At a recent public input session at East Wake High School, a whopping 15 parents turned out to listen to school officials explain the latest in a dizzying series of philosophies intended to redesign the way students are assigned to public schools in Wake County.

That lackluster turnout followed a similar meeting last year in Knightdale in which a similarly small crowd walked through the door to hear from school officials on the matter.

And, yet we complain often that elected officials and the people they hire to run the government aren't listening to us.

It becomes a more difficult argument to make with each poorly attended opportunity.

Meanwhile in the western part of Wake County, large crowds squeeze through the door at these kinds of meetings to express their feelings and get answers to their questions.

And so we sit here in eastern Wake County and bemoan this statistic and that test score and we wonder why the folks at the county level aren't doing more to address disparities in eastern Wake County.

Hmmm. Perhaps its because we aren't willing to advocate for ourselves.

The efforts of the Knightdale 100 notwithstanding, there's no real groundswell of concern on the part of eastern Wake County parents or businesspeople about the actions and the direction of our school system.

You better bet the squeaky wheel gets the grease. And as long as school leaders are hearing in both ears from people in Cary, Apex and Morrisville about what they want to see in this school system, we better all understand that's where the school system's attention will be diverted.

We get the government we deserve.