PPS Equity gone wild

March 31, 2009 7:50 pm by Steve Rawley

Since this Web site was launched a little over a year ago, it’s had a small but dedicated following, and the list of contributors keeps growing, little by little.

Then, this month, something happened. Due to a combination of factors, traffic for the month of March is suddenly more than double the previous monthly average, and comments — many from new readers — are through the roof.

Props to long-time contributor Peter Campbell for sparking things up in the comments department with his thought-provoking posts, and to new contributor Stephanie Hunter for shining a light on the frequently-overlooked inequities faced by PPS students on IEPs.

I am not an educator or a journalist, just a socially-conscious, politically-active parent. I publish this Web site because I can, and because I feel a moral responsibility to speak out about injustice when I see it. But without reader participation, it would be nothing but a lone voice in the wilderness.

The civility of the dialog here, and the level of intelligence, expertise and critical thinking you all share puts other local blogs and media outlets to shame. I am truly humbled by this (even a little proud).

There have been just 16 blog posts this month, and over 350 comments. That’s 25% of all comments posted here in the 14 months this site has been live. I’ve taken a few steps back recently to spend more time with my family, so it’s gratifying to see this thing take on a life of its own. I own the server, but nobody can own the community dialog that’s taking place on it.

It’s gotten to the point that I can barely keep up (I do have a day job!). In order to make the comments easier to follow, I’ve added a comments page, listing the most recent 100 comments, as well as some statistics. I also plan to implement some other features soon to make discussions easier to follow, e.g. comment threading (and perhaps automatic quoting, etc.).

If you have any suggestions for making this site more useful, I’m all ears. And as always, I welcome new contributors. Drop an e-mail to steve at ppsequity dot org if you’d like to join the ranks of writers here.

Steve Rawley published PPS Equity from 2008 to 2010, when he moved his family out of the district.

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