VIEWPOINTS
Saturday, January 17, 2015
Quick takes
Sufjan Stevens’ Round-Up
documentary released
More news about @SufjanStevens and
his @PendletonRUP doc w/ live musical
accompaniment. My Q&A w/singer com-
ing soon.
— @Tim_Trainor
Ducks fall in season finale
I know right, we made it to the champi-
onship playoff. Nothing to be ashamed of
there.
— Terrie Cannoy
They were off to such a good start. It was
a sad ending, but they still rock!
— Roz Karson
Oregon might have had the win had their
team members stayed off the green.
— Valerie Mull McCarthy
Such a bummer. When they gonna get
that ‘ship?
— Larry Beck
Crackdown on racist gang
Let the boys do their work ... get the
methheads outta this town! A little vigilante
justice is good for Pendleton, because the
police don’t scare anybody.
— RedmondDudeGuy
I really don’t think anybody should con-
fuse a white supremacist with a well mean-
ing vigilante.
— E O Reader
One of the great lessons of the Twitter age is
that much can be summed up in just a few words.
Here are some of this week’s takes. Tweet yours
@Tim_Trainor or email editor@eastoregonian.
com, and keep them to 140 characters.
Page 5A
Reimagine the world of public education
By STEVE BUCKSTEIN
Cascade Policy Institute
I
magine a world where we buy our
groceries in government stores. We can
only shop at the store nearest our house.
If we want to shop somewhere else, we’re
forced to move our family into another
neighborhood if we can afford it.
In this imaginary world, we elect food
boards to oversee our grocery stores. And
many of us think the food is free. Well, not
quite. We all pay taxes to the government,
which then recycles those dollars to grocery
store districts and eventually down to our
neighborhood stores. We think we eat pretty
well, although the government spends ve
dollars for a gallon of milk and six fty for
a loaf of bread. The bread is often stale and
the milk is often sour.
Each district has a central of ce staff of
specialists and administrators who work
hard designing store shelves, checkout
lanes, and (most importantly) the nutritional
content of every food item. Since we’re a
nation that separates Church and State, the
big battles at food board meetings often
revolve around whether stores can sell
Christmas cookies.
Now, imagine that voters decide to
give the government less money for the
public food system. Suddenly, food stores
nd themselves in a crisis. There isn’t
enough tax money to keep food district
central bureaucracies intact. Stores don’t
have enough money to keep all the clerks
employed. Food superintendents are faced
with the dif cult task of eliminating some
items from the shelves.
How could we possibly feed ourselves
without the government taxing us, building
big brick food buildings, and telling us
where to shop?
If this imaginary world and its
problems sounds familiar, you’re way
ahead of me. It’s the world of our public
school system. It’s the world most of us
grew up in. Our parents grew up in the
same world, but children now are growing
up in a different world.
An Islamic reformer, lashed
A
East Oregonian
and a Christian woman, Asia Bibi,
s one group of Islamic
is on death row in a preposterous
militants was waging
blasphemy case after drinking water
war in Paris, another was
said to be for Muslims only.
slaughtering vast numbers of
(Bravo to Dawn, a Pakistani
civilians in Baga in northern Nigeria
newspaper, for daring to publish
— as many as 2,000, according
online an article this week by Arafat
to Amnesty International; “only”
Mazhar using Islamic legal reasoning
150, according to the Nigerian
government.
Nicholas to protest the sentence against Asia
Meanwhile, al-Qaida has blown
Kristof Bibi. That’s exactly what we need
more of.)
up scores of people in Yemen, and
Comment
One risk is that the West will
the Pakistan Taliban murdered 150
respond to Islamic terror with
people at a school. Libyan extremists
Islamophobia and intolerance that aggravates
blew up a Foreign Ministry building last
religious tensions — just what the terrorists
month because an of cial wished people
hope to provoke. The French nationalist
“Merry Christmas.”
Marine Le Pen has gained ground, and
These spasms of terrorism cry out for a
conversation among Muslims about faith and we’ve seen suggestions from Rupert
Murdoch and others that all 1.6 billion
tolerance. Islamic reformers could point out
Muslims are somehow to blame for Islamic
that the Quran prescribes no punishment at
terrorism. After I wrote last week that the
all for blasphemers other than telling others
world should resist that impulse to smear all
to keep their distance from them. The holy
book that decrees death for blasphemy is the Muslims, I was denounced by Bill O’Reilly
and Sean Hannity on Fox News and called
Bible (Leviticus 24:16).
