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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 21, 2016)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Wednesday, December 21, 2016 Founded October 16, 1875 KATHRYN B. BROWN Publisher DANIEL WATTENBURGER Managing Editor TIM TRAINOR Opinion Page Editor MARISSA WILLIAMS Regional Advertising Director MARCY ROSENBERG Circulation Manager JANNA HEIMGARTNER Business Office Manager MIKE JENSEN Production Manager OUR VIEW Forensics lab put on chopping block again We know we give up a few commercial break. In reality, they are bureaucratic things when we choose to live in entities that collect, sort and Eastern Oregon. We trade in some convenience, examine evidence on a need-to- have basis, which often takes weeks some comforts of urban life in and sometimes months. Forensic exchange for a little elbow room. scientists are also needed to testify If you wonder why there isn’t a Costco, amusement park or hospital if the case goes to court. The case of Nika Larsen — a with a neurosurgeon at the ready lab tech in Pendleton and Bend in Umatilla County, it’s simply a who pleaded guilty to stealing numbers game. We don’t have the drugs from the labs — should help population to support them. prove the point. The labs where The same thinking goes into she worked stopped state services. It only makes sense When it comes to testing drugs as a precaution while that state funding, matters of public prosecutors gathered taken in from taxpayers, is spent safety, the state has evidence against her and the backlog of as proportionally as an obligation to needed tests now possible among the population. protect its citizens goes back to the But when it comes as equally as pos- spring. A lab in Eastern to matters of public safety, the state has sible, regardless of Oregon should be considered an an obligation to geography. essential service. protect its citizens as Local agencies equally as possible, should not be expected to bear the regardless of geography. cost of transporting evidence all the Yet again, the state forensics lab in Pendleton has been placed on the way to Clackamas (212 miles away) to be processed, or wait those extra chopping block in an effort to save hours for lab techs to arrive from some money in the state budget. the metro area to collect evidence at And that threat, yet again, doesn’t a crime scene. take into account the impact that We’d like to think the question would ripple through our justice of whether the Pendleton lab is system. necessary could be answered once In the modern age of and for all, rather than it being investigating and prosecuting pulled in as a bargaining chip each crimes, science labs play a critical time the state budget is looking a part in the process. “CSI” and its little tight. But instead our district various television show spinoffs attorney, police chiefs, sheriff and would lead us to believe those labs county commissioners will again are some kind of magic factory, have to spend time explaining turning a strand of hair, drop of the value of having a lab on the blood or patch of cloth into a eastern half of the state, and wait surefire conviction within a matter for legislators to decide if it’s an of minutes — or at least in time amenity or a necessity. to advance the plot before the 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 The plague of ‘early decision’ A s the moment of judgment from privileged backgrounds with neared, they barely slept, parents and counselors who know convinced that their very how to game the system and can futures were on the line. Dread assemble the necessary test scores and consumed them. Panic overwhelmed references by the November deadline. These students also aren’t them. concerned about weighing disparate I don’t mean Americans awaiting financial-aid offers from different the Electoral College’s validation of schools and can commit themselves Donald Trump. Frank to one through early decision. Less I mean students (and their parents) Bruni privileged students need to shop awaiting actual colleges’ verdicts Comment around, so early decision doesn’t on early-decision and early-action really work for them. applications. “That’s just unfair in a profound way,” One friend of mine canceled our dinner said Harold Levy, the executive director of plan because he hadn’t realized that it fell the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, which around the time when his daughter expected has pushed to make elite colleges more word from her top Ivy League choice. He socioeconomically diverse. and his wife couldn’t leave her home alone Early decision moves the admissions in such a tremulous state, at such a terrifying process forward on the calendar, so that juncture. high school students start Another friend’s obsessing sooner. They daughter, also vying to Applying early press themselves to single get into a highly selective improves odds of out a college at the start of school, repeatedly burst year, when they may into tears as she berated admission and that senior not understand themselves herself for a 3.9 grade-point average instead of a 4.0. the students who do as