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For two weeks running the Daily Planet has run sensational and inflammatory headlines about the Berkeley Public Schools while, in my mind, burying the real stories. Is it the Daily Planet’s intention to turn our community against the Berkeley public schools or is it to try and constructively report the conditions under which public education must exist in this time of declining revenues and state and federal support? On Feb. 20 you ran a story about the schools, “BUSD Kills Program For Teen Mothers.” Then on Feb. 27 your story reads “ BUSD Losing Big Bucks On Food Service Program.” Both stories highlight and focus on one aspect of what happened and fails miserably to give the public the main thrust of the events being reported. 

The Feb. 20 story was about the fact that the school board had to cut $3.1 million from the school’s budget for next year, a very important issue for our community. However, the elimination of the Vera Casey Center for pregnant teens and teen mothers, one of many cuts we were forced to make, while certainly part of the story, should be described, in my opinion, in light of the overall budget crisis in the Berkeley schools.  

Despite the sad fact that we had to cut $3.1 million more from our budget, the district was able to do so without laying off any permanent teachers or cutting class sizes for over 9,000 students. Rather than emphasize the positive, the Daily Planet devoted nine inflammatory paragraphs to a program that serves eighteen students.  

Buried deep in your story (paragraph 16!) is the key point about the budget crisis: “In contrast to budget battles from the previous two years, this year’s cuts, which targeted mostly non-teachers, sparked little citizen outrage. Class sizes are scheduled to remain stable and lost teacher jobs due to an estimated decline in enrollment of 176 students are forecast to be offset by retirements and resignations.” Why wasn’t this statement in your opening paragraph? 

And the Feb. 27 story and headline about a School Board Workshop held Wednesday, Feb. 25 completely missed what happened. Here you had Alice Waters from Chez Panisse, Zenobia Barlow from the Center for Ecoliteracy, and Dr. Bert Lubin, head of the Pediatric Department of Children’s Hospital describing how they are forming a partnership with the food service department of the school district to help make possible healthy, nutritious food for all our school children. But the Daily Planet writes a story about old news, discussed a week before during the school board’s budget deliberations, that the food department cannot live within the meager budget provided by the Federal government. 

If this partnership is successful, as even the Daily Planet described in it’s story; “…it would be the first district to free itself from the mass produced food cycle forced on districts by stingy federal and state school lunch programs that act as subsidies for large corporate food processors to provide food that offers little flavor or nutritional value.” 

Again, why wasn’t this the highlight of your story?  

I am committed to finding alternative funding sources for the Vera Casey Center and creatively striving to improve the quality of food for our school children. But let’s not forget that budget cuts are painful and worthy programs are being eliminated or reduced because the state and federal governments continue to starve our public schools.  

Terry Doran is a member of the Berkeley School Board. 

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