Monday
Editor in chief: Jack Clifford
Managing Editor: Jessica Blanchard
Newsroom: (541) 346-5511
Room 300, Erb Memorial Union
P.O. box 3159, Eugene, OR 97403
E-mail: ode@oregon.uoregon.edu
EDITORIAL EDITOR: MICHAEL J. KLECKNER opededitor@journalist.com
Many factors to weigh in the better-school equation
Public schools in Oregon
need a change. It seems
many Oregonians feel this
way, because there are
two measures on the November
ballot specifically addressing
schools. We've all experienced or
heard about bad teachers, and we
know of good teachers as well,
but the system needs a shake-up.
The question is, what sort of
shake-up? We'd prefer moving
away from standardized tests and
the demand for quality without
funding, and instead focus on the
ability of students to think and
learn, and the innovation and ex
pertise of teachers who are well
trained, well-paid and monitored
for performance.
Measure 1 makes the Legisla
ture provide funding for any
school quality goals they estab
lish, and we think this is a wise
step. High quality schools and
teacners require a little more
money. Our students deserve the
very best teachers, devoted to
their task. The next generation is
our most valuable resource, and
spending on schools yields less
crime, lower law enforce
ment costs and a better
dLuuumy.
Measure 95 is more
contentious. The law
would provide a shake
up by basing teachers'
pay on job performance,
instead of the current sys
tem, wmch gives teachers
raises for seniority and for
continuing education. This
is a worthy goal, but how job
performance is defined and
how much teachers are cur- i
rently paid must be consid- (
ered. And Measure 95 does
exactly what Measure 1
wants to prevent: It sets a
school quality goal, but pro
vides no money to achieve it.
The state estimates Measure
95 will cost public schools $46
million in the first three years.
That money could be spent on
education rather than stan
dardized testing.
Measure 95 doesn't specify
how to judge teachers perform
ance, but Oregon is fond of stan
dardized testing, which is used
for the school report cards. Using
these tests to measure a teacher’s
performance would be just plain
wrong. Standardized tests only
reflect a student's abilities at one
moment, they don’t take into ac
count cultural and economic fac
tors and they don't reflect the
classroom environment in which
teachers must work. Under Mea
sure 95, what will happen to
teachers in communities with a
high percentage of students with
family, economic or behavioral
problems? Teachers won’t want to
work in those communities and
they'll be unfairly punished for
problems beyond their control.
The measure might motivate
teachers to work harder with the
problem students in order to bring
test scores up. But a heavy reliance
uu sianuaruizea resis generally
makes teachers teach to the tests,
which means children's education
is limited to a very narrow set of
facts and exercises. In that setting,
teachers don't have extra time to
focus on the disadvantaged stu
dents, and they don't have time to
worry about teaching kids to
think. Pounding a specific list of
facts into a child's head doesn't
necessarily result in an educated
student. Teaching kids takes time,
money and a more complicated
and subtle evaluation process than
a multiple-choice exam. And for
real motivation, why not give
bonuses to teachers who go above
and beyond the call of duty?
Teaching is the most valuable
service we can provide for the fu
ture. Teachers should be paid
more, and they should be held to a
high standard of excellence. But
the teachers' union in Oregon
seems to have a knee-jerk reaction
to any proposal to monitor or base
pay on teacher performance.
Maybe this resistance comes be
cause teachers are paid so little.
is $40,582 — and this is with at
least a bachelor’s degree. If Ameri
cans value the education of their
children, they should be willing to
pay a premium for good teachers,
especially if stringent performance
standards are enacted.
But the union might simply be
unwilling to allow serious evalua
tion of teachers, and it needs to
lower that wall. Pay should be tied
to performance — as well as edu
cation, training, skills and past
performance — if that perform
ance can be measured adequately.
There are many factors in the
better-school equation, however. If
we had a simultaneous commit
ment from parents to be more in
volved in their children's schools,
from unions to be open to new
ways of thinking about teacher
salaries, from teachers to
re-evalu
ate _ — _
their teaching methods, from the
taxpayers to provide enough fund
ing so that the best and the bright
est choose a teaching career, and
from the Legislature to ensure that
the methods of evaluating teachers
and students actually reflect learn
ing, then we would really be shak
ing up the system.
