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Section II Page 5
PORTLAND OBSERNER
August 18, 1982
Volume XII, Number 45
25C Per Copy
Two Sections
l IS I’S 959 680
Erm a H epburn says:
Different styles caused conflict
by Lam ia Duke
G ra ss ro o l News, N . W. — Erm a
Hepburn, Acting Executive Director
o f the C ity o f Portland Human Re­
sources Bureau believes her style of
operations resulted in a negative
e v a lu a tio n from C om m issioner
Margaret D. Strachan. "There were
rumors that I was to be fired. Yet, it
was never told to me officially. D u r­
ing the la tte r part o f July I was
called into her office and handed an
evaluation." Ms. Hepburn declined
to reveal the contents o f this evalua­
tion. " A ll I can say is that a lot were
issues and items that took place
prior to my appointment as Execu­
tive D irecto r. And some o f the is­
sues addressed were even before
Strachan was elected to the Council.
A lot o f it was misinformation and
out o f the time-frame of my respon­
sibilities.**
Ms. Hepburn concluded the eval­
uation w ith the hope that she and
Com m issioner Strachan could get
together and iron out their d iffic u l­
ties in a professional manner.
Ms Hepburn came to The C ity o f
Portland in 1973, a survivor o f the
PM SC era. In 1980 she was appoint­
ed, on a temporary basis, to direct
the Human Resources Bureau. **We
used to be the prime sponsor for all
C E T A p rojects. In a d d itio n , the
City has been designated as the area
agency on aging. W e also have a
youth diversion project.”
Each Bureau is part o f a depart­
ment and the department is headed
by a Council member. It is tradition
that each time the city receives a new
C om m issioner the H u m an Re­
sources Bureau always goes to them.
The attitude o f the ’80s is to d i­
vest the cities o f so-called social pro­
grams. Is Commissioner Strachan
trying to sytematically dissolve the
Human Resources Bureau? " I think
C om m issioner Strachan is very
c om m itted to social services p ro ­
grams. She is a very neighborhood
kind o f person. I think the concern
is just the difference in style.”
Strachan responds to questioning
by Claudia Fisher
ERMA HEPBURN
This difference in style is the root
o f the perception held by some
members o f the C o m m is sio n e r’ s
s ta ff that M s. H ep b u rn has the
w rong a ttitu d e . " I have been in ­
volved in social service program s
since 1968 and have dealt with many
o f the same people in C ity govern­
ment. I have never had any d if f i­
culties dealing with people in C ity
government.”
Ms. Hepburn’s position could be
taken away fro m her anyway be­
cause the job o f Executive Director
o f the H u m an Resources Bureau
w ill be up fo r grabs, through the
Civil Service, on August 22nd. " A ll
temporary appointments have to go
through, at one time or another, the
C ivil Service process. The position
was announced on August 7th. I will
have to decide if I want to apply for
it by the 2 2 n d .” M s. Hepburn has
yet to decide if she will apply for her
job. I f she applies she must score in
the top three to retain the position.
it has been reported that several
weeks ago Commissioner M argaret
Strachan’s office decided to fire H u ­
man Resources Bureau D ire cto r
Erma H ep b u rn , who is the C ity ’ s
only female and only black bureau
head. In a M onday interview with
the P o rtla n d O bserver, C o m m is­
sioner Strachan stated she had not
and w ould not discuss w ith any
newspaper the perform ance memo
her office had recently presented to
Hepburn, saying that she owed re­
spect to C ity employees and would
not discuss in general City employee
performance.
Strachan defended her actions
earlier last year to open to the Civil
Service test process positions in each
o f her bureaus which have been
filled by tem p o rary employees,
who, by rules o f the C ity C harter,
can only be hired for thirty days be­
fore undergoing a C ivil Service test
process. Hepburn was appointed to
her position by then-Commissioner
Frank Ivancie in spring 1980 when
ne was running for M a y o r against
Connie M cC read y. N ew ly elected
Mayor Ivancie assigned the Human
Resources Bureau (H R B ) to C om ­
missioner Strachan, who was elected
to fill his vacated seat.
