Eugene weekly., September 29, 2011, Page 7, Image 7

letters
TO THE EDITOR
the “Peace Party” he proposes is more
“Peace” Party, with “peace” being a shift
from large scale ground wars to more
economical drone strikes and special
operations-driven occupations. Of course,
Hayden predicts, there will be an argument
“over the question of whether special
operations and drone attacks are effective,
moral and consistent with the standards of
a constitutional democracy,” but is there
any real doubt how that argument will
end?
The notion of Obama declaring a
“trillion dollar peace dividend” which he
will then (why worry over constitutional
authority mid-fantasy?) “transfer ... to
energy conservation and America’s state
and local crises,” is nonsense rooted in the
durability of “9/11 Blindness.” The myth
of 9/11 has established the premises of the
game, and as long as you play their game,
you’re never going to win.
Tim Shaw
Eugene
MARKETABLE SKILLS
In response to the president’s urging of
citizens to share their ideas for improving
our economy, I offer a modest proposal for
addressing the high level of unemployment
among young people and especially young
people who are part of the minority
community where the unemployment
rate is double the 9 percent rate for the
workforce as a whole.
As a recipient of a Fulbright, I taught
economics during the 1983-84 academic
year at a college in England. At that time
the British government was trying to deal
with a similar high unemployment rate
facing young people here in the U.S.
Briefl y, the concept of their plan
was to take such people off the dole by
dealing with what we in economics call
structural unemployment. This means
that many young people lacked the needed
marketable skills and job experience to be
employed by businesses. The plan they
used could be used here and was simply
to have the government pay a percentage
The Class War from Above
of their wages if business would agree to
hire them for two years and give them a
day off to attend the British Colleges of
Higher Education such as the one at which
I taught monetary economics to such
banking students. The theory was that at
the end of two years the students would
have marketable skills and two years of
work experience.
I think that if it worked there, it should
be considered here.
G. Dennis Shine
Springfi eld
SUPPORT FOR JOBS
As a lifelong Democrat, I was surprised
to read of Congressman Peter DeFazio’s
belief that support for President Obama is
waning in the 4th congressional district.
Please allow me to share some good
reasons for my strong support for Obama:
1) Obamacare. Although some people
don’t understand what will happen in the
next few years, the result will be more,
not less, medically insured Americans.
Warehousing kids in our public schools
f you want to see the future of education,
head to the nearby town of Lowell. Lowell’s
elementary school has 20 to 30 kids per grade
and, until this year, one teacher per grade. But over
the summer, Lowell fi red half its teachers, so now
the remaining three are teaching two grades each.
Each pair of classrooms is separated by a 12 ft. wide
storeroom, with new “windows” cut into both its
walls. Teachers are supposed to lead one class while
peering through the holes in the walls to keep an
eye on the rest of their charges, two rooms away.
The teacher-less room is staffed by an educational
assistant — doubtless dedicated, but not certifi ed,
nor even required to have a college degree.
The Lowell windows are probably illegal. Oregon
law mandates a minimum number of instructional
hours for each student. Since you can’t really teach
by peeking through holes in the walls, Lowell may be
violating state law, cheating its students of half the
instruction time they’re entitled to.
But the worst crime is having kids literally
warehoused for half the day, trying to get attention
or ask a question of someone who is running
between rooms managing 50 to 60 kids. In Portland,
where elementary schools face up to 30 kids per
class, teachers say they’re cutting back on writing
assignments, grading only some homework, and
demonstrating science experiments instead of
giving kids hands-on experience. And everywhere,
bigger classes mean less individual attention, more
behavioral problems, and more kids falling behind.
How much worse will it be in Lowell, where the
student-teacher ratio is now double that of Portland?
