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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 3, 1980)
Hunger threatens village life of Third World nations Development efforts in most Third World countries have helped large, rich farmers get larger and richer, while small farmers and the landless find them selves in an ever-tightening financial squeeze. The rich farmers have been able to lake advantage o f mechanization, cheap credit and new methods o f agriculture to increase their holdings. Small plots o f land have been subdivided repeatedly over the centuries, leaving them too small to teed families. These farmers, still dependent on primative farming methods and hand-made tools, are rapidly loosing their land Millions o f lariners have been forced to move onto land that was previously thought unfit tor tanning. In Tanzania, for example, they have gone to the steep mountain slopes and to the desert plains. In Central America, they have pushed into the jungles. Third World people who still live on farms and in rural villages are in a period o f transition. Not only has rural lile not improved during the 1970s, but the gap between rural and urban dwellers has increased. Sociologists in Indonesia have designed a method to measure poverty, using food supply as the index. Their conclusion is that while the number o f poor has been reduced and living conditions in Indonesia improved, the number of "very poor" rural people has increased from 34 million to almost 39 million in the last ten years. The style ol rural living also has changed, with the small farmer working longer hours on marginal land to feed himself. Many have turned to small-scale handicrafts, trading and outside employment to supplement their incomes. O f ten children o f six to eight years are sent to work to help support the families, so 40 per cent or more o f the village children do not attend school. Iraditionally villages have been close-knit with strong social systems, people assisting each other, but economists and sociologists feel ihe village structure in the Third World is weakening. Subsistance farming, once the way o f life for m illions o f Third W orld people, is failing to provide enough food for rural and village people and they are moving to the cities where they live in slum conditions, drawing o ff the limited resources o f the underdeveloped nations. PORTLAND OBSERVER V olum e 9 N um ber 52 January 3. 1980 10Cper copy USPS 969 600 Gates files for City Council seat ? • The K wanza celebration th a t took place in Port land (Decem ber 26th through January 1st) was en joyed by everyone w h o attended Each day s pro g ra m re fle c te d one of th e S even P rin c ip le s of Blackness and ended w ith lots of . and dancing (Photos: Richard J. Brown) Modernization in developing countries topic A two day symposium, "C ulture and Econom ic Development in Developing Countries: The Impact o f Modernization” , w ill be held at P ortland State U niversity on January l()th and 11th. Featured speakers include: Noel Brown, Environm entalist with the United N ations; M azizi Kunene, U C LA Faculty ; Robert Houdek, Director o f the Center o f African A ffairs, U.S. Department o f state; and Dr. E.S. Atieno-Odhiainbo, a Stanford University visiting scholar from Kenya. The symposium is sponsored by Portland State U niversity’ s Black ( Please turn to page 2 col. 4) Osly " J im ” Gates has filed for City Council Position I, now held by Mike Lindberg. Lindberg was ap pointed to the position by the City Council subsequent to Connie Mc Cready’s appointment as Mayor. Gates is strongly in fa vor o f realistic and meaningful citizen par ticipation in city government. " I am concerned about the absence o f citizen involvem ent in the C ity Council's decision making," he said. " In the past five years we have seen a change Instead o f planning from the roots up, we are experiencing a (rickledown phenomenon. When in past years many o f the programs and policies that have been most suc cessful were planned by citizens and public officials, both appointed and elected, served as helpers and enablers, not as road blocks and ad versaries. "W ith o u t true citizen par ticipalion, we have seen Ihe size o f bureaucracy explode, the cost o f ser vices skyrocket, while effectiveness has diminished proportionately. The city has become steeped in bureaucratic control and political in difference to the extend that it is vir tually impossible to accomplish a routine task or solve a m inor problem." A prime example o f the lack o f citizen involvem ent is the $100 m illio n C adillac Fairview Project which will take four city blocks in dow ntow n P ortland. “ The C ity decided what to do, then asked citizens lor advice on how to do it.” Another recent example is the shut -o ff o f street lights. " I n 1974 the people o f Portland voted fo r Measure 53 which mandated Ihe City to provide more street lighting for crim e prevention and s a fe ty ." Recently I mdberg proposed, and the Council adopted, a plan to shut o ff street lights to save cledricly. "D u s is a case where a vole by the people is being ignored. We all are for energy conservation, but the City must compare the advantages o f conservation w ith the need fo r safety. At Ihe same lime, Ihe Council voted to spend more money to hire more police to pat role the darkened streets.” “ Once we reverse this trend then we can go about solving some o f the problems and meeting some o f the challenges that face us. There are short range and long range problems problems ol the 60s and problems ol the yeat 2000. We must revitalize our city’ s core area in keeping with com m unity wishes and make it a more vital part o f the city. There are other problems that deal with the quality o f life and Ihe livability o f our community, such as health and safety, housing, transportation and Osly Jim Gates, executive director of the C ity /C o u n ty Com mission on Aging, has filed