Page 4A
OPINION
East Oregonian
Saturday, August 13, 2016
Founded October 16, 1875
KATHRYN B. BROWN
DANIEL WATTENBURGER
Publisher
Managing Editor
JENNINE PERKINSON
TIM TRAINOR
Advertising Director
Opinion Page Editor
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MIKE FORRESTER
STEVE FORRESTER
KATHRYN B. BROWN
Pendleton
Chairman of the Board
Astoria
President
Pendleton
Secretary/Treasurer
CORY BOLLINGER
JEFF ROGERS
Aberdeen, S.D.
Director
Indianapolis, Ind.
Director
OUR VIEW
Not good enough
for our students
school students must be provided
The Pendleton School District is
990 hours, except seniors, who are
getting three new schools this year
allowed to ease out of K-12 with
— a huge upgrade to the learning
environment — yet the construction 960 hours.
Those are, however, among the
season will push back the start of
lowest minimum requirements of
classes at those schools by three
any state in the union, and pales in
whole weeks.
comparison to our
Because of union
closest neighbor.
contracts, state rules
Oregon is at
In Washington
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state, the state
old Gregorian
the bottom of
provide at
calendar, students
the barrel when must
least 450 hours
are in danger of
not meeting the
it comes to the of kindergarten
1,000
minimum number
hours students instruction,
hours for students
of hours Oregon
4-6
requires students
are in school, in and grades
1,080 hours
to spend in the
and it shows.
for high school
classroom.
students.
Losing a few
Even states at the
weeks of classes
bottom of the education rankings,
may not seem like much in the
like Alabama and West Virginia,
grand scheme of a 12-year public
require 990 hours for students
education, but for those students
through all elementary grades and
who are already behind the eight
high school.
ball, it can be disastrous. Many
Oregon is at the bottom of the
teachers need to squeeze the most
barrel when it comes to the hours
out of every minute they have, and
students are in school, and this year
have an impossible task at that.
Subtract a few weeks, and you have Pendleton students are in danger of
not even clearing that low hurdle.
a real problem on your hands — a
Any way you measure it, Oregon
problem that may remain unsolved
has among the worst education
and even be compounded for
systems in the country. We fund it
struggling students.
poorly, and in turn it runs poorly
And that’s the real injustice.
and sets low standards that it barely
While high-achieving students are
more likely to bridge the gap during meets. And the product, when
measured by high school graduation
long summers and other breaks,
rates, shows the defects.
at-risk students are the ones who
A simple way to start to get
desperately need that class time to
better is to keep children in school
keep up.
longer, and increase the number
Every state sets rules for the
of hours schools are required
minimum number of instruction
to operate and teach. Because
hours a school must provide. In
teachers, while part of the system,
Oregon, full-day kindergarten
are not part of problem.
programs must offer at least 900
Yes, it will take more money
hours along with their elementary
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and middle school peers. That’s
to getting us get off the bottom
a big jump from two years ago,
of the pile when it comes to K-12
when most kindergartners spent
education.
450 hours in the classroom. High
Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the East Oregonian editorial board of Publisher
Kathryn Brown, Managing Editor Daniel Wattenburger, and Opinion Page Editor Tim Trainor.
Other columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not
necessarily that of the East Oregonian.
OTHER VIEWS
Trump’s ambiguous wink wink
to ‘Second Amendment people’
A
nd that, ladies and gentlemen,
against the Oslo accords,” and the
is how Israeli Prime Minister
security services who failed to heed the
Yitzhak Rabin got assassinated.
warnings that the incitement could get
His right-wing opponents just kept
out of hand.
delegitimizing him as a “traitor” and “a
“Mr. Rabin is almost invisible in
Nazi” for wanting to make peace with
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the Palestinians and give back part of
reported. “Benjamin Netanyahu, the
the Land of Israel. Of course, all is fair
opposition leader at the time, is shown
in politics, right? And they had God on
Thomas in now-infamous historical footage
their side, right? They weren’t actually
Friedman addressing a feverish right-wing rally
telling anyone to assassinate Rabin. That
from a balcony in Jerusalem’s Zion
Comment
would be horrible.
Square, as protesters below shouted for
But there are always people down
the death of Rabin — the ‘traitor’ — and
the line who don’t hear the caveats. They just
held up photomontage posters of him dressed in
hear the big message: The man is illegitimate,
an SS uniform.”
the man is a threat to the nation, the man is the
Netanyahu, now prime minister, insisted he
equivalent of a Nazi war criminal. Well, you
never saw the posters or heard the curses.
know what we do with people like that, don’t
I am sure that is what Trump’s supporters
you? We kill them.
will say, too. But Trump
And that’s what the Jewish
knows what he is doing,
extremist Yigal Amir did to
and it is so dangerous in
Rabin. Why not? He thought
today’s world. In the last
he had permission from a
year we have seen a spate of
whole segment of Israel’s
lone-wolf acts of terrorism in
political class.
