Education
S eptember 2 7 , 1995 • T he P ortland O bserver
P age A 4
Upcoming Battle Over Education Issues
As Students, teachers, and ad­
ministrators return to schools all over
the country , 1 want to remind you of
a critical battle that will take place
this fall in Washington over the issue
of education. To put it bluntly, our
educators, students, and parents need
to be aware that our nation’s invest­
ments in education -- in our chil­
dren’s future — are under direct at­
tack by the Republican majority in
the House.
The President is firmly commit­
ted to a comprehensive economic
policy based on balancing-the bud­
get, reducing trade barriers world­
wide, and creatingjobs here at home.
But he is convinced that to strength­
en families, expand our economy,
and raise the living standards for the
American people, nothing is more
critical to our nation’s future that
ensuring that all Americans have the
education and skills they need.
Education has become the fun­
damental fault-line in the standard of
living for American families. Many
Americans have seen their incomes
stagnate over the last 15 years; the
real income of the typical family has
actually declined. Yet those with the
most education and training have
bucked the trend. Today, the typical
college graduate earns 74 percent
more than a worker with only a high
school degree. Studies also show that
for every year of training a person
gets after high school, his or her
earnings rise by 6 to 12 percent.
Education is the key to growth in our
economy, in wages, and in our stan­
dard of living.
To allow individuals to make
the most of their lives, and to provide
every American the chance to realize
the American Dream, the President
has been fighting for better educa­
tion and training, by investing in
Head Start and Safe and Drug-Free
Schools, by providing resources to
train teachers and raise school stan­
dards, and by improving the student
loan program. During the last Con­
gress, Republicans and Democrats
together enacted a historic series of
initiatives to assist families, commu­
nities, schools and colleges to ex­
pand educational opportunity in
America.
President Clinton has proposed
to balance the budget over the next
ten years. He would do so by cutting
wasteful spending, streamlining pro­
grams,, and ending unneeded subsi­
dies. Yet he would preserve and in­
crease investment in education by
$40 billion over the next seven years;
protect Medicaid, Medicare and the
environment; and provide for a tar­
geted tax cut that would help m iddle-
income Americans raise their chil­
dren, save for the future and pay for
lank Invests In Education
The putting greens are
closed and the results have been tal­
lied. Putters of all ages helped raise
more than $96,000 during Washing­
ton Mutual's third annual Putt for
Education contest.
As many as 260 superintendents
and principals from schools in the
Portland area are expected to pick up
their school’s share of the money
during a special awards dinner
Wednesday, Sept. 20. Portland City
CommissionerGretchen Kafoury will
deliver the keynote address.
WHAT: An awards dinner to
celebrate the distribution of more
than $96,000 to local schools by
Washington Mutual. More than
$40,000 will be distributed at the
dinner to 261 Portland-area schools.
In total 665 schools will receive
checks.
The event marks the end of
Washington Mutual’s Putt for Edu­
cation contest, part of the company’s
sponsorship of the Pro-Am at the
Fred Meyer Challenge golf tourna­
ment.
Earlier this summer, members
of the general public were invited to
attempt to sink three out o f three
putts on one of the company’s travel­
ing putting greens. Those who were
successful won a $50 donation to the
school of their choice.
WHEN: 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. Recep­
tion 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Dinner and
program
WHERE: Lloyd Center Red
Lion 1000 N. E. Multnomah Port­
land
WHY: Putt for Education is a
program o f Washington Mutual
CAN!
WHO: C om m itted A ctive
Neighbors, the company’s commu­
nity involvement program.
For decades, Washington Mu­
tual and its employees have been
actively involved in helping make
our communities better places to live
and work.
Washington Mutual is a diversi­
fied consumer financial services com­
pany that focuses on families and
individuals. The company operates
72 financial centers in Oregon.
150,000 Awarded To 15 NW Schools
GTE Telephone Operations has
awarded $ 150,000 in education tech­
nology grants to 15 school districts
in its Northwest operating area.
Supported by technical assis­
tance from GTE, the technology
grants are for projects in the current
academic year that link network
technology and education in creative
and innovative ways. The individual
grants have been awarded to public
school districts serving K-12 stu­
dents located in GTE service areas in
Washington, Oregon and Idaho.
“The projects funded by GTE
emphasize creative ways of using
new technology to enhance the learn­
ing process,” said Linda Gainer, GTE
public affairs director. “They show
telecommunications as a means of
linking students, teachers, adminis­
trators and community members.
