Portland Observer, March 18, 1982 Page 5
Black United Front
Washington Hotline
First A n n u al B an q u et
Honoring
"The M a n O f T h e Year"'
by Congressman Ron Wyden
Ron Herndon
The battle is on in W ashington
over whether Oregonians and other
Americans are entitled to clean air.
So far, the results do not look great.
Yesterday, the Health and Envir
onm ent Subcom m ittee on which 1
sit voted to deny significant clean air
protection to national treasures such
as C rater Lake and the John Day
Fossil Beds National Monument in
Oregon, Death Valley and the Red
wood and Sequoia national parks in
California and the Natural Bridges
Monument in Utah.
What that means is that pollution
in these areas can rise to national
standards for urban areas—that our
parks can be as polluted as our
cities.
This vote is disturbing in itself. If
ultimately enacted into law, it could
threaten preservation of some of the
most beautiful works of nature in
our country, it also would hurt the
tourism industry—a move we can
ill-afford in tough economic times.
But beyond that, it tells us some
thing very disturbing about the atti
tudes o f the m ajority of subcom
mittee members responsible for re
authorizing the act: that is, clean air
is not a top priority.
That attitude simply doesn’t add
up—from either an environmental
or an econom ic stan d p o in t. For
P ortland and other areas o f this
country, squandering clean air is the
same as squandering jobs—as well
as good health.
There is another, more reasonable
approach—as exemplified by HR
5555, which I cosponsored. Instead
of relaxing clean air standards as the
A dm inistration-backed bill (HR
5252) would, HR 5555 m aintains
tough clean air targets, but removes
bureaucratic red tape and inflexibil
ity. It does that by:
•Providing for fast-tracking of
review and approval for state clean
air implementation plans;
•Extending deadlines for non-at
tainm ent areas, such as Portland,
Salem, Eugene and M edford, as
long as im plem entation plans are
kept in force and good faith efforts
are made to use available technolo
gies to reduce emissions;
•Lifting the construction ban for
new industries in non-attainm ent
areas;
W e s tm in s te r
P resbyterian C h urch
1624 N.E. Hancock
Friday
M a rc h 26,1982
6:30 pm til 10:00 pm
Donation:
•Streamlining permits in clean air
areas, and imposing deadlines by
when government* agencies must de
cide on permits; and
•Giving assurance to industries
that install pollution control equip
ment that they won’t immediately
face new requirements.
Rolling back clean air standards
will not pay o ff—for the environ
ment or for the economy. Preserv
ing clean air will.
Adults *9.50
Kids *7.50
Tickets: Youth Service Center 4815 N.E. 7th Ave.
King Neighborhood Facility 288-0371 or
House of Sounds
Do U.S. children have right to education?
by Rasa Gustaitis
Pacific News Service
Children all over the outlying, ru
ral fringes of the Alpena School Dis
trict in northern Michigan have been
on a long recess for the better part
of this school year.
First, the Alpena school, which
serves the entire county, closed its
doors for two weeks last fall when
the money ran out. Then, after an
emergency millage vote, the school
reopened—but without buses. Many
children live up to 30 miles from
town, and there is no public transit.
The Alpena school is one of many
in this economically depressed state
teetering on the brink of financial
collapse because voters have repeat
edly failed to pass funding tax mea
sures. The questions raised there are
serious ones, and the issues range
far beyond economically blighted
Michigan to include communities
throughout the North Central states
and as far away as the Pacific
Northwest: Do children have a right
to go to school? If so, whose re
sponsibility is it to guarantee and
pay for that right? And whose re
sponsibility is it to make sure that
schools provide an education?
The whole country was shocked
in 1976 when schools in Toledo,
Ohio, shut down after voters defeat
ed a tax measure. The notion of an
Am erican com m unity without
public schools was unthinkable
then.
Now, with the economic depres
sion deepening, literally scores of
schools in small towns across the
country face the prospect of either
having to shut down or of gutting
program s to the point where the
open door becomes a sham.
