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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 25, 2000)
Student performance may decide teachers’ pay ■ Measure 95 would require schools to gauge learning — but it doesn’t say how Lindsay Buchele For the Emerald Ballot Measure 95 is making teachers across Oregon sweat. The measure, designed to base teachers’ salaries on the perform ance of their students, will poten tially threaten job security and cre ate competition between teachers, Oregon Parent Teacher Association President Kathryn Firestone said. Supported by Bill Sizemore of Oregon Taxpayers United, Measure 95 will require student learning, not seniority, to determine teacher pay. Oregon currently has the “Fair Dismissal Law,” a law designed to protect teachers from being unfair ly fired. Seniority plays no part in a teacher’s employability, Ted Heid, head of the human resource depart ment for Eugene’s 4J School Dis trict, said. Oregon Taxpayers United argues that seniority does exist and is keeping unqualified teachers em ployed. They suggest that teachers’ unions are working to keep teach ers employed through seniority so the unions have more power. “From the moment teachers’ unions have been in existence they have been focused on keeping teachers employed because of sen iority,” chief petitioner for Measure 95 and Oregon Taxpayers United employee Becky Miller said. “Since then, student learning has gone down.” It is assumed that student per formance will be tested through standardized tests given at the be ginning and the end of the school year, Firestone said. Those oppos ing the measure, such as Firestone, feel the testing will be inaccurate. “Standardized testing is not a reasonable evaluation,” Firestone said. “To most kids, tests mean nothing.” The measure does not specify how student learning will be deter mined. In fact, such details have been purposely left out of the meas ure so that each school district can determine its own form of measure ment, Miller said. Firestone feels the likely means for evaluation will be standardized tests, however, and all students, re gardless of level, will suffer. “I’ve had a number of parents come to me and tell me their kids just don’t test well,” Firestone said. “Also, for those kids in special edu cation classes, a good day is when they don’t lash out at a fellow class mate. No test can show progress like this.” Miller argued the measure de fines job performance as the degree to which the appropriate knowl edge is learned. “Students will be measured on what they are expected to learn,” Miller said. “Children in special education classes will not be ex pected to meet the same criteria that, say, a child from another school is expected to learn.” Oregon Taxpayers United also ar gues schools will end up with the best teachers thanks to the results of the student evaluations. Firestone disagrees, saying if teachers are fired because of their students’ performances, they will start to compete with other teach ers for high-level classes. “Teachers will only want to teach the AP [Advanced Place ment] and honors level classes so that their students do well,” Fire stone said. Miller feels that rather than com peting for jobs, teachers will be more likely to request better mate rials and resources to help students learn better. Both organizations feel parents should play an active part in the process, whether or not the meas ure is passed. Measure tells Legislature ‘hands off ■ Measure 96 would stop state lawmakers from making the initiative process more difficult By Clayton Cone For the Emerald Becky Miller, treasurer of Oregon Taxpayers United, the sponsor of Ballot Measure 96, said her organi zation aims to bring parity to the way the initiative process is amend ed, but opponents of Measure 96 worry that it would unnecessarily bind the Oregon Legislature. “It’s our process, not [the legisla tors’]. It shouldn’t be so easy for them to propose change,” Miller said. If Measure 96 passes, the Legisla ture would be barred from making it harder for initiatives to reach the ballot. Such constraints could in clude increasing the number of sig natures required to place an initia tive on the ballot or imposing geographical restrictions on signa tures. In addition, the Legislature could refer no constitutional amendment to the voters that limits change of the Oregon Constitution by initiative. Supporters say the measure would even the playing field, but opponents warn it would make le gal fine tuning of the initiative process extremely difficult. As the law now stands, the Legis lature may conduct hearings and draft bills on the initiative process and refer them to the electorate for a vote. But this option would be elim inated if Ballot Measure 96 passes. Former Oregon governor and for mer secretary of state Barbara Roberts said Ballot Measure 96 would overly restrict change of the initiative petition process. “I believe it ought to be like any d Legislators are constantly attacking the [initiative] process because it threatens their power, and we need a strong constitutional protection for that. Becky Miller Oregon Taxpayers United » other legal process, subject to some occasional examination,” she said. The proposed changes would make routine fine-tuning too costly and time-consuming, she said. Politicians do take part in the ini Restricting fund raising ■ Measure 98 may put student political activities on the University campus at risk By Anna Seeley For the Emerald The goal of Measure 98 is to pro hibit the use of public resources to collect or help collect political funds. Opponents say the measure is vaguely worded and would affect more than just a public employee’s paycheck: It would affect the activi ties and voices of the University student body as well. If passed, Measure 98 would pro hibit the use of public resources for political purposes. Public re sources include public monies, public employee time, public buildings and public equipment and supplies. Because the build ings on campus are public, they could potentially no longer be used for political purposes. Sean Smith, campaign spokesman for the committee against Measure 98, said the Uni versity would be at a loss if the measure is passed. He said it would affect many student groups, includ ing the LGBTA and Students for Choice, by not allowing them to use any of the University’s build ings to hold meetings or plan activ ities. “Any [group or activity] deemed political would be illegal on cam pus,” Smith said. “You couldn’t even send an e-mail to your repre sentative using campus e-mail. Stu dents would be negatively impact ed by this measure.” But Becky Miller, executive as sistant for Oregon Taxpayers Unit ed, said Measure 98 was written to stop certain groups from raising po litical funds on taxpayers’ dollars and would not affect the