I want to share my feelings this week on the way our governor, the U.S. Secretary of Education and the State Commissioner education treated high school journalists at their gathering in Lexington to talk about schools and charter schools.

Before I go any further I also want to point out that to the best of my knowledge teachers and other educations in general were not invited to their, let’s call it, event.

The student journalists were from Paul Lawrence Dunbar and were not allowed to take part as journalists in the event, and if I have been correctly informed were not even allowed to stay in the room.

I want to get some information out there right now. I know there are people who totally dislike the media in any form or any level as well as those who complain about public education. Let me promise you this is true in every state.

Now I’d like to share that not all media is bad. There are poor performers in every industry. This is true of any profession. People speak loudly be in on social media or a restaurant table about how awful the media is.

In my opinion there are a couple ways to look at this. There are two types of errors – those made as a mistake which can happen to anyone – and those that are made to create a bias.

Those attempting to make it anything other than that should just back the heck up. I am being calm because this is a family newspaper

I don’t care what profession we are talking about I can cite examples of at least the ones I know that people most often never make mistakes.

I have a friend who is a school teacher or was who spends a great deal slamming the media as being biased. I find it terribly offensive, but I will add to this the fact that everything we do we put out for public consumption.

As a teacher the work done in the classroom is limited to those in the class. In addition, if a teacher makes a mistake it can be corrected and in many cases probably no one will ever even know it happened.

These complaints are not directed at teachers as a single group. The profession is basically irrelevant. Grocery checkout persons or a worker in a food establishment all can on occasion make a mistake. I personally look past that because I am the kind of person who at least tries to understand errors because I have made them.

I am not a person who directs blame to others. It is simply wrong sometimes and that’s all there can be said.

Reaching back to the education fiasco. This really is beyond words.

We have worked in our industry to push for open records, open meetings and no hidden agendas.

That my friends is what is wrong. This trio at the education summit wanted to exclude as many as possible to make certain the message that was to be delivered was carefully crafted.

I am not, nor will I be, an advocate of charter schools. I don’t have to be, and I am not going to be. I do know some want this effort to succeed. My position is this – the law requires every child in every county in Kentucky receive a public education.

For the past 20 years money has been choked off from the system to educate our children. There are more and more unfunded mandates that require budget cuts.

Local districts have already had to go through tremendous cuts and changes and folks wonder why the systems are struggling. Some are a little better than others, but no district can take many more hits.

Take a minute think this over but above all else be educated on the topics.

Thanks for allowing me to ramble.

And so, for another week, thanks and thirty.