They also demonstrate how telecom­
munications networks can improve
curriculum development, program
delivery, staff development, admin­
istrative services and community
outreach.”
Washington grant winners are
Edmonds School District, Everett
School District, North Central Edu­
cation Services District, Kennewick
School District, Otteson High School
at Lake Washington Technical Col­
lege, M ukilteo School District,
Nooksack Valley School District,
Snohomish School District and
Wenatchee Valley Community Col­
lege.
O regon grant w inners are
Bandon High School, Cove School
District, Dayton School District and
Hillsboro School District.
Idaho grant winners are Mos­
cow J un ior H igh School and Lakeside
High School o f Plummer.
“Interactivity is the key word,”
Gainer said. “These grants will
provide schools with new resources
and offer a long-term impact on the
educational process.”
GTE Foundation contributions
to Northwest educational institu­
tions have totalled more than
$600,000 during l9 9 4 -9 5 .^ \^
GTE is the largest U.S.-based'
local telephone company, serving
about 1.3 million business and resi­
dential customer access lines in the
Northwest. The company provides
voice, video and data products and
services through more than 22 mil­
lion access lines in portions of the
United States, Canada, South Amer­
ica, the Caribbean and the Pacific.
In Washington, GTE serves
more than 700,000 customer access
lines, primarily in northeast King
County, all o f Snohomish and Skagit
counties, parts o f Island and
Whatcom counties, Wenatchee,
Richland, Kennewick and Pullman.
In Oregon, GTE serves about
400,000 access lines, most of them
in the Portland area. Primary service
territories include WashingtonCoun-
ty, Yamhill County, Gresham/Sandy,
the southern Oregon coast from
Reedsport to Brookings, and the La
Grande/Enterprise area in northeast­
ern Oregon.
In Idaho, GTE serves more than
110,000 access lines. Primary ser­
vice territories include the Coeur
d’Alene, Sandpoint and Moscow
-area, as well as Kellogg, St. Maries
and O rcfroQ O n the Idaho-Wash­
ington border,'tfre-company’s ser­
vice territories include Puuir.?n and
Newport.
Taking Tougher Courses Pays Off
Continued from Family, page
▲
proposing deep cuts in education
funding to pay for tax breaks for the
wealthy.
“They want to eliminate assis­
tance to schools to improve the ba­
sics, raise standards, get technology
into the classrooms and make col­
lege more accessible. That’s wrong
for students and wrong for our na­
tion’s future.”
Riley advises parents to urge
their ch i Idren to take tougher courses
if they want to score higher on tests
and be better prepared for college
and the future.
“This was the key recommenda­
tion in A Nation at Risk,' the report
that sounded the education alarm bell
in 1983,” he says. “Parents should
check with the school and make sure
your children are signed up for class­
es in core subjects and advanced
studies.” Core subjects generally are
defined as English, math, science
and social studies.
Barnwell, the guidance director
at T.C. Williams High School in Al­
exandria, VA, agrees. “I’ve found
that when students take harder cours­
es, their aspirations rise and they
view their career goals more serious­
ly. Consequently, they can envision
more tangible results from a rigorous
academic challenge.”
Riley applauds community and
state efforts to provide more chal­
lenging college preparatory courses
and “tech-prep courses” that help
students get ready for careers and
one to two years of community col­
lege.
He also notes a big improve­
ment in the percentage of students
taking substantial course work in core
subjects over the past ten years - up
from 13 percent to 47 percent.
As a result of higher expecta­
tions in math and science, student
achievement in these subjects, as
measured in national assessments,
also went up over this ten-year peri­
od.
Still, almost half of America’s
students don’t take a rigorous course
■» < Z 'C
load throughout their secondary
school years. “That needs to be cor­
rected, because all students need to
be challenged academically,” Riley
says.
Studies by the Education de­
partment’s National Center for Edu­
cation Statistics indicate that taking
more challenging courses pays off
for students. For example, students
who have taken higher level math
courses show greater gains in
math achievement during high school
than those who have not taken these
courses.
Riley and Barnwell also note
that tough courses are weighted heavi­
ly by those reviewing college en­
trance applications. Furthermore,
taking the tough courses better pre­
pares students for any endeavor they
may pursue
“Whether they’re going into the
military, the job market or more for­
mal education,” Barnwell says,
“young people will fare better ifthey
set higher standards for themselves
now.”
post-secondary education.