University at all. “Public workers are having money taken from them without their consent,” Miller said. “Unless the group is using the facility to raise money, it wouldn’t affect them, and that is even a stretch of the law.” Melissa Unger, legislative organ izer for the ASUO, said how the University is impacted would de pend on how the measure plays out in the courts. She was not able to give her opinion on the measure, but did say it could significantly af fect students. “The scope of it is unclear,” Unger said, “but it would limit the student voice drastically.” tiative process, as Gov.. John Kitzhaber did to get Measure 1 on the Nov. 7 ballot. Total costs to do so amounted to approximately $250,000, said Becca Uherbelau, who is managing the Measure 1 campaign on behalf of the governor. A majority of those costs — $180,000—went toward paying for signature gathering at a rate of $1.55 per signature, she said. Legislators are able to put propos als for change in the initiative process before voters “with the stroke of a pen,” Miller said, yet her organization must put out “a year’s worth of work and a couple hun dred thousand dollars and gather 130,000 signatures” to do the same. If Measure 96 passes and legisla tors later wish to make it harder to get an initiative on the ballot, they would need to start an initiative pe tition themselves and gather the necessary signatures. “Legislators are constantly at tacking the [initiative] process be cause it threatens their power, and we need a strong constitutional pro tection for that,” Miller said. The initiative process perks up government, she said. “We have a much more exciting and involved system of government in Oregon than in many parts of the country because of the initiative process,” she said. Body-grip traps targeted ■ Measure 97aims to ensure the use of methods other than traps to control predatory animals By Andrew Adams Oregon Daily Emerald Measure 97 would prohibit the use of steel-jaw leghold traps and other traps commonly used to cap ture mammals. It would also make the sale, purchase and exchange of raw fur obtained through the use of such traps illegal and the use of poi sons sodium fluoroacetate and sodium cyanide illegal. The measure would, however, allow for special use permits from the state department of fish and wildlife for padded jaw traps and non-strangling foot snares for dealing with pests, if a landowner could successfully prove that he or she had tried alternatives meth ods of pest control. Supporters of the measure, how ever, have a hard time acknowledg ing there is any use for traps. Kelly Peterson, campaign man ager for the measure, said that many animals suffer for days after being caught in traps before dying from starvation or escaping after chewing off their own limbs. She said farmers and ranchers should look to alternative methods, such as electric fencing and territo rial animals, including dogs and llamas, to keep predators at bay. “Sometimes there are legiti mate reasons for traps, but we’re trying to make it a last resort rather than a first response,” she said. Andy Anderson, executive vice president of the Oregon Farm Bu reau, a farmers’ advocacy group that is opposed to Measure 97, said the main reason his group opposes the measure is that it would hinder state farmers’ ability to protect crops from damaging pests drat kill livestock, eat crops or tunnel be neath crop fields and into irrigation ditches. He also found fault with what he said was the measure’s vague wording that prohibited all “body gripping” devices, which he said could be used by animal ac tivists to outlaw many essential tools of the livestock industry like squeeze chutes, head gates and even lariats. “While the proponents are say ing it isn’t their intent,” he said, “our lawyers tell us they think they could make it stick.” Anderson said agriculture is a tough business to make money in, and Measure 97 would only make it tougher because it would put in place a bureaucratic rigmarole that would make it hard for farm ers to deal with pests. He also said that while the de partment can’t make an official stand, he has heard from Depart ment of Fish and Wildlife workers that Measure 97 would limit the department’s ability to manage state lands. Measure 86 would up the stakes of kicker law to the constitution ■ If passed, Measure 86 would give constitutional protection to Oregon’s tax refunds By Jeff DeMoss For the Emerald If Ballot Measure 86 passes, Oregon taxpayers will be more likely to receive tax refunds from the state’s “kicker” law. Under the current “kicker” law, any state revenue that exceeds state estimates by more than 2 per cent at the end of each two-year period must be returned to busi nesses and individual income tax payers. However, the state Legisla ture can withhold the extra funds for state programs and budget bal ancing with a three-fifths majority vote. This year, the Legislative Rev enue Office estimates the kicker to constitute $282 million for per sonal taxpayers and $34 million for corporations. Measure 86 would elevate the kicker law from a statute to a con stitutional amendment, meaning that a vote of the people would be required to repeal it rather than just a majority vote in the legisla ture. It would also make it more dif ficult for the government to with hold the kicker for state programs like education, requiring a two thirds vote in the Legislature in stead of three-fifths. The kicker has been returned in full to taxpayers every year since 1993, but has been partially used to fund state programs in the past. Some officials, including David Piercy, deputy superintendent for the Eugene 4J School District, are concerned the passage of Measure 86 would make it harder to obtain kicker funds for education. “The impact of Measure 86 on education is not as direct as that of some of the other measures because it does not specifically decrease ed ucation funding,” Piercy said. “But it reduces the flexibility of the leg islature in appropriating kicker money for state programs.” Bob Bruce, spokesman for the Oregon University System, also questions giving the kicker consti tutional protection. “The kicker is normally not like ly to go towards education anyway, but Measure 86 makes that possibil ity even more remote,” Bruce said. “Oregon schools may need that ex tra boost in the future.” But others say Measure 86 will help ensure government account ability and secure money that should belong to taxpayers and companies in the first place. Brian J. Boquist, director of the North In dian Creek Ranch, ICI Cattle & Timber Co., says the measure is a sensible way to hold spending by elected officials in check. “The people of Oregon have sup ported the kicker because it returns money to them that is rightfully theirs,” Boquist said, “and I believe they will continue to do so.”