According to Strachan, when ac­
cusations arose that she was using
the C ivil Service process to remove
H e p b u rn ,
she and
H ep b u rn
“ w orked it o u t” and H ep b u rn
understood Strachan was not aim ­
ing at anyone; rath er she sought
only to make the C ivil Service pro­
cess fair and workable. Irritated at
the press' focusing solely on her ef­
forts and bureaus, Strachan men­
tioned Commisssioner Lindberg’s
activities to bring about C iv il Ser­
vice changes.
Strachan also attempted to lay to
rest rumors o f major differences of
opinion about the direction in which
H RB is and should be moving. With
a federal C E T A program budget cut
from $18 m illio n to just under $3
COMMISSIONER MARGARET STRACHAN
m illion in three years, serious e f­
forts have been made to close ser­
vice delivery gaps created. W ith
Hepburn and H R B her staff wants
to “ look at ways to build a constitu­
ency for social service, to creat an
awareness o f how dollars are spent,
the numbers o f people who are
served and volunteers who are
u tiliz e d ." She and H ep b u rn have
been working on changing the H R B
p ro file in the c ity . Strachan de­
scribed past discussions w ith H ep-
burnas “ fruitful.”
When asked if she believed H ep­
burn lacked the capability o f meet­
ing current bureau needs, Strachan
rep lied, “ I have never said she
lacked c a p a b ility .” Then asked if
she wanted Hepburn as director o f
H R B , the Commissioner answered,
“ I encourage her to apply fo r the
j o b , ” adding that she had post­
poned permanently filling the posi­
tio n because it was decided there
(Please turn to page 2 column 2)
P aren ts d eclare w a r on C h icag o school board
by Lynn Orr,
Pacific News Service
C H IC A G O — A fte r years o f un-
kept promises that the public school
system w ould im p ro v e, a sm all
group o f inner-city Chicagoans are
fighting back— in sharp contrast to
the stereotype o f poor parents who
don’t care.
Angered over some o f the lowest
scores in the nation, the self-named
“ Parent Equalizers,” a predom in­
an tly black group c laim in g 250
members, is determined to force a
showdown with the Chicago Board
o f Edu catio n . The protest centers
on a controversial reading program
the board hopes to sell to other u r­
ban school districts.
The parents label it a "second-
ra te , dangerous education p ro ­
g ra m ” and refer to it as “ garbage
in, garbage o u t.” One politician be­
lieves it is intentionally racist, and a
leading reading specialist calls it
part o f a “ k n o w -n o th in g ” move­
ment.
After a year long battle, including
a class action lawsuit to prevent fu ­
ture sales of the copyrighted reading
program, the parents are so disillu­
sioned by past failures to upgrade
edu catio n , and so d is tru s tfu l o f
school officials, that they want the
reading program axed by Septem­
ber. Otherwise, they say, they’ll o r­
ganize a strike against C hicago
schools.
“ They d o n ’ t concern m e,” said
Superintendent Ruth Love, who in­
curred the parents' wrath last fall by
m andating the until-then optional
reading c u rric u lu lm . “ I ’ m con ­
cerned with the average parent."
"1 guess they’d just like us to go
back to watching soap operas and
worrying about our lau nd ry,” said
Equalizer Deborah Johnson, who
believes average parents just don',
know what is happening to their
children in school.
The latest results o f the Iowa Test
o f Basic Skills appear to support the
parents* concerns. Since 1978, the
average seven-year-old in Chicago
public schools has scored above the
n atio n al norm in reading on the
Iowa test. But the reading scores de­
cline as the children move through
the school system, with 13-year-olds
falling more than a year behind the
national norm.
This year in releasing the delayed
test results, school officials pointed
to the fact that the decline was
slowed by one month in each o f five
grade levels. They fu rth e r project
that the average child will be reading
at the national norm in four years—
if scores can be im proved by three
or fo u r m onths at ages eight and
nine.