Fortunately, a Saudi liberal, Raif Badawi, an “ink-stained coward” by The Weekly
Standard.
has kick-started a public discussion about
Maybe if these “journalists” left their
Islam and modernity on his blog. Good for
bubble and actually talked to more Muslims,
Saudi Arabia for promoting this kind of
they wouldn’t spew nonsense — such
debate!
as that Birmingham, England, is entirely
Well, no. Actually, our Saudi allies
Muslim and a no-go area for Christians. That
sentenced Badawi to 10 years in prison
paranoid claim by a Fox News “expert,”
and 1,000 lashes for “insulting Islam.” The
later retracted, led wags to suggest that the
rst 50 lashes were delivered in a public
ogging on Friday, and Badawi is scheduled city rename itself Birming, since Muslims
avoid ham.
to receive 50 more every Friday until he
Let’s resist simplistic narratives on
reaches 1,000.
our side, for they’ve already done enough
“Raif raised his head toward the sky,
damage in the Islamic world, and in truth
closing his eyes and arching his back,”
Islam is as complex and diverse as, say,
Amnesty International quoted a witness as
“journalism.” Muslims include the terrorist
saying.
who murdered Jews in Paris and the Malian
There is a difference between murdering
worker there who risked his life to save
cartoonists and ogging bloggers. But still!
seven Jews.
Saudi Arabia could play a leadership
In the past our overreaction to Islamism
role in Islam. In the mid-20th century, King
has sometimes been counterproductive:
Abdul Aziz al-Saud overcame traditionalists
who opposed cars, radio and the telegraph as The Bush administration was so fearful of
the Islamic Courts Union government in
non-Islamic by having the Quran read aloud
Somalia that it was complicit in an Ethiopian
on the radio.
Yet since then Saudi elites have retreated. invasion in 2006 that led to the rise of the
terrorist al-Shabab militia there.
Saudi Arabia does not allow Christian
Republicans have been hounding
churches and sometimes has con scated
President Barack Obama for not sending
Bibles. The kingdom oppresses Shiites,
a top of cial to Paris. They’re right. But
funds extremist Wahhabi madrassas across
let’s engage in more than symbolism and
the Islamic world and last month referred
two women to its anti-terrorism courts — for actually support the moderates in the Islamic
world who are pushing for change — and,
driving cars.
sometimes, being ogged for it. By our
Pakistani of cials play a similar game.
“allies.”
Pakistan was once a tolerant country whose
rst foreign minister was a member of the
Kristof won the Pulitzer Prize two times.
Ahmadi sect. Now Ahmadis are persecuted,
We can no longer afford to dump more
money into a system that isn’t keeping
pace with the progress all around us.
Technology has opened limitless ways
for students to gain knowledge and skills
and to interact with their instructors and
peers. The landscape of educational options
centered on the needs and
aspirations of individual
students is far more diverse
than it was even ten years
ago. And many of these
new options can actually
save taxpayers real money.
Many advocate that
we should lead the world
in education spending.
But you don’t get to be
the competitive leader
in any industry by being
the world’s highest-cost
producer. Don’t you want
to be the producer with
the highest quality, but at
an affordable cost? The
driving force to achieve
high quality, while keeping
costs down, is the pro t
motive. But that’s exactly the motive that
doesn’t exist in our public school system.
Why aren’t we worried about a tax revolt
decimating our local grocery store shelves?
It’s because our grocery stores are private.
They’re subject to intense competition, and
each of us has virtually unlimited choices
about where we shop.
For those who can’t afford food, we
don’t build government food stores. We
give them food stamps, and they shop in
the same stores and for the same products
that everyone else does. In essence, our
public schools are the equivalent of the
former Soviet Union’s collective farms.
Communism said government should own
and run the food stores and the farms.
The result was a nation that couldn’t feed
itself.
We don’t have to ask whether to replace
our current public school system with a
private one. We can simply let education
dollars be spent where the customers
(parents) think they should go.
lease don’t let the details of any speci c
“school choice” proposal stop you from
accepting the concept. Instead, let’s gure
out why so many of our tax dollars don’t
reach the classroom and why nearly half
the people who work for
our public school system
don’t teach. Let’s look for
ways to put the children
rst and the system
second.
The only proven way
to accomplish these things
is through competition
and parental choice.
Spending more dollars in
the current system will
just get us more of the
same. Many states are
broke, preventing them
from spending more
money on public schools.