In Oregon, 2,500 children in Esta
cada, near Portland, had no school
from September till December last
year after an operating funds mea-
sure was defeated for the fifth time.
It was the fourth such school shut
down in that state since 1976 and
“ the tip of the iceberg” ahead, ac
cording to a spokesman for the state
school superintendent.
The schools in Taylor, a suburb
of Detroit, opened late last fall after
levy failures. In Pontiac, the price
of staying open was abolition of all
extracurricular activities. At least
one other Michigan system besides
Alpena no longer provides school
buses.
In Boston, where public educa
tion began, and in Chicago, school
closures for lack of money loom as
real possibilities.
The U.S. Constitution is silent on
the question of the right to educa
tion, leaving the matter to the states.
Most states have com pulsory a t
tendance laws and constitutions that
say the states have an obligation to
provide an education. But the defi
nition o f “ ed u catio n ” is often
scanty. In West Virginia it must be
“ thorough and efficien t,” for in
stance. In Michigan, it means 180
school days with 900 hours o f in
struction. The only curriculum re
quirements, according to a spokes
man for the schools in Lansing, are
those relating to high school gradua
tion: a course in civics, one in his
tory, some instruction in the misuse
of alcohol and chemical substances.
The U.S. Suprem e C ourt has
never ruled on whether a fu n d a
m ental right to education exists.
Most cases in behalf o f children
claiming they were deprived of an
education have been based on the
right to equal protection under law
and, in some cases where the issue
was choice of schooling, on the First
Amendment. The Court did observe
in one case, Rodreguez vs. the San
A ntonio School District, in 1973,
that it had not confronted an in
stance where someone was totally
excluded from schools, thereby
leaving the door open on the issue in
the view of some attorneys.
Now before the C ourt is a case
that will determine whether children
of illegal aliens are entitled to a pub
lic education. It involves a Texas
law authorizing school districts to
exclude such children or charge
them tuition. This issue would be
come m oot, however, if a com
munity were to close its schools en
tirely. What is to prevent this from
occurring?
So far, nobody has had to deal
with that question because all com
munities where schools have closed
have rescued them through em er
gency elections that provided money
—tem porarily. But with the econ
omy continuing to deteriorate and
school budgets facing increasing
hostility, future prospects are grim.
Pontiac, Michigan, where unem
ployment is at 26 per cent, kept its
schools open this year only by cut
ting out all extracurricular activities,
temporarily closing school libraries,
abolishing elementary school music,
putting counselors into classrooms
an d —in the town that hosted the
Super Bowl—ending all sports pro
grams. But now it must begin to pay
back a deficit that at the end of last
year stood at $3.7 million. It will do
so by cutting still more.
A fund-raising effort to restore
the sports program that in the past
produced Olympic athletes failed to
raise enough. Now bingo might be
tried. On the wall of Pontiac school
superintendent Odell Mails’ office is
a sign that reads: “ 1 hope to see the
day where there is enought money
for education and the Air Force has
to have a bingo game to buy a
bomber.”
A suit in behalf of the rural chil
dren without transportation won a
state circuit court ruling that a fun
damental right to education does ex
ist in Michigan—-a landmark ruling.
It added that buses are needed to ex-
ercise that right in the Alpena dis
trict. But the district has won a stay
on the order to restore the buses and
while the case winds through the
appeals process the rural children
continue to be dependent on their
parents’ resources.
Children of poor fam ilies are
most affected, said Robert Hess, an
attorney in the suit seeking to re
store the buses. One single mother
on welfare ferries three to five chil
dren 60 miles daily in a car with a
broken frame, held together with a
cable. Other families must take chil
dren to more than one school, at
different locations and with differ
ent schedules. Many cannot m an
age.
There is little chance that state of
Federal governments will come to
bail out the financially foundering
systems. In Michigan, state spend
ing for schools has dropped from 29
to 15 per cent of the state budget in
the past decade, while social welfare
spending has risen comparably.
