I am reminded of an advertisement that I saw many years ago comparing a Cadillac Cimarron to a BMW favorably.

The Cadillac was a Chevrolet with better carpets to put it politely, but Cadillac wanted you to believe that it was a car of equal value to the BMW.

This is a real "spin" to any who have even a basic understanding of automobiles.

In the past 40 years school districts throughout the nation have added to their costs by hiring "Public Relations" (spin) employees.

In this district these are pretty expensive. They drive BMW's and Lexus's!

The department is often seen on TV trying to diffuse and placate the public after an "event" in one of our local schools that may illustrate, more clearly than the schools would like, some of the daily activities that are taking place in our schools.

If they are not in the placation mode, they are out promoting what may appear to be a desirable activity they would like you to believe is indicative of what is happening to all of the students in the district.

A more careful reading of the "facts" presented might lead you to the conclusion that either there are very few kids involved in this activity, or that the activity has little actual effect upon the levels of achievement in our schools.

Recently we were all advised that in every elementary school they were "reading" on Dr. Seuss day.

Makes me feel "comfortably numb" to know that kids are reading in schools at least on that day.

At recent school board meetings there have been constant presentations of marginal "accomplishments" of small groups of students in the hopes that this would make all of us "comfortably numb".

As an example we learned about a choral group that had several members who were taking AP courses.

We did not learn if they were passing the exams, as the school district has shown a remarkable level of resistance to sharing with us the success rate of our students in these national tests.

In the past few years school districts have finally had to "tell" us about the success rate on state tests, even if there is no correlation of these to any national levels.

This information is only been made available due to the WASL and No Child Left Behind legislation.

There has been great resistance to this.

When forced into this, the Public Relations Departments "spin" these results to talk about "improvement" and compare scores to other nearby districts which aren't doing well.

If 50 percent of our kids cannot pass an 8th grade level math exam, as 10th graders, it should be clear to us that half of our kids aren't making it.

This is not the way that Public Relations would present this. They would tell us that the scores are "up from 45 percent" and call this "progress."

Recently there was an article in the Milwaukee Journal about a ghetto school in Milwaukee with some very high achievement scores.

Their motto was "Get Ready."

This was a clear warning that school is a lot of effort, and if you don't make the effort the consequences can be severe. Other successful schools, such as KIPP, offer "there are no short cuts."

What would happen if schools in Federal Way had a notice on the front door that indicated that the likelihood of success at the next level after that particular school was 50 percent?

Or in the case of high schools in this state only 16 percent success? Would that make us feel "comfortably numb?"

Instead of this kind of "warning", our Public Relations departments encourage all to think of our schools as "welcoming places" where your child will thrive and flower to greater successes irrespective of the student's efforts or the parent's engagement.

Washington State is dead last in this nation in college completion, and 39th in the nation in high school completion. Isn't a warning on every report card and the front door of every school warranted?

We have mandatory warnings on cigarettes for lesser probabilities than this!

While there are services that track graduates from public and private schools available, I am not aware of any schools in this area which are using them.

Why? I would suggest that the information that would be gathered would not digest well with the Public Relations Department or the local community.

In school districts elsewhere I have seen major public uprisings over SAT scores that are not satisfactory.

The results of these uprisings has been a greater focus on achievement as the public was not "comfortably numb."

Here we have high schools that have been rated at the lowest level by the University of Washington, and there isn't any concern!

The anesthetic seems remarkably effective! Imagine what the reputation of these schools might be with competitive college admissions departments.

Taxpayers! You are paying for this. Parents, are you still numb?

Up next, Building Administrators.