LET TERS
INITIATIVE ATTACK
Our right to decide which initiatives
we can vote on is under attack by four
out of five Lane County commissioners.
Pete Sorenson, the only attorney on the
commission, understands that the county
cannot legally weigh in on initiatives until
after the new laws are passed. That this is a
constitutionally protected provision of the
initiative process is the argument Sorenson
made to his fellow commissioners.
If Sid Leiken, Jay Bozeivich, Faye
Stewart and Pat Farr really want to save the
taxpayers’ money, they won’t pass a law that,
most certainly, will kick-off a lawsuit and land
the county in court. Let’s keep the pressure
on our elected officials by contacting them.
Tell them: “Hands off the people’s business,
executed through the initiative process!”
Michelle Holman
Deadwood
THE REAL DEVIL
It is very well known that Trump is an
offensive piece of shit. So hatin’ on him is
a consuming passion, and Clinton gets a
pass. Even though Clinton represents the
mainstream management that embodies
the disaster all around us.
Global warming daily produces more
severe weather crises, species extinctions,
galloping air, water and soil pollution
and dozens of other results. Technology
is swallowing everything, turning people
into zombies unable to interact, and the
constant rampage shootings show that
mass society has erased community and
spawns always more pathologies.
Trump is the devil, just as Bush was
for many. But he’s mainly a diversion
from where we’re really at today. Billions
are spent to maintain the humiliating
spectacle of no real change, no turn from
the developing catastrophe.
John Zerzan
Eugene
BAD BLM PLAN
The Bureau of Lane Management
(BLM) enacted a plan to increase logging
37 percent on our public forests in Western
Oregon. They are not applying the best and
most current forest biology and climate
science.
In media coverage, there was little
mention of global warming and the
carbon these same forests sequester in
very large amounts. There was also no
EDUCATION AND DEMOCRACY
conversation about the vast amounts of
private forests that have been clearcut on
the forests adjoining BLM lands, which
fragments wildlife habitat in destructive
and unsustainable ways.
The fact is, the vast majority of
Oregonians wants our forests restored and
preserved. The logging industry should be
paying timber harvest taxes at levels similar
to the states of Washington and California
to supplement our county budgets. There
are exciting alternatives for wood products
such as Hempcrete, where you can build a
home from hemp grown in four months on
less than three acres of land.
Let’s invest in sustainable businesses
such as permaculture farming and design,
solar and wind energy and resource
conservation projects — something we can
be proud of.
There are no jobs on a dead planet, and
that is where we are currently headed at
full speed.
Pam Driscoll
Dexter
controlled mainstream media is shaping
what people think is true.
As a 70-year old grandmother, I am
strong with purpose, caring about our
children and grandchildren. Become
informed about Measure 97 and share
truth with voters. Oregon Center for Public
Policy points out that corporations pay 6.7
percent of all Oregon income taxes today
versus 18.5 percent paid 40 years ago,
and are projected to pay 4.6 percent in 10
years, given the status quo.
About 3 percent of corporations will be
affected by Measure 97, which means only
.25 percent of one percent of businesses
in the state will see their taxes go up. This
will not result in higher costs for goods and
services.
We have 2,000 fewer teachers than before
the financial crises of 2008, even though
enrollment has increased. Corporations
were bailed out on the backs of our children,
the most vulnerable in our society.
Carol Louise Scherer
Eugene
YES ON 97
WILLAMETTE ‘DISASTER’
Enough is enough! The power of money
and influence in collusion with corporate-
I hope you people are happy. The new
Willamette Street is clearly a disaster!
BY R ACHEL RICH, L A RRY L E WIN A ND ROSCOE C A RON
Spirit of the Law
HOW MUCH DOES STANDARDIZED TESTING REALLY COST US?
T
here is the letter of the law, then there’s
the spirit. Rep. Lew Frederick, the Or-
egon House’s only African American
legislator, was the guiding force behind
two new Oregon laws: HB 2655 (the
testing opt-out bill of rights) and HB 2713 (the test-
ing cost audit bill).
The spirit behind the two new laws is clear:
To honestly examine the costs, both financial and
otherwise, of the standardized testing that dominates
Oregon education and to allow parents and students
to make their own informed decisions about what
kind of education is best for them.
HB 2713, the testing audit bill, directs school
districts to report to the secretary of state by Sept.
15 on the impact of state tests on “instructional
time, curricula, educators’ exercise of professional
judgment, budgets and administrative time and
focus.”
The state already knows how much it pays
for the tests: It’s $27 million a year. Yes, $27
million. Payments go mostly to AIR, the American
Institutes for Research and to the British education
conglomerate, Pearson.
The testing audit bill seeks to determine the many
additional costs that school districts pay.
Here’s the question: When responding to HB 2713,
will local school districts consider all of the costs of
high-stakes testing or will they minimize the total
costs in order to minimize the growing movement
questioning these tests? Will local districts respond
to both the letter of the law and the spirit of the law?
Will local districts consider?
First, immediate costs
4
A ugust 18, 2016 • eugeneweekly.com
• Loss of instructional staff to school “testing
coordinator” positions?
• Classroom time lost to test preparation?
• Loss of libraries and computer labs for months
as they become testing centers?
• School counselors forced to focus on testing, not
counseling?
• Staff meetings dominated by test preparation
and logistics?
•
Professional
development
workshops
predominantly devoted to test prep?
• Loss of professional development to improve
comprehensive education methods?
• Diminishing of electives, civics and social
studies because they “aren’t tested”?
Second, deeper, long term costs
• Narrowing of curriculum caused by teaching to
the test?
• Tracking kids from an early age based only on
test scores?
• Increased high school dropout caused by such
labeling and tracking?
• Loss of teacher creativity from having to teach
to the test?
• Creative teachers leaving due to excessive
testing?
• Potential outstanding teachers not entering the
profession?
• Loss of innovative school administrators due to
excessive testing demands?
• Effect on local school boards as they become
conduits for federal and state mandates, instead of
focusing on what’s best for their community?
Opponents of excessive testing believe that
honest answers to these questions will reveal that
the corporate, testing-based model of education has
had a devastatingly expensive impact on students,
families, teachers and local communities — in
terms of education, finances, emotions and equal
opportunity for low-income, minority, special
education and English Language Learner students.
HB 2713 provides our local school districts with
the opportunity to critically examine the effects of
the corporate “reform” model of education, which
relies on for-profit companies to make decisions
about what’s best for your child, without consulting
teachers, parents or students.
Will local districts look deeply and, perhaps, re-
examine some of their long-held support for the data-
based model of learning? Will they respect the letter
and the spirit of the law?
This fall — right away before the Sept. 15 deadline
— ask your children’s teachers how much these tests
really cost them last year. Ask your principal, too.
Tell your school board and superintendent now how
you believe they should carry out the mandate of
Lew Frederick’s HB 2713, the standardized testing
audit bill.
This is a test. Let’s see how our local school
districts answer the questions.
Rachel Rich, Larry Lewin and Roscoe Caron are retired middle and
high school teachers in Eugene and Springfield. They are members of
the Community Alliance for Public Education (CAPE, oregoncape.org),
a coalition of parents, teachers, professors, students and community
members who challenge the many assaults on public education and who
believe in a strong public education as the foundation for American
democracy.