By contrast, there are proposals
in congress threatening to cut $36
billion from education and training
to help them balance the budget in
seven years and provide a huge tax
cut to those who need it least. They
have proposed: slashing investments
in Head Start; abolishing the Goals
2000 school reforms; cutting crucial
assistance to students from disad­
vantaged backgrounds; abolishing
the Technology Learning Challenge,
which leverages private money for
technology in schools and communi­
ties; cutting funding for apprentice­
ship training in half; abolishing
AmeriCorps - the heart of the Presi­
dent’s National Service program;
raising students’ costs o f loans by
$ 10 billion over seven years; halting
progress on the President’s Direct
Lending program; and denying Pell
Grants to 360,000 students in 1996
alone.
These latter cuts would be par­
ticularly devastating for access to
post-secondary education and train­
ing. By slashing grants and loans, we
would turn back the clock on recent
successes in expanding access, forc­
ing some students to drop out and
denying others the opportunity to
begin their education. To achieve the
level o f savings they are proposing,
Congress would have to raise the
costs o f college education by as much
as $3,100 for undergraduates and as
much as $9,400 for graduate stu­
dents. They would not only eliminate
any interest subsidy for graduate and
professional students, but also hit
college students with substantially
higher fees--for example, eliminat­
ing the six-month grace period for
interest after college or raising the
origination fee that every student must
pay to obtain their loans. There are
also proposals to reduce and possi­
bly eliminate the Direct Lending pro­
gram, preventing more schools from
participating in this initiative, which
is already saving taxpayers $6.8 bil­
lion, lowering interest rates for stu­
dents, and allowing borrowers to
choose flexible repayment arrange­
ments.
If firmly believe that the Amer­
ican people want to balance the bud­
get and continue to increase invest­
ments in education. The President
has shown that it is possible. Never­
theless, there are those in Congress
who are determined to go forward
with these extreme cuts. The debate
over this issue will be one ofthe most
significant in the coming months, if
not years. The future o f this great
nation is at stake.
Sincerely,
Leon E. Panetta
Chief o f Staff
GTE Northwest Award Winners
Bandon School District;
$9,724
Bandon’s project will use an
Internet Access Server to provide
connectivity for students and facul­
ty at the high school and middle
school. They used a grant from the
Ford Foundation to network the
computers at the school sites and
the GTE funding will allow them to
connect the sites to the Internet.
They create a local dial-in service
for community members to subsi­
dize their development. They have
organized a consortium o f school
districts in rural Oregon to take
advantage of this system.
Cove School District; $6,500
Cove School District will re­
ceive funds to update its telecom­
munications infrastructure in rural
Oregon. The school is positioned
as the hub of this small rural com­
munity and will provide new re­
sources to the community.
Dayton School District;
$10,000
Dayton School District serves
the rural agricultural area of the
Willamette Valley in Oregon. They
will use the GTE grant funds to
build their basic network system
which will connect to the Yamhill
frame relay network. This will al­
low them to access the Internet and
other global resources. Dayton has
about 925 students, with about 50
percent on the free and reduced
lunch program.
Edmonds School District;
$9,985
Hazelwood Elementary will be
using GTE grant funding to update
its omputer resources for the visual­
ly impaired. The new technology
will provide text to speech conver­
sion and will allow materials col­
lected from the Internet to be trans­
lated into Braille.
Everett School District;
$10,000
Garfield Elementary School in
Everett School District will be us­
ing GTE funds for extensive teach­
er training and a teachers’ lab for
devefoping curriculum. The lab
will be set up with Internet access
so the teachers will be able to feel
comfortable with the technology on
their own terms, before they have
access in the classroom.
North Central ESD; $10,000
This project will link three ele­
mentary schools and North Central
ESD for the purpose of integrating
the use of technology in the areas of
math and science through a study of
weather and climate.
E le c -
tronic links will be established be­
tween the ESD and the schools to
share project information as well as
to support technical training by the
ESD for building staff members.
Hillsboro School District;
$20,000
This district, which serves over
12,000 students will receive funding
to pilot a community-based on-line
network in both elementary and jun­
ior high schools. The project is a
subpart o f the Technology Chal­
lenge Grant received by the district
from the U.S. Department o f Educa­
tion. In partnership with Intel and the
Oregon Multimedia Alliance, they
will provide access to ICON (Inter­
active Community On-line Network).
