their honest about it, something that cannot be said of many, including some media types.

What we have found of particular, even peculiar, interest Jessica is that with the exception of tenure - always angrily supported by irate teachers - not one single person ever said they thought we were wrong. They only took exception to the manner in which our arguments were presented, not their validity.

Why is it that anyone even mentioned the Bear to you? If it has no influence, why bother with it? If it has no audience, what are we doing, writing for personnel satisfaction? And this business about "threats" to Board or administration members: find them for us. You've likely downloaded every document we've ever written but haven't done your homework. No one has ever been threatened by anything stronger that the ballot box or the influence of a more conservative Board of Education, to be elected on May 21st.

Jessica, we would like to see all of the 23,000 registered voters and their not yet registered 7,000 brethren in the district appear on May 21st. That's it. We want the same public, so often told by political theorists, that "always gets what it deserves" to vote. In which case and no matter what the results, they will have to live with "deserved" conditions of their own making and not those imposed upon them because of their failure to "show up" and do the right thing. Shamefully simple isn't it?

Perhaps, that's why our objective is so easily missed by some and absolutely terrifying to others. Think about it. We "the few" do, all the time.

NOTE: If you don't have all the Bear articles, provide an address and they'll be sent by mail. Good luck with the articles and have a nice month-and-a-half.

The Editors of The Waking Bear

Newsday

Date: Wednesday 04-03-96 at 14:44:41 EST
To: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Thanks for your note. Appreciate the reply.

I do, of course, have some specific questions that I'd like you to clear up. Would it be possible for us to speak? Or, at least, for me to send you some questions via e-mail?

Bear's Response 04-03-96 was as follows:

Hello again Jessica. Please, call me "Ed."

I hope you understand it's difficult to sleep with all this "traffic" AND our home page did explain that the Bear was to hibernate while the masses com-mun-i-cate with the school board. This may come as a surprise but we seek neither those much maligned minutes of notoriety or one line of newsprint. And more than a few of "the few" around here Jessica, I'm sorry to say this, their...er, their suspicious of Newsday's intentions.

Basically, we thought the last two paragraphs of what you called our "note" explained all that was of any importance:

"...we would like to see all of the 23,000 registered voters and their not yet registered 7,000 brethren in the district appear on May 21st. That's it. We want the same public, so often told by political theorists, that "always gets what it deserves" to vote. In which case and no matter what the results, they will have to live with "deserved" conditions of their own making and not those imposed upon them because of their failure to "show up" and do the right thing. Shamefully simple isn't it?

"Perhaps, that's why our objective is so easily missed by some and absolutely terrifying to others. Think about it. We "the few" do, all the time."

You've not asked for copies of the documents - all previously published articles - we offered. It is assumed therefore that you have them. If so, then what is it that needs to be cleared up? They argue against policies we seek to change. The arguments were both intelligent and emotional because many intelligent people in this community are angry about not being listened to. There will be more of this, with particular attention being given to the greatest, and delusional, beneficiaries of the district's $77,000,000 cash cow. We have identified those board members and administrators responsible for approving those policies. We aim to see some of them voted out of office in May. Our objectives are clear. The most important being voter turnout. What is there to clear up? We can't help but be curious. And, some part of me [alone of "the few"]anyway, wants to be reasonable.

So, if you've got a question that deals with issues besieging Three Village Central School District residents and not The Waking Bear's membership rolls, or our strategy and tactics for the coming weeks, ask away. Phone conversation is out. Anonymity cannot be assured except through e-mail, so write 'em up and send away. But, quid pro quo. We have one for you, or your editor if appropriate, we'd like answered. And, "because it's news," won't cut it. After all, our readers have a right to know why we even bothered to answer you folks.

Why are you and Newsday so interested in our minor effort in what is otherwise such a wasteland of financial abuse, that is Long Island's educational system?

Ed... - that's short for The Editors of The Waking Bear, by the way. (:-)))

Newsday:

Date: Thursday, 04-05-96 at 10:54:08 EST
To: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

So, Ed,

Thanks for the second note.

To answer your question first (Why are you and Newsday so interested our minor effort in what is otherwise such a wasteland of financial abuse, that is Long Island's educational system?)...

Newsday is doing a series of articles on the schools before the May 21 vote; my focus is on school boards, and other reporters are focusing on budget issues, lobbying groups and other matters.

The newspaper is, and I am, certainly interested in finding specific instances of financial abuse in the schools, something which often takes months of investigation to verify. If you have examples of these, please let me know.

In the short run, though, I'm trying to understand and write about the priorities of Long Island voters as they examine their school districts and school boards and as various interests compete for a smaller pot of money. Property taxes, special education programs, choices about curriculum -- these issues are being discussed across Long Island, as well as in Three Village.

Your publication expresses one strong viewpoint on matters in your school district... and the time you've obviously put into it stands in sharp contrast to most peoples' attention to schools and voting day. Not to mention that you sent your missives via Internet, a medium still new enough to be unusual. That's certainly worth a story in my book.