well as they will toward end of it. What if the difference so come dispropor- the “How spelled her doom? many 17-year-olds As I’ve written before, tionately from privi- know what they really want the college admissions to do in life?” said Micheal leged backgrounds. McKinnon, an independent process has become a dignity-ravaging frenzy, educational consultant in illustrated by the plot of the Chicago area. The more a recent episode of the TV drama “Law time they have to figure it out, the better. & Order: Special Victims Unit.” It asked He added that students who win early whether a man assuming a fake identity to admission often feel that “they can slack off seduce women could be prosecuted for rape. for the rest of senior year,” rendering the last What identity do you suppose he chose semester pointless. as the most potent and irresistible? Not a But what worries me more is how the Hollywood director who could make the early-application process intensifies much women stars. Not a Wall Street titan who of what’s perverse about college admissions could drape them in jewels. He impersonated today: the anxiety-fueling, disappointment- a dean of admissions who could give their seeding sense that one school above all kids slots at an elite university. And one after others glimmers in the distance as the perfect another, these helicopter moms whirled into prize; the assessment of the most exclusive the boudoir. environments as, ipso facto, the superior ones. Early decision and early action, which are That’s hooey, but it’s stubborn hooey, as offered by some 450 colleges, are a special the early-application vogue demonstrates. and especially disturbing part of the frenzy. Marla Schay, the head of guidance at Weston They refer to a process by which, broadly High School, in an affluent suburb outside speaking, a student applies in November to Boston, told me that while 60 percent of the just one, most-desired school, which answers seniors there submitted early applications in December. If the school practices early seven years ago, it’s above 86 percent now. decision and says yes, the student is obliged And Williams College just admitted nearly to go. Early action isn’t binding. 47 percent of next fall’s freshmen through At least since 2001, when The Atlantic early decision. That benefits the college, published a definitive article by James which has locked in much of the Class of Fallows titled “The Early-Decision Racket,” 2021. Maybe it also benefits the students there’s been fervent discussion of the who were admitted and can now calm down, downsides of the process. But it’s more although I wonder how many felt rushed to prevalent than ever, with some selective identify Williams (or Duke or Vanderbilt or schools using it to fill upward of 40 percent of Colgate) as their truest love. their incoming freshman class. I wonder, too, how many came to regard The biggest problem by far: It significantly higher education as one big board game that’s disadvantages students from low-income about attaining prestige rather than acquiring and middle-income families, who are knowledge. already underrepresented at such schools. ■ There’s plenty of evidence that applying Frank Bruni, an Op-Ed columnist for The early improves odds of admission and that New York Times since June 2011, joined the the students who do so — largely to gain a newspaper in 1995 and has ranged broadly competitive edge — come disproportionately across its pages. YOUR VIEWS Let it snow (it’s good for the economy) Have you ever noticed when it’s time for parades during Round-Up, parades that only disrupt traffic for a few hours each time? The city goes to great lengths to clear all cars from the parade route. With the advance notice from the weather bureau of a major snowstorm, you’d think the same could be done for our major city streets. The public works director explained on the KUMA Coffee Hour that the city has no snow removal program due to the shortage of off-street parking, a problem perpetuated at city hall by approving projects like Pendleton Heights. Approved construction variances by our Planning Commission have created a problem there that has yet to be addressed. The real reason that we don’t have a snow removal program is that the city has sold all the snow removal equipment, dumping gravel all over town that will eventually have to be cleaned up in lieu of a removal program. But there is a silver lining within this dark cloud: Accidents and injuries provide insurance companies, our hospitals and doctors, auto body repair shops and tire alignment shops (ever hit one of the ice-covered manhole covers?) with a surge of much-needed revenue, not to mention those city employees trying to unplug those drains the street sweeper failed to keep clear of leaves and other debris. My ward representative, I’ll let you guess which one, explained to me that the city had much more important matters to worry about than keeping the gutters clean. There is a glimmer of hope with a change in city leadership. Perhaps we will have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Rick Rohde Pendleton 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.
