That old saying succinctly expresses what reporters look for.

Sure, they'll tell you when a dog bites a person. That happens from time to time.

They'll also tell you when elected officials debate tax increases, and when someone inevitably objects.

Daily Mail education reporter Dave Boucher wrote about a far less predictable turn of events: Some Kanawha County residents are circulating petitions calling for an increase in taxes.

No kidding.

They want the school board to remove the cap on the excess levy, a chunk of property tax bills that generates a sizeable portion of the public school budget.

Removal of the cap - which was proposed by the five-member elected school board and approved by voters just last spring - would generate another $20 million a year.

And this iteration of the excess levy will be in place for five years, so we're talking about $100 million over that period.

School board member Pete Thaw was dismissive of this unusual push by some of his constituents. He referred to the proponents as "doctors and lawyers."

That may accurately describe some in the group. High earners. Sniff. Who cares?

They do, about the quality of their children's education.

They are stirred by the school board's proposals for dealing with crowding at John Adams Middle School and George Washington High School. Nothing is settled, but the board may reconfigure attendance areas so some children would go to South Charleston instead.

These parents know that standardized test scores are highest in South Hills, that GW has the widest array of Advanced Placement classes, that it typically produces more National Merit scholars than the county's other high schools.

Are they wrong to want their children to go there?

My own children, now grown, went to South Hills schools and received outstanding preparation that led to success in college.

When they were young and we were shopping for a house, my husband, like the parents involved in the petition drive, sized up the situation. He would look in no other attendance area.

In hindsight I realize our kids would have thrived in nearly any of the county's schools. It was our own emphasis on education that started them on the right academic path. Our choice of a school district was just one aspect of that emphasis.

But that is hindsight. I am sympathetic to the cause of parents who want the best for their children. These are the kind of people who make schools work, and they aren't all wealthy.

A major problem in public schools today is parents who don't value education.

At some schools, staff members are working hard to get students to show up at all.

Four schools in Kanawha County have full-time attendance officers who call homes in the morning to wake up parents and urge them to get their kids dressed and out the door.

If the youngsters will just come, the school will even feed them before proceeding to teach.

If I could turn back the clock, I would reinstate the public schools of my youth. That was before the era of publicized test scores, and student bodies were true cross sections of the community.

I mixed with kids from families a lot poorer and a lot richer than my own. It was as valuable a part of my education as the academics.

Now many schools are stratified, with students from certain demographic layers of the community. While schools receive public funding based on the number of students, such demographics make a huge difference.

The petitioning parents face an uphill battle in getting the rest of the county to swallow higher taxes. Their goal is money for construction of an addition to John Adams, but to sell a tax hike, they would have to market projects that would appeal to voters across the county.

It would be a difficult, time-consuming effort - impossible if the school board didn't buy in.

But let's imagine that man does bite dog.

If these motivated parents could pull off this unlikely initiative, and in the process demonstrate why they believe so fiercely in education, who knows what might happen?