Category: Commentary/Editorial, Satire || By

I almost forgot about this piece of campaign literature that I picked up over the weekend.

To paraphrase a famous comment by a great philosopher, "Rarely is the question asked: Is our school directors learning?"

Look, we're all busy people, and we all make mistakes. Frankly, I give these folks a lot of credit for serving on the school board. It's a difficult, time-consuming, low- or no-paying job that's thankless.

No matter what you do, someone hates you --- teachers think you're cheapskates, parents think you don't like their children, and elderly taxpayers think you're a spendthrift. Maybe I'm soft-hearted, but I like most school directors and other elected officials.

. . .

Still, this mailing from four incumbent school directors was really, really bad. "In three shorts years, this group has ... educational priorities." Uh ... what?

And they used "three shorts years" a second time.

Oh, my head. More? OK. "Enviroment" is misspelled in a headline. One of the school board's achievements was negotiating a new bus contract "that's saves the taxpayers" money.

I hate to even point out the phrase "educational learning center." Yeah, it's redundant. It's also a highfalutin way of saying "school."

. . .

I didn't want to post this before the primary because I didn't want to criticize any of the candidates, for fear of being accused of favoritism. Frankly, I'm doing them a favor by blanking out their names.

You can figure out who they were, if you're really curious. Three of them lost their bids for re-election. (That probably has nothing to do with this mailing.)

Again: I respect these folks. But if you're going to supervise the school system and trumpet your "proven record of results," you ought to make sure your mailings aren't riddled with mistakes.

. . .

In conclusion, I can't overstate the benefits of proofreading.

Remember, as that same philosopher also said, "Reading is the basics for all learning." How true.