America and Europe by men
In September, I wrote
and women living on the
a column warning that
fringes of society, some with
Donald Trump’s language
petty criminal records, often
toward immigrants could
with psychological problems,
end up inciting just this kind
often described as “loners,”
of violence. I never in my
and almost always deeply
wildest dreams, though,
immersed in fringe jihadist
thought he’d actually — in
social networks that heat
his usual coy, twisted way — suggest that
them up. They hear the signal in the noise. They
Hillary Clinton was so intent on taking away the hear the inspiration and the permission to do
Second Amendment right to be bear arms that
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maybe Second Amendment enthusiasts could
sentences.
do something to stop her. Exactly what? Oh,
After all, an informal Trump adviser on
Trump left that hanging.
veteran affairs, Al Baldasaro, a Republican
“Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish, state representative from New Hampshire,
the Second Amendment,” Trump said at a rally
already declared that Clinton should be “shot
in Wilmington, North Carolina, on Tuesday.
for treason” for her handling of the Benghazi
“By the way, and if she gets to pick her judges,
terrorist attack.
nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second
During the Republican convention, with its
Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t
repeated chants about Clinton of “lock her up,”
know.”
a U.S.-based columnist for Israel’s Haaretz
Of course Trump’s handlers, recognizing just newspaper, Chemi Shalev, wrote: “Like the
how incendiary were his words, immediately
extreme right in Israel, many Republicans
denied that he was suggesting that gun owners
conveniently ignore the fact that words can
do anything harmful toward Clinton. Oh my
kill. There are enough people with a tendency
God, never. Trump, they insisted, was just
for violence that cannot distinguish between
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political stagecraft and practical exhortations
know those Second Amendment people, they
to rescue the country by any available means.
just love to get on buses and vote together.
If anyone has doubts, they could use a short
But that is not what he said. What he said
session with Yigal Amir, Yitzhak Rabin’s
was ambiguous — slightly menacing, but with
assassin, who was inspired by the rabid rhetoric
just enough plausible deniability that, of course, hurled at the Israeli prime minister in the wake
he was not suggesting an assassination. Again,
of the Oslo Accords.”
it’s just like the Rabin story. When I wrote about
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this issue back in the fall it was to urge readers
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to see the new movie “Rabin: The Last Day,”
Forget politics; he is a disgusting human being. His
by the Israeli director Amos Gitai, timed for the
children should be ashamed of him. I only pray
20th anniversary of Rabin’s assassination.
that he is not simply defeated, but that he loses all
As The Times’ Isabel Kershner reported
50 states so that the message goes out across the
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land — unambiguously, loud and clear: The likes
“is unambiguous about the forces it holds
of you should never come this way again.
responsible” — the extremist rabbis and militant
Ŷ
settlers who branded Rabin a traitor, the right-
Thomas L. Friedman won the 2002 Pulitzer
wing politicians who rode the “wave of toxic
Prize for commentary, his third Pulitzer for The
incitement against Rabin as they campaigned
New York Times.
People are
playing with
fire here, and
there’s no bigger
flamethrower
than Donald
Trump
LETTERS POLICY
The East Oregonian welcomes original letters of 400 words or less on public issues
and public policies for publication in the newspaper and on our website. The newspaper
reserves the right to withhold letters that address concerns about individual services and
products or letters that infringe on the rights of private citizens. Submitted letters must
be signed by the author and include the city of residence and a daytime phone number.
The phone number will not be published. Unsigned letters will not be published. Send
letters to Managing Editor Daniel Wattenburger, 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801
or email editor@eastoregonian.com.
YOUR VIEWS
Umatilla County towns
should compete for
best puncturevine
Pendletonians, let us join
forces to claim a Number 1 in
Umatilla County. Yes, as an
individual, church, business, club
or government group, travel to the
county fair. Check out the plant
exhibits, especially the open class.
Then take a look at Hermiston’s
puncturevine/goatheads and judge
for yourself if ours are the larger,
biggest and meanest plants.
Missed going to the fair? Be
sure and write the Fair Board to
add on open class for a real weed
— puncturevine. But stay away
from tumbleweed, as west of Rew
Elevator will take it hands down,
even though the railroad right-
of-way is growing some really nice
tumbleweeds. Maybe next year’s
request or a sure thing is yellow
starthistle.
Joseph LaVerdure
Pendleton
A refuge in the ballot
measure storm
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ballot, there has been a noticeable
increase in public discourse
about what is now known as
Measure 97, the corporate gross
receipts tax measure. This ballot
measure will continue to generate
intense interest, with a deluge
in advertising from opposing
campaigns sure to follow.
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battles is the average Oregon
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can turn to obtain factual and
unbiased information that they can
understand.
For these Oregonians, help
is on the way. This month, the
Citizens’ Initiative Review (CIR)
will take place on the campus of
Western Oregon University in
Monmouth. The CIR starts by
identifying a panel of 24 randomly
selected registered voters, who are
politically and demographically
representative of Oregon’s
electorate. These ordinary citizens
will come together to learn about
Measure 97 from experts and
from advocates for and against
the measure. After four days of
deliberation facilitated by neutral
moderators, the panel will draft a
“Citizens’ Statement” highlighting
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about the measure. This statement
is then published in the statewide
Voter’s Pamphlet distributed by the
Secretary of State.
The Oregon legislature
established the CIR in 2011 so
that voters would have easy access
to clear, useful and trustworthy
information at election time. It
is administered by the Citizens’
Initiative Review Commission,
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organization, Healthy Democracy.
The CIR Commission is comprised
in part of appointees nominated by
both Republican and Democratic
legislators, and is the decision-
making body that selects which
ballot measure is to be reviewed.
The Citizens’ Initiative Review
is a unique voice in Oregon’s
political landscape that all
Oregonians can be proud of.
Robin Teater, executive director of
Healthy Democracy
Portland