A negotiations story in Citizensvoice.com at the Wilkes-Barre Area Career and Technology Center has something all too rare: a link to the proposals from both the board and the union. According to the news article, the data came from the district, which the paper check for accuracy with the union.

The newspaper and the reporter deserve credit for including this. Unfortunately, it’s pretty hard to understand. What is the average person to make of an entry like “Column Adjustment,” followed by a bunch of numbers? It refers to a salary schedule that displays salary increases based on seniority and graduate credits earned, but many readers may not even know what it’s about. In any case, without the proposed schedules themselves, this gives no useful information.

The commendable effort of the newspaper to compare the proposals of both sides only emphasizes why we need clear, accurate ways to do that.