School budgets are about the only
place where voters can say no to tax
spending, and they tend to express
their frustration by defeating mil
lage measures, school officials point
out. They do so even while state and
Federal funds continue to shrink.
brought to you
every week
by
A M E R IC A N STA TE B A N K
How could identical tw in s be born in d iffe re n t
years? It happened a few years ago. One tw in was
born at 11:59 p.m. on Dec. 31, 1975 and her twin sis
ter was bom at 12:01 a.m. on Jan. 1, 1976. These two
tw ins were born on d iffe re n t days, in d iffe re n t
months, and in different years.
•
The current 747 airplane is longer than the distance
covered by the W right Brothers' first flight.
•
W hich U .S. P resident's w ife smoked a pipe?
Rachel Jackson, wife of President Andrew Jackson,
regularly smoked a corncob pipe.
We do not do business with South Africa.
American State
Bank
AN independent bank
Head Office
2737 N. E. Union
Portland, Oregon 97212
Pacific Newsservice, I9S2
Start with Breakfast
Higher education returns to elite
Grassrool News, N. W.— As time
progresses the questions in educa-
lion will be less relating to the qual
ity and options in secondary and
higher education and more to op
portunities for Blacks and low
income students to afford to be edu
cated. Remel Moore, Asst. Director
of the E ducational O pportunity
Program at Portland State Univer
sity, has been involved in the educa
tional system for nearly a decade
sees a frightening trend developing
between those who can afford to go
to college and those who c a n ’t.
“ There is a move in higher educa
tion to return higher education to
the classes o f the elite. As far as
Community Colleges are concerned
training programs will be held for
high school students, returning men
and women and low income stu
dents We have a situation where fi
nancial aid is on the decrease and tu
ition is on the increase.”
Along with the trend to raise tui
tion and lower financial aid there’s
the move toward raising the G.P.A.
standard to enter universities. “ It
has been proven that low income
students and students of color have
the least o p p o rtu n ity to get ade
quate preparation for college at the
elem entary level. Because of
housing patterns and their political
situation these students live in areas
where the school are poorly
equipped and badly staffed with
teachers that d o n ’t want to be
th e r e ...”
How does the enrollment limita
tion impact low-income and Black
students? “ Every college and uni
versity can teach only so many.
Here at Portland State the limit is
16,000 full time students. If you
lower that this lowers the opportun
ity to go to college. The students on
the higher end of the economic sta
tus will not be affected. The people
on the bottom are the ones who are
pushed out. The students who are
beginning to attend are pushed be
cause I guess they are closer to the
door.”
Are any of these occurrences hap
pening at Portland State, our urban
institution? “ Certainly they are. As
a State institution there have been
cuts. They have less operating mon
ey to run the school on. And they
have to let people go. It will cost
more to go to Portland State and at
the same time financial aid is being
cut. More Blacks attend Portland
State University but it has nothing
to do with what Portland Slate is
doing. A lot of students are immo
bile. They have children and work
full time. They are place-bound to
Portland.”
Remel M oore explains how the
cuts that are being made arc going
to effect programs that get grassrool
people in college, like E.O .P. “ The
president of Portland State will be
forced to make additional cuts.
They will look at what programs are
important. This year thy cut all the
writing 120 classes and Math 93 and
at Rustler's
We agree that your day starts bet
ter with breakfast. Why? While we sleep our
bodies break from food and activities. So, we awaken
hungry and sluggish. Eating break last changes this; it
breaks the fast—as a result, we feel
much stronger and more alert. So start your
day with breakfast at RUSTLER'S You’ll find good
I ixk I and friendly country service all at a reasonable puce
REMEL MOORE
(Photo: Richard J. Brown)
94. Classes that are introducing stu
dents to college classes. But at the
same time the President announced
new people they had hired in the
Business A dm inistration D epart
ment. So the cuts are selective. And
at the same tim e we are having
growth, selective growth.”
The bottom line according to
Remel Moore is that if college is in
your future the time to go is now
while the system is still open The
mistake is to wait too long.
Now Serving Breakfasts
Mon -Fri 6 am to 11 am • Sat -Sun 7 am to noon
PO RTLAND
425 Northeast Oregon Street
(Between Union and Grand)