for election to Portland City Council Position One employment. We must concern our selves with the financial stability ol our city in light o f in fla tio n , the energy crisis, the retrenchment ol public hinds and other problems." Gates lavors the election ol pet sons to till vacancies on the Council. "W ith appointments we get people in office who are not selected by the citizens. Then it is hard to gel them o il. It is difficult to replace an in cumbent." Gates would like to see more cooperation between City and Coun ty agencies - especially in the area of stVial services. "O verlapping ser vices cause confusion and are inef fective and cosily. A ffirm a tiv e action is another ol Crates’ strongest concerns. "There is a lot o f talk and not a lot o f action. I would like to see Ihe people now in office pul their records on the line. How many m in o rity people have they hired? I would like to know how many minority people my opponent has hired - the bureaus he has headed are among the worst in al lirmative action." Since 1965 Ciales has been directot ol Ihe City/County (ouiinission on Aging and its predecessors. Ciales had previously been a caseworker and supervisor for the Oregon Slate Public Welfare C oin mission and A thletic D irector lot Tort Valley State College in Georgia and for Ihe U.S. C iv il Service in Japan. He received a bachelors degree from West V irg in ia Stale College and a masters degree from Columbia University in New York Gales is Vice President ol the National Council on Aging as well as serving in a number o f volunteer positions. New elitism emerges in American public education systems by Sandy Close and Rasa Guslailis (PNS) Evidence is mounting that the American school system is in the process of a profound philosophical transition that reflects the economic face of the society as it moves into the 1980s. Being abandoned is the long-held principle that the public schools’ role is to provide an equal educational opportunity to all, in the service o f an open democratic society. Several separate but related developments reveal ihe shape o f this new attitude: -Programs for "m e n ta lly gifted ” children are being expanded, while overall student perform ance, as measured by standarized tests, deteriorates. --The high school dropout rate is at an unprecedented high in large cities w ith large m in o rity populations, while programs to prevent dropouts shrink w ith funding cutbacks. Dropout rates have reached as high as 45 percent in New York City and 50 percent in Oakland, Ca. -A movement to lower the maximum age fo r com pulsory education is gaining ground among many educators and critics. Professor Robert Sipher at the Stale University o f New York has gone even fu rth e r, arguing that "th e solution to the schools' problem is simple: abolish compulsory atten dance laws and allow only those who are com m itted to getting an education to attend.” Such tendencies combine into an emerging "tw o track” school system that separates children at an early age into those who will have a chance to pursue higher education and those consigned to a grow ing " u n d e r econ om y" that requires little schooling. All employment forecasts for what Herman Kahn has called "T h e Slobering 80s" indicate that the American economy w ill require a core o f highly-skilled young people with the ability to handle complex systems and help the country main tain its technological edge. But m ost future jobs, which will be in the service sector, w ill not demand much education or skill. A u to m a tio n at the supermarket already makes it unnecessary for checkers to know how to add and m u ltip ly . A t some fast-food restaurants, employes do not even have to read: they punch cash register button marked with pictures o f hamburgers, shakes and fries. According to the Bucrau o f Labor Statistics, the fastest-growing categories in the years ahead will not require a college education. Clerks and office machine operators, lower- level health care and restaurant workers will be able to do the work expected o f them with little more education than the basic 3Rs. In that context, and in view o f the citizens' reluctance to spend money on schools and children, the name o f the game in educational policy is redistribution o f resources: who gets what slice o f the shrinking pie. In New York C ity the Board o f Education, faced with a deficit o f $35 m illion in its $3 billion budget for this year, was told by Mayor Ed ward Koch that it would have to "eat its deficit.” School Chancellor Frank J. Mac- chiarola, reporting that 45 percent o f the ninth-graders entering the city’s high schools had left before graduation, said the problems was "s ta g g e rin g .” He blamed the situation on lack o f funds and the existence o f an im p lic it "tria g e system" in which teachers tend to concentrate on helping those who have a reasonable chance o f “ making,” rather than focusing on those who do not. In C alifornia, when Proposition 13, the property tax initiative, hit the schools, remedical programs fo r potential dropouts were among the first services to be cut. " W e are increasingly becoming a stratified school society, with the af fluent going to private and select public s c h o o ls ," according to Samuel Halperin, director o f the In stitute o f Educational Leadership at George W ashington U nive rsity. "Y o u have s tra tific a tio n both hy economics and by race,” he added The shift in educational policy is illustrated by a recent book by Neil Postman, "Teaching As a Conser ving A c tiv ity ." Hack in the 1960s, Postman and other critics stirred an intense debate on education by urging reforms for the sake o f equal rights, freedom o f expression, the right to individual and cultural d if ferences, and improving options for the disadvantaged. Now Postman claims in his new book, that he was one o f those who had fallen into a utopian illusion by I Please turn to page 5 col. 3)