But as you won't talk to me by phone, and it's difficult to have a running dialogue this way, I really only have a few questions at this point. I'm assuming that you will get this letter today, Friday. I'd like to include your answers in my Sunday story, so please write back today by 5 p.m.

First, who are you?
Second, did you attend Three Village schools?
Third, when and why did you become interested in school district matters?
Fourth, do you have children in the Three Village school system and, if so, do you think they got a quality education?
Fifth, you say you'd like to elect a more conservative school board. Beyond (theoretically) saving the taxpayers' money, what specifically would you like this new school board to correct?

Since you say we can't speak on the phone, that's all I can ask on the screen. And while you might say I'm baiting you, the fact is that you've asked for notice by publishing your website, so now's your chance to speak to several hundred thousand people about what you're doing.

Thanks,

Jessica

{mospagebreak title=Page 2 - Points Well Made}

Response April 5 ASAP after receipt (1430) at 1730:

Jessica, your points are well made. I appreciate your candor and if I may brush this chip off my shoulder - for a few moments anyway - I will respond in kind.

Before all else, however, let me make one small point of my own about an apparent misunderstanding you may have concerning a reference I made to financial abuse. I know of nothing that would qualify for months of investigation by a team of reporters, or one CPA for that matter. But, financial abuse comes in a variety of forms, not all of which are indictable offenses. A district attorney may direct contract opportunities toward a family member, a BOCES official retires with outrageous pension provisions, Board's of Education approve extravagant contract settlements upon the advice and council of an administrator: nothing anyone can go to jail for. But all such actions are, none-the-less, financial abuses of the public trust. We are all of us paying for their manipulations. Perhaps the greatest cost being public apathy and an expectation of government impropriety.

Now let me move on to your five questions:

1) "My" identity.
Anonymity has been a symbol to The Waking Bear since its inception. It is representative of those who approached the podium of the Three Village Central School District's Board of Education meetings and were totally ignored. It has been strange to see the outcry by so many members of the establishment for the identities of our writers. Our whereabouts. In the past, they paid no attention when they saw our faces, heard our names announced and our expressions of concern. But poke a finger in their blind eyes or deaf ears....

For months we have fielded queries from the enraged. What was, and still is, symbolic has more recently come to provide a measure of security. We know our intentions but share no similar confidence in those we are hearing from. Not all the nation's "strange folk" are living in Montana, Jessica.

2) Did you attend Three Village schools?
No. Nor did anyone of those most directly involved with our efforts. All were city (Brooklyn, Bronx, Manhattan) bred and educated, when the school system there still did what it was supposed to. Some, like myself, went to parochial schools.

However, whatever the worth of an education on Long Island, few can afford to live and raise families here. And that isn't because of the price of bread either.

They leave by the carload daily and will continue to do so until the cost of government is reigned in. And the place where the voting public can make the greatest contribution to that change is at the school district level. It is one of the few remaining true bastions of democracy, where every vote directly influences policy.

3) When and why did you become interested in school district matters?
Last year, like so many of those that showed up for the June budget vote. The local papers were providing a lot of coverage on school related matters. I got involved at Board meetings and met others so inclined. The most frequently debated subject at those meetings was cost and how to get them down. The Taxpayers' Association, Rudy Hodor presiding, next caught the interest of many - including a vast number of those trying to temper the organizations original intent. It got so that to attend their meetings you needed a playbill. Anyone could get in. Anyone could join. Pay your bucks, speak your piece and then.... It grew to be only slightly entertaining watching Hodor smooth the ruffled feathers of retired teachers, parents of special education children and every other imaginable group wanting to see NO CHANGE in the district's spending patterns. It got to be an early rendition of what occurred at the school board meetings of the last month and a half: child after child after child after boring non-taxpaying child telling the Board and people like me not to cut their favorite whatever.

One young man explained, "I only come to school so I can play golf. I want to be a professional golf player and if you stop the funding...." Must have made Mary Barter's day to know golf was his only reason for coming to school each day. I know it made mine to watch the smile slide from her face.

Anyway, over time, it grew apparent that the problems were greater than those perceived. To correct the money crisis is to address a symptom and not a cause. And, there are many causes. Far too many for me to elaborate upon before your deadline. Several examples are found in the various articles, now temporarily removed from the web site. The Taxpayers' Association will be relying upon the simple takeover of the Board. The Bear thinks that a good start but would like to see, and doesn't, some evidence of what their candidates >think< about objective performance standards for children and teachers, multiculturalism, community involvement in the processes of district administration, etc.

4) Do you have children in the Three Village school system and, if so, do you think they got a quality education?
I did have. They've moved on and away with their lives. But, your question is a tad to simplistic. It is the way such a question is always asked. But life's opportunities are not so simply answered.

