Straight and True

Losing sight of a goal leads to bad policy

You can’t go wrong going straight. Of course, if you try it while driving a curving roadway, you’ll end up in a ditch. In about every other application, though, “straight” is a winner.

A straight thinker is reliable and consistent. A straight answer is frank and undevious. A straight tip is well-sourced and trustworthy. An object hung or erected straight is plumb and vertical. Straight dealing is fair and honest. A correct answer has the facts straight. The straight truth is undiluted. A straight ticket-voter is loyal. A straight arrow-person embraces traditional norms.

I think of a Kansas farmer who painstakingly planted corn and milo in straight rows. No more grain grew in those straight rows than in wiggly ones in neighboring fields, but his pride in workmanship was evident. When the plants emerged from the Kansas soil in unwavering alignment, passersby on the highway admired the work of a professional in his field. Lasers guide planters now, but it was all hand-eye coordination then.

Professionals in other fields could learn something from that farmer. They can’t seem to stay straight clear to the end of a row—with or without modern technology. They lose concentration, wander and make a mess of things.

Consider our schools. Reading and math scores dipped again last year. What is so hard about teaching ABCs and 123s? Scoring for 13-year-olds, for instance, was the lowest in decades, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress. “The fundamental cause of poor outcomes is that education policy leaders have eroded the instructional core and designed our education system for failure.” Policymakers right on up through the U.S. Department of Education deserve a D, but probably give themselves a B.

Example: Eleven states have exit exams for high school graduation, which seems like a reasonable way to hold a school system accountable for its work product. However, if seniors fail the exam, they’re given “alternative paths” to a diploma. In other words, a diploma no longer indicates a person learned, only that he or she was enrolled. Learning as the goal of schooling is being lost. Too many crooked rows in our schools.

Or consider our news corps. It went off track a decade or more ago when journalism schools decided that delivering news straight was boring. They tossed out the teaching of balanced and neutral reporting and began to teach advocacy. Consequently, J-school grads no longer report. They make news, interpret it, propagandize by giving readers and viewers “perspective” and a “narrative” filled only with facts that move the story in a desired direction.

Example: The New York Times newsroom was upset the other day after the paper accurately reported that the city’s socialist-communist mayoral candidate lied on a university application, claiming to be a black man and thus gaining some admission preference. Why were the news people upset? Because the newspaper had inadvertently committed journalism—i.e., reported the straight truth—and done damage to the newsroom’s preferred narrative. Newsrooms are full of crooked rows.

Straight is as straight does. Crooks don’t.