Numbers

I was going to entitle this post “Speechless”.  But that seemed totally ridiculous.  If you have read any of my blogs, I am absolutely sure you doubt I can ever be rendered speechless.  In fact, my husband wondered if my last two posts would be rejected because of length.  Thank goodness it doesn’t work like texting.  Because some things, like the books I shared, just have so much to offer as food for thought; substantive food, at that.  In my defense, you’ll see how the following news item was disappointing enough to make me momentarily lose touch with reality and THINK I was going to be speechless.

The North Carolina legislature is having hearings in order to decide which of 3 residential schools for the deaf and blind to close, due to budget constraints.  To quote dailytarheel.com, “The recently passed State appropriations bill mandates the State close one of those 3 schools because they no longer meet the needs of visually impaired and hard of hearing populations in an effective manner.”  My first reaction was NOT to pause and ask questions.  Think disbelief, aggravation and disgust.  That pretty well sums up my immediate reaction.  Why kids?  Why does something good have to be taken away from  kids?  Isn’t there anywhere else the budget can be cut?  Really?! 

However, I’ve now backed up and reminded myself of something important.  Just like I had to do with the Supreme Court decision Snyder vs. Phelps regarding the Westboro Baptist Church, I had to get the facts.  (Why is it so hard to remember to take my own advice?  Wonder if anyone else finds that as difficult to do as I?)  So online I went.  My questions were:

1)     What are the exact figures?  What are the annual costs of each of the 3 schools? 

2)     What would be the annual cost for a public school to accommodate the students of the school ultimately closed? 

3)     What, exactly, does “an effective manner” mean? 

4)     How is “effective manner” measured, whether referring to the services provided in these residential schools or in public school? 

5)     Who does the measuring?  Educators well experienced in, and specializing in working with deaf/blind students or policy makers?  Or both, working jointly?  You know, those evidently impossible, and for all intents and purposes, currently non-existent human interactions called cooperation and compromise?

You get my point.

I have not found any of the answers.  I intend to try and get them.  Now, please hang on to this thought about the schools for the disabled for a minute.  Let me go back a few years and fill you in on how I learned to “get the numbers”.

He was REALLY irritated.  That wasn’t too unusual, but, unfortunately for me, guess where that anger was directed?  I had been stupid enough to dare ask about a number.  I was on a committee to investigate and give input on various educational programs.  The assumed head of the committee, who also happened to be the boss of all of us around the table, had mentioned a dollar figure we paid (He definitely used past tense.) for an additional program.  I looked around the table.  All blank faces.  (Does everybody else remember our agreeing to spend the money?  I sure don’t!) I waited.  No one spoke up.  Being, at that point in life, still always naïve about such mean-spirited people, I speak up.  I’m sorry, I just don’t remember our deciding about that expense.  So where does that leave us with respect to monies still available?  At just the time his face was flushing red from anger, my friend Randy speaks up.  I don’t either.  Then my friend Elaine.  I guess I don’t either.  With difficulty, but real effort, because he was, to his credit, trying to suppress his annoyance, he explains that he had been speaking about the dollar figure we would have to spend, if the program weren’t part of a great package he thought we should consider.  (Run that by me one more time?)  He was just using that past tense because in his mind it was a done deal.  The rest of us had not caught on to the fact that it was a pretend committee.  (What were we thinking?  We really should have known.) 

That experience taught me how easily numbers can be manipulated, taken out of context, whatever, to get a desired result, for good or bad.   I knew words can be taken out of context, and thereby either change their meaning entirely, or give a different, but important, change in nuance.   Now I knew numbers can be likewise used; perhaps even more so.  I sometimes wonder how many numbers we use in life can really stand alone and yet represent accurate and complete truth.  A last example, if it is okay; one to which we all might more easily relate.  I tore something in my back.  At the time, the medical person gave my blood pressure as 140 over something.  Since my blood pressure is always slightly low or just about perfect, 140 was, for me, very high.  The medical professional needed to know what the 140 figure meant as it related to me personally.  Because, for someone else, 140 might be closer to his/her normal pressure.  He explained the 140 was a result of pain.  (I did not know that happened!)  Just as most plays need supporting actors, so do numbers. 

My point?  First, to have truthful and beneficial communication, the kind that will lead to efficient and productive action, requires numbers.  A lot of confusion, frustration, and wasted time can be avoided, if we start demanding the context for any numbers cited, whether given to prove a point or to encourage a certain response/action.  And if not provided, it’s unwise to react as I did this time.  A better course of action is to search out the context.  (Hope I remember my own advice next time!)  When necessary, Allan and I use several sites that are committed to unbiased fact checking.  Secondly, I’d like to think no decision that dramatically affects the lives of human beings (especially children) is made without the full “number context”.  To my way of thinking, in addition to the numbers and context of the problem, the same should be provided for any alternative solution being put forth.  Difficult decisions might be easier to accept given such an approach.  And maybe better solutions will become apparent.   At the very least, there might be a lot less enmity.  Don’t forget.  I’m an idealist who struggles to be more of a realist.  But boy, would I like to see some overlap of my idealism with reality!

By way of showing I do TRY to do what I’m “preaching” about on a consistent basis, I did get numbers for the assertion I made in “Back To The Future?” regarding the number of slave owners.  I said, “For what percentage of white men in the combined states have we allowed the subject of slavery to become an issue?  And to what percentage of our population, claimed by us to be equal, would we be denying representation?  No man can say that the number benefiting from allowing the continuation of slavery represents ‘large districts of people’.  Rather, if we include slaves, the percentage unrepresented would be vastly greater than those for whom we are willing to set aside our worthy aspirations.”  I should have given the numbers on which I based saying one number was not only greater than another, but vastly greater.   (Shame on me!  Or, as Malik, my trainer at the Y says, “My bad!”.)  Here they are.  I read some of the actual 1860 census report on the http://www.census.gov/ site and compared the numbers with Wikipedia.  In some cases the numbers varied slightly.  I’ll give both.  The 1860 (eighth US) census showed:

ü     US population was determined to be 31,443,321

ü     4 million slaves lived in the US  (Wikipedia said 3,953,761)

ü     This was increased from 700,000 in 1790

ü     Slaves made up a full 1/3 of the Southern population  (Wikipedia)

ü     393,975 individuals, or 8% of all US families, owned 3,950,528 slaves (The 3,950,528 was a Wikipedia number that differed from the one above, second check mark.)