Implied in the way the question is asked is that a school district supplies all that is needed in a child's getting a good education. I for one believe that a child's success is but in small part dependent upon classroom opportunity and to a greater extent family background, example and support to say nothing of the child's innate abilities and personally inspired motivations to succeed. Money and masters degrees will not do it. Having been a lecturer and teacher in various institutions, including the university level, I know of what I speak. Hell, as a student in your own time, you may have been called upon to learn a subject despite the fully tenured rectum standing before you. They knew the subject all right, but from their head to yours it was never going to get, because their mouth was in the way.

So, yes, they did good. But not always because the school district was doing all it could or should. Perhaps, at times, it was directing resources to interests it should have not and my children managed to compensate for that failing.

5) You say you'd like to elect a more conservative school board. Beyond (theoretically) saving the taxpayers' money, what specifically would you like this new school board to correct?
Asked and answered several times, but:

* a change in the Education 2000 vision statement, removing teachers and the school system from matters best left to family construct;
* a real effort at obtaining community input. As said by Hillary "it takes an entire village" and then by us "that education is too important to leave in the hands of teachers and other educrats;"
* freedom of speech. You can't condemn the actions or decisions of a member without facing the gavel. When you put it in writing, a Mary Barter bans the stuff from the building.
* a responsible administration that does not break state law, denying access to documents that should be made available under the freedom of information provisions of law, as did Barter;
* the best educational efforts possible for the greatest number of students and not a privileged or especially gifted few, as is now the case;
* elimination of multiculturalism AND all courses and research oriented curricula best suited to college environments;
* children that read when they get a high school diploma and not require remedial efforts when reaching a place like Suffolk County Community College, as was recently uncovered;
* staff that recognize problems before area residents bring them to their attention, such as the case with reading and reported drug abuse, uncovered in November when made public by responsible STUDENTS;
* a grading system reflective of merit and the greater world's competitive environment, and not the "good, not so good, needs help and oops!" farce now used through the sixth grade;
* a system that rewards teacher excellence proven and not presumed, because of accumulated degrees or seniority;
* a system that makes it more difficult to shift children to special education programs and away from regular classroom work and a possible secreted teacher's failure, cloaked by social worker and psychological evaluations.

Etc., etc., etc. and we're really out of time. I see it's already after five o'clock.Hope I gave you what you were looking for and, if at all useful, that it gets to you before your deadline."Ed..."

Newsday:

Date: Thursday 04-05-96 at 17:39:14 EST
To: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Thanks for the speedy reply. I'm sorry you won't identify yourself or your aides, but thanks for the information. A story on the Waking Bear is planned for the Sunday paper.

Jessica.

Bear's response on Saturday April 6th.

And thank you Jessica, for being patient with this sometimes impatient curmudgeon of an old Bear. Good luck with the pieces. Clearly, they deal with an important subject. And, as Newsday is not expected to be the rancorous, vindictive and destructive rag we are so frequently - it's the frequency that pleases us most - accused of being, we look forward to reading your objective and persuasive missives on the morrow, April 7th.

Oh, engaged as you and I were in discourse, an important bit of trivia appeared first on the front page of The Three Village Herald on April 3rd that you may not be aware of. With a by-line bearing the names of Susan Bridson [Editor of the Herald] and Jennifer Faulkner it was announced: Superintendent of Schools for the TVCSD Mary F. "Barter finalist for Locust Valley job."

"In talking to the Herald, Dr. Barter repeated, 'I really would like to remain in Three Village." She said, 'It was only because there has been some criticism of me -- not by the board but by a small cadre* of people in the community -- that I've even taken advantage of the [Locust Valley] offer."

*Imagine! And which small cadre would that be? It certainly hasn't been the Three Village Taxpayers' Association. They've been silent and virtually ineffective both behind and in the front lines for months and, obviously, waiting to make an eleventh hour sweep into the enemy camp. And, the general public has been denied access to the Board of Education meeting podium for over seven weeks, dominated as it was with children, teachers and the handicapped. Hmmmm? Could it be? Could it really be the "few, proud and chosen" of The Waking Bear? Did Hearst really start this way? Yikes! Yellow cyberspace journalism!

And, we've just started. Tune in May 1st, for more of our abusive methods, expressive and rancorous rhetoric designed to defrock and dethrone what Thomas Sowell and others would call our district's "anointed," with our version of extreme unction.

Thanks for listening.

"Ed"

And so ended the saga of the Newsday interview. The "piece," published on page A23 of the Sunday April 7th, 1996 edition of Newsday, was an excellent example of clear, balanced and objective journalism. It is hoped that its publication will dispel the absurd rumors of the despotic few ruling TVCSD, that The Waking Bear is anything more than a VERY LOUD, ANGRY and DETERMINED group of individuals who will see justice done at the ballot boxes and demand influence over all those things for which $49,000,000 of the community's money are spent. As well as the near thirty and, in time, greater millions belonging to all New Yorkers; which, even when combined, board of education and administrative officials dismiss as inadequate to run their outrageous empires.

You should be angry too, but not with the messenger.

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