The One-Handed Economist

I was going to post about the content of this piece in today’s Express-News, but I can’t even force myself to read the whole thing. It’s about a possible voucher program for special-ed kids, which seems like a damn fine idea, but I’m not here to talk about that. I’m here to talk about why in the name of everything holy the author is even employed. Let’s examine the introduction to the story, the first three paragraphs:

Anna Marabella’s classroom is the most expensive to operate at Redland Oaks Elementary.

A dividing wall cuts her space into two classrooms. Working with the students are Marabella — a veteran teacher certified in special education — and three teacher assistants. At least twice a week, a speech therapist visits. An occupational therapist also pays regular visits.

All of this — and more — for six students.

That hurts me deep inside, like a knife wound. “Teacher assistants?” And this woman is allowed to write professionally? The whole thing sounds like it was written by a semi-literate fifth grader. The first sentence of the second paragraph is not only a complete mess, quite a feat for nine words, but also utterly superfluous. There is absolutely no need for that sentence, none! It doesn’t tell you anything important and it’s badly written. The whole thing is choppy, disorganized, and utterly obnoxious to read. This is what passes for professionalism here? No wonder nobody at work can understand simple, written instructions. My rewrite below the break.

Anna Marabella’s special education classroom is Redland Oaks Elementary’s most expensive annually. In addition to Marabella and three teaching assistants, the six students receive biweekly visits from a speech therapist and regular help from an occupational therapist.

Sure, it could probably be better, but notice that it’s one paragraph instead of three, omits things that don’t need to be in the lead, and cuts the word count from 63 to 37. Sure, the introduction still has little to nothing to do with the actual bill being proposed, but that’s to be expected from pretty much any news story about politics.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 26th, 2007 at 3:36 pm and is filed under Nerdity, Local, Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.