This will link schools to the greater
Portland area as well as to the Internet.
The pilot will be used to evaluate
how this service can be developed
and implemented in other communi­
ties as well.
Kennewick School District;
$10,000
Kennewick School District will
be funded by GTE to provide Internet
training to support 22 school sites.
Internet trainers from each site would
be provided with training materials,
hands-on instruction and monthly
curriculum ideas. These trainers will
work with building staff during, be­
fore and after school as well as indi­
vidually and in small groups to help
develop teaching skills using new
technology.
Lakekeside High School -
PlummerZWorley Joint SD;
$10,000
Lakeside High School, located
on the Coeur d’Alene Indian reser­
vation, will use GTE funds to up­
grade their library with new multi-
media systems. They will connect to
Kootenai County Public Libraries
and North Idaho College to expand
their local access to resources. They
are also planning to upgrade the li­
brary with on-line cataloguing and
circulation features. The school dis­
trict serves about 500 students, 75
percent of which are below the pov­
erty level.
Lake Washington Technical
College - Otteson High
School; $10,000
A computer lab will be estab­
lished at Otteson High School. The
project will provide connectivity, glo­
bal exploration and interactive learn­
ing for junior and senior high school
students who have chosen an adult
college learning environment.
Moscow Jr. High Library;
$4,000
The Moscow Junior High Li­
brary will provide a bulletin board
system where students and their
families can send and receive elec­
tronic mail. Fifty-five staff mem­
bers will be able to post homework
assignments and communicate with
parents and students electronically.
All groups will be able to access CD
ROM-based reference materials.
Mukilteo School District;
$9,860
Mukilteo School District will be
building a World Wide Web page for
K-12curriculum linked with Internet
resources. It will help teachers com­
bine Internet access with curriculum
objectives and provide tools for inte-
gratingtechnology intothe classroom.
The information will be available on
the Internet for other schools to ref­
erence.
Nooksack Valley School
District; $9,752
Nooksack Valley School Dis­
trict will be using the funds provid­
ed by GTE to build a MAC-based
computer lab with network connec­
tions to the Internet and the library.
The sites will be networked to share
information between schools and
the library. They are planning to
provide hands-on learning opportu­
nities for parents and community
members. The new system will
provide access for many low-in­
come, migrant and special-needs
students in this rural community.
Snohomish School District;
$10,000
Totem Falls Elementary in
Snohomish School District will use
GTE funds to build its “School
without Walls.” The project will
allow the school to connect to other
schools in the district as well as the
Internet. A schoolwide bulletin
board will allow children to submit
their homework and get feedback
electronically as well as improve
communication between parents and
teachers.
Wenatchee Valley
Community College; $10,000
Wenatchee Valley Community
College will use GTE funds to com­
plete their instructional network
which will connect to their Omak
campus. This network will link
students, faculty and staff with elec­
tronic resources, such as the Internet.
The project will provide a regional
educational resource for educators
in Chelan, Douglas and Okanogan
rural counties.
Tri-Met’s Class Pass Offers Affordable Field Trips
At a time when tight school bud­
gets make field trips a rare treat, Tri-
Met’s new Class Pass is an econom­
ical way for teachers and students to
expand their classrooms.
The Class pass goes on sale be­
ginning tomorrow, allowing student
groups to ride buses and Max light
rail trains at discount. The pass costs
$1 per student and it is good for
travel to and from field trip destina­
tions. The pass is available to groups
of 10 or more, ages 18 years old and
under. Teachers and group leaders
pay regular fares.
The Class Pass is designed for
groups conducting field trips between
9 a.m. - 3 p.m. weekdays, or traveling
anytime on weekends. At those times,
more room is generally available on
buses and trains for group travel.
Group leaders must schedule the trip
at least 14 days in advance to make
sure other large groups are not plan-
ningto travel on the same vehicles at
the same time. To schedule a field
trip, call Tri-Met at 238-RIDE.
Last year, some 25,000 students
and teachers took field trips on Tri-
Met. Among the most popular desti­
nations are OMSI, the Portland Cen­
ter for the Performing Arts, Oregon
History Center, World Forestry Cen­
ter, Metro Washington Park Zoo,
Portland Art Museum and the Chil­
dren’s Museum.