Measure 95 gives teachers some
tough challenges, but it doesn't
provide the right solutions. Mea
sure 1, on the other hand, is mov
ing in the right direction by requir
ing the Legislature to provide
money when they demand quality.
Vote yes on Measure 1 and no on
Measure 95.
This editorial represents the opinion of
the Emerald editorial board. Responses
can be sent to ode@oregon.uoregon.edu
According to the Oregon School
Boards Association, the aver
age salary in Oregon is
$37,403, and the na
tional average
WHAT IS THAT\
NOISE!!! )
_-*""1/
Giovanni Salimena Emerald
P»s>
A historical interpretation of the Second Amendment
SENSIBLE
PAT PAYNE
A well-regulated militia,
being necessary for the
security of a free state,
the right to keep and
bear arms shall not be abridged.”
Of all the words that our founding
fathers inscribed in 1787, these
twenty-four may have been the
worst chosen. This is the Second
Amendment to the Constitution.
When you read a law, it’s not
enough to understand just what
the individual words mean: That’s
why the National Rifle Associa
tion cites only the second half of
the amendment. You also have to
read for context: When was the
law written r What was the state of
the nation? The world? What were
the particular viewpoints of the
writers? What had recent history
taught them?
Pro-gun advocates, in particu
lar, read the Second Amendment
to the Constitution as if it were
written in a vacuum, like it was a
gift to future ages written by infal
lible men. It wasn’t. The founding
fathers were writing from their ex
periences fighting in the Ameri
can Revolution.
The founders were wary of
standing armies. Great Britain had
sent troops to fight in the Seven
Years War against the French in
Quebec. The war left England in
debted, so the king decided the
colonists could be taxed for their
share. When Bostoninans refused
to pay taxes to a government in
which they had no say, British
troops were sent to occupy it.
There, the soldiers stole, drank
heavily, demanded quartering
from private citizens and fought
with the colonists, culminating in
the Boston Massacre in 1770.
The Continental Army was a
force formed solely for revolution.
The citizen recruits brought their
own weapons to fight with. They
had drilled to handle these
weapons safely and knew how to
care for them. The Continental
Army was dissolved in 1783. It
was thought that a civilian militia,
made up of part-time soldiers,
would be all that the nation need
ed to resist an invasion.
This is why the Second Amend
ment was written the way it was.
In effect, the founders stated: We
will give you the right to bear
arms. In exchange, you will aid
the government in wartime by
fighting for the national defense.
This system worked well at
first. However, the British at
tacked the United States again in
1812, and the system broke down.
The troops fell before a battle
hardened and well-equipped
British force. The British almost
won the war and would have con
quered the United States if not for
Napoleon’s return in 1814. After
the conflict, the citizen militias
were scrapped and a new United
States Army formed in its place.
As it is, the Second Amend
ment should have been declared
null and void at this time, when
there was no longer a call for “a
well-regulated militia.”
Furthermore, the founding fa
thers had no conception of techno
logical advances in the centuries to
come. There had been only one rap
id-firing weapon by 1750 (James
Puckle’s multi-barreled musket of
1709 was pitched as an anti-board
ing weapon for the Royal Navy — it
was rejected). It wouldn’t be until
the Civil War in the 1860s and the
advent of Gatling’s gun that rapid
fire weapons came to the battle
front. Simply put, in the days that
the founders were writing the Bill
of Rights, there were no differences
between civilian and military
firearms. Today, anyone can distin
guish between a Winchester hunt
ing rifle and a Kalashnikov AK-47
assault rifle. But how do you fore
see something that won’t exist for
200 years? Would they have ap
proved of the average citizen own
ing an AK-47? I don’t think so.
Therefore, here’s a strict interpre
tation of the amendment as it
should be today: You have the right
to bear a single-shot, lead-ball,
muzzle-loading, black-powder,
flint-lock rifle to use as part of a cit
izen militia in defense of the nation
... but since citizen militias don’t
exist anymore (and those tanked
up rednecks in Michigan and Mon
tana don’t count), you really don’t
have that right at all.
Pat Payne is a columnist for the Oregon
Daily Emerald. His views do not necessari
ly represent those of the Emerald. He can
be reached at Macross_SD@hotmail.com.