Parent Equalizers blame the read­
ing problems on the Chicago Mas­
tery I earning Reading Program and
its predecessor, (he Continuous Pro­
gress M astery L earn in g Reading
Program , used from 1975-81. The
master learning pro g ram , now re­
quired in all C hicago city schools
fro m kindegarten throu g h eighth
grade, concentrates on teaching spe­
cific objectives such as word end­
ings, and then testing students on
their “ m astery” o f the p articular
skills associated with the objective.
I f students fa il m ore than 20 per
cent o f the skills on each test, they
are retaught and retested. The pro­
gram allows children to be grouped
according to “ m a s te ry " level,
rather than grades; theoretically a
seventh-grader can be w orking on
objectives begun in second grade.
Teachers m aintain precise files on
the students' achievements, which
are transferred with school records.
P rom oters say the p rogram ac­
commodates children with different
abilities and ethnic backgrounds, as
well as the high rate o f teacher and
student mobility found in inner-city
schools.
Parent Equalizers, backed by a
militant substitute teachers' group,
Substitutes U n ited fo r Better
Schools (S U B S ), say the program
shields incom petent teachers by
shifting educational responsibility
to students. “ This is a program that
says black children can't be taught
like human beings,” says outspoken
Equalizers president Dorothy T ill­
m an, m other o f five. “ W e have
teachers who are not concerned with
w hether these children can read,
they just care about whether rtiey
pass the tests,” says Paulette V a r­
gas, another member.
These parents say they can’t a f­
ford to abandon public education
for private schools, and they’re con­
vinced now their only option may be
to attempt to shut down the schools
if the reading program isn’t elimin­
ated.
In its place they want the board to
purchase a proven reading system,
one they hope will prevent their ele­
mentary children from facing the
fate o f C h ic a g o ’ s current high
school students, whose reading
scores fall below 75 per cent o f other
U .S. high school students.
The Equalizers have already won
enough community support to con­
vince school officials to revise the
new program by removing racially
offensive material and negative de­
pictions o f family. One o f the delet­
ed narratives, “ W hiskey add
Sweets," related how a father fakes
a heart attack to get his son to buy
him whiskey.
Michael Katim s, the director o f
the reading program and a consul­
tant to the school board, believes
the parent group is “ quite w ell-in­
tentioned but creating more harm
than good. Forty to 100 people are
treated as if they were the only par­
ents, when there are 700,000 p ar­
ents” in the district. “ Nothing has
ever demonstrated success in the in­
ner city, bu, we're going to do i t , ”
he said bluntly.
W ith both the Kansas C ity and
New York C ity school districts ex­
pressing interest in the reading pro­
gram, the potential revenues to C hi­
cago's financially ailing school sys­
tem are apparent, and the district al­
ready has signed an exclusive con­
tract with a Massachusetts firm to
print and publish the copyrighted
program.
The Equalizers' lawsuit, filed one
year ago in state court, questions the
board’s marketing of an “ untested”
program , according to the E q u a li­
zers attorney, James Chapman, who
volunteers his services to the group.
"T h e contract obliged the board to
use the system before it was com ­
pleted,” he said.
B ut, according to K atim s, the
progam has been tested through its
use in several in d iv id u a l C hicago
schools on an optional basis, along
with a field test at the city’s M ay E l­
ementary School— where the read­
ing score decline this year was ac­
tually sharper than the Chicago av­
erage.
M ea n w h ile , alderm an C lif fo r d
Kelley, a black independent fro m
the 20th ward, has introduced a res­
olution into the council’s education­
al committee to investigate the read­
ing program, which he believes to be
in te n tio n a lly racist. Blacks also
point out that M a y o r Jane Byrne
has won disputed appointments o f
tw o w hite school board members
here to replace two black members,
m aking a com position o f five
whites, three Hispanics and three
blacks in a school system where
blacks dom inate at 61 per cent o f
enrollment.
" T h is system has absolutely no
interest in allowing public in p u t,”
Kelley said. “ And once a child has
been denied an education, there’s no
catch-up.”
The program has also engendered
controversy in educational circles.
(Please turn to page 2 column I )
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