And many parents are fed
up, wondering why their
kids are underperforming
or unmotivated in K-12
schools and unprepared for their college
courses and future careers.
School choice has entered a new world.
Because Americans are increasingly
vocal about providing parents at every
income level with the ability to choose
their children’s schools, states are adopting
broad-based school choice initiatives. Every
child who drops out of school, or who
graduates functionally illiterate, is being
tossed into the sea without a lifeboat. If you
think rearranging the deck chairs on this
ship will save those children, think again.
The way of the future is to put the power of
educational choice back into the hands of
parents, where it belongs.
Next week is
National School
Choice Week,
an annual
public
awareness
effort in support
of expanding
education
options.
Steve Buckstein is founder and senior
policy analyst at Cascade Policy Institute,
Oregon’s free market public policy research
organization.
Rating the Republican contenders
I
f the Republican presidential
attention in a crowded eld.
campaign were “American Idol”
Like all smart Republicans in the
or “The Voice,” this would be
post-Romney era (yes, we’re in it),
the out-of-town auditions phase.
Christie is working hard to prove he
Governors across the country are
understands the everyday concerns
giving State of the State addresses,
of the poor and the middle class. He
unveiling their visions. Let’s spin
spent a good chunk of his address
the chairs and grade the contenders,
describing his efforts to work with
to see who deserves a shot at the big
the Democratic mayor of Camden
David
show.
Brooks to bring in jobs, ght poverty and
John Kasich: A.
reduce crime in that city. It was a
Comment
The Ohio governor is easily the
bipartisan, government-ef ciency
most underestimated Republican
pitch: “We terminated the city police
this year. He just won a landslide victory
department and, partnering with the county,
in the swingiest of the swing states. He
put a new metro division on the streets with
carried 86 of Ohio’s 88 counties. He
400 of cers for the same price we were
won Cuyahoga County, which includes
paying for 260. ... What are the results?
Cleveland, and which President Barack
Murder down 51 percent, in what was once
Obama won by 40 points in 2012.
called the most dangerous city in America.”
Kasich is the Republican version of
Christie has hit on an essential theme for
Jerry Brown: experienced but undisciplined an era of growth but dissatisfaction.
in an honest, unvarnished way. If he
Scott Walker and Mike Pence: B-plus.
shows he can raise money, and if voters
The Wisconsin and Indiana governors
want someone fresh but seasoned and
are both versions of what used to be called
managerial, he might be the guy.
working-class, Sam’s Club Republicanism.
The inaugural address he delivered
Walker never graduated from college.
Monday was a straight-up values speech.
In their State of the State addresses,
But it wasn’t about values the way Pat
both boasted about the same sorts of
Robertson used to de ne them. It was
accomplishments: dropping unemployment
traditional values expressed in inclusive,
rates, state surpluses, rising graduation
largely secular form.
rates, lower taxes. Walker mentioned jobs
He built his speech around empathy,
programs for people with disabilities.
resilience, responsibility and other virtues:
Pence, who has devoted more effort to
“You know why this happened? Too
ghting poverty, touted his new pre-K
xated on ourselves. It’s all about me.
education program. Both have good
And somehow we have lost the beautiful
records, but neither speech had anything
sound of our neighbors’ voices. Moving
that was narratively or thematically
beyond ourselves and trying to share in
innovative or of much interest to people
the experience of others helps us open our
outside their states.
minds, allows us to grow as people. It helps
At this stage in the race it’s best to
us become less self-righteous. Did you ever evaluate candidates the way you evaluate
nd that in yourself? I do ... self-righteous.” pitchers during the rst week of spring
Kasich has a long conservative record,
training. Don’t think about polls, donor
but in his speech he celebrated government
gossip or who has the front-runner label.
workers, like the woman who runs his
Ask who makes the catcher’s glove pop
job and family services department. He
loudest. Who has the stuff that makes you
argued that economic growth is not an end,
do a double take?
especially when it’s not widely shared.
Among the governors, Kasich and
His mantra is, “When you die and get
Christie have shown they can take the
to the meeting with St. Peter, he’s probably
values of religious conservatives and use
not going to ask you much about what you
them to inform Republican economic
did about keeping government small, but
and domestic priorities. That’s essential if
he is going to ask you what you did for the
the party is going retain its business and
poor.”
religious base and also reach the struggling
Chris Christie: A-minus.
and disaffected.
Bridgegate did some damage, but it
clearly wasn’t fatal. Whatever can be said
David Brooks became a New York Times
about the New Jersey governor, he grabs
columnist in 2003.