In nearby McKenzie, teachers are offering to
forego cost-of-living adjustments and take seven
furlough days — amounting to a 4 percent pay-cut
— in order to free up enough money to reinstate one
teaching position. All they’re asking is to keep their
health insurance payments unchanged; teachers
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BY GORDON LAFER
Child Neglect
I
This will be a very good event for all of
us. 2) The wind down of the wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan. Both of these wars
are now unnecessary and a drain on
resources both human and fi nancial that
we need elsewhere. 3) Employment. I am
a professor at a local private college and
personally observe how much struggle
my students engage in to fi nd a job after
graduation. Obama is the highest ranking
federal politician who has publicly
announced and supported a jobs program
at the federal level that will bring a rising
tide that will cause everyone’s boat to rise.
For these and many other reasons, Obama
deserves reelection.
Gerry Merritt
Eugene
now pay up to $6,600 per year for insurance, and
the district wants to add another $800 on top of
that. The total cost of the teachers’ proposal is
$11,000. But the district is playing hardball. “The
district has repeatedly told us that they refuse to
bring back the cut teaching hours unless we pay an
additional $11,000 in insurance premiums,” explains
teacher and union President Lane Tompkins. “Even
when we offered to compromise, they refused.”
The ultimate source of budget problems are
Republicans in Salem who insist it’s preferable to
have crowded schools than to take back any of the
generous tax cuts for the rich.
Yet there always seems to be enough money for
those at the top. According to the Confederation
of Oregon School Administrators, McKenzie
Superintendent Sally Storm’s salary is the second-
highest of any small district superintendent, at
$117,000. Storm says she deserves the pay because
she doubles as high school principal; but a majority
of comparable districts have no high school principal.
Moreover, Storm recently created a “dean of students”
position that assumed much of the principal’s duties
— yet her pay did not decrease when that position
was established. And while demanding teachers pay
more for their insurance, Storm doesn’t pay a dime
for hers. Storm could solve the entire district problem
by reducing her salary to a mere $105,000 — still with
free health insurance! It’s to avoid this unbearable
fate that Storm is threatening to force McKenzie kids
into larger classes with fewer teachers.
To get quality administrators, we’re told, we need
to pay top dollar. What then, do we need to do to get
quality teachers?
Ooh – I know! Me in the back, with the Perry 2012
T-shirt! The way to ensure quality education is to cut
teachers’ salaries and remind them they can be fi red
at any time. Is that right?
No, moron, that’s not right.
Those opposed to teachers’ unions always want us
to remember our worst experiences. Did I have shitty
teachers I wished could have been fi red? Sure. Mr.
Bullock, eighth grade shop class. Asshole. Miss Lee,
fourth grade fascist. The condescending biology guy
who ridiculed slow kids. But if the principals could
have chosen to fi re whoever they wanted, you really
think they would make the same choices as me? No.
All the people I hated would still be there. Like bosses
everywhere, they would have chosen to keep the
people loyal to them, and gotten rid of the upstarts.
In a recent survey, 92 percent of executives
reported that promotions are often made on the
basis of personal favoritism rather than professional
qualifi cations. Duh. School is no different from other
workplaces. The opposite of tenure is not merit — it’s
favoritism. Who stays are all the ass-kissers.
I also remember the few remarkable teachers.
Their ability to stand out from the crowd was made
possible, in part, by having tenure and a union.
To mentor kids and give them the confi dence to
explore the world requires having the time and
emotional energy to think through the peculiarities
of each specifi c set of kids you’re responsible for. It
also requires taking risks to move beyond factory
textbooks to awaken kids’ curiosity. Teachers facing
oversized classes, crammed schedules and personal
fi nancial stress don’t have the reserves to tailor
lesson plans to the particular makeup of each class.
And people without job security don’t take risks.
As a group of McKenzie parents recently
explained, while calling on the district to settle
the teachers’ insurance needs, “We have put our
hearts and resources into our children since the
day they were born. We now share this path with
their teachers, who we fully believe have their best
interests in mind. We know that our teachers, as with
anybody, can only carry a great burden so long until
they give out.”
Gordon Lafer says these stories were brought to his attention by teachers
and by his wife, who works for the teachers’ union rep resenting Lowell,
McKenzie and 10 other school districts. Lafer is a professor at the UO’s
Labor Education and Research Center, and a research associate with the
Economic Policy Institute.
EUGENE WEEKLY SEPTEMBER 29, 2011
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