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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (July 11, 2017)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Tuesday, July 11, 2017 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 OTHER VIEWS Lawmakers disregard voters’ will, shortchange education funding The Oregonian/OregonLive, July 8 O regon voters enthusiastically endorsed two education measures on the ballot last November, directing legislators to devote millions of dollars to expand career and technical education for high schoolers and provide outdoor school programs for 5th and 6th grade students statewide. Measure 98, the high-school initiative, and Measure 99, the outdoor school initiative, both passed by huge margins — 32 percentage and 34 percentage points respectively. But what voters approve isn’t necessarily what lawmakers do. For the coming biennium, legislators have set aside $170 million for Measure 98 programs, a little more than half of the $300 million that the initiative called for in funding of career and technical education, dropout prevention efforts and expanded college-prep courses for high school students across the state. As for Measure 99, the Legislature is allocating only $24 million of the $44 million envisioned by the initiative to pay for the multi-day outdoor education program for middle-schoolers that several districts have struggled to maintain through fundraising or reserving scarce funds. There’s nothing wrong with legislators’ amending what voters hand off to them. Making funding decisions and changing state law, whether it originates from the initiative process or legislative process, are routine functions of the Legislature. Initiatives are blunt instruments as public-policy making goes, rarely including the detail and nuance needed to fairly, legally and effectively administer the programs they create. And an initiative’s focus on a single issue contrasts with the broad array of concerns and needs that legislators must balance in making difficult budget decisions. And many school districts aren’t geared up yet to take advantage of the funds for either program. Adding or expanding curriculum in these programs involves far more than just flipping a switch, particularly for career and technical education, even if the funding is available in full. Still, the amounts allocated for programs identified in both Measure 98 and 99 are not sufficient for what’s known to be needed now. Toya Fick, executive director for Stand for Children Oregon, a primary backer of the Measure 98 campaign, called the $170 million “a down payment” but warned that it is far from what will be required to help high school students. That’s not hyperbole, considering that some 10,000 students a year drop out of high school in Oregon, which has the third-worst graduation rate in the country. Similarly, Rex Burkholder, chairman of the Outdoor School for All committee, told The Oregonian/OregonLive Editorial Board that those tasked with administering the outdoor school fund have tallied the cost of existing outdoor school programs at $30 million, $6 million more than the allocation from legislators. That means the fund won’t cover current demand nor can it accommodate additional outdoor school programs from other districts that want to start a program in the next two years. Elected leaders have bemoaned the budget crisis that they faced this legislative session due in part to the new initiatives. But voters — who cast their ballots amid a sustained economic boom that continues to generate record amounts of tax revenue — aren’t to blame. The culprits have been legislators who ignored for years the question of how to pay for Medicaid expansion and who have refused to confront escalating pension and health benefits costs for public employees. Ultimately, legislators need to think about the reasons two-thirds of voters backed both of these measures. Could Oregon’s chronically poor graduation rate have been a motivator to back these two measures? Both invest in strategies known to engage students in their education, open them up to new experiences and career tracks, and keep them connected to high school. Could it be frustration with the paltry offerings that some school districts offer? Or could it be a message to legislators to do a better job of directing Oregonians’ tax dollars into student-focused programs instead of employee benefits, which are taking larger and larger shares of school district budgets? Even an 11 percent increase in the K-12 education budget for the coming biennium isn’t enough to stave off layoffs in some districts because of those surging personnel costs. Legislators and voters alike should remind themselves of a simple truth. These measures began as petitions filed by citizens who wanted to put new laws on the books because policymakers weren’t addressing the need. They gained traction, attention and, in the end, overwhelming victories that deserve respect, even by those who opposed the initiatives. This is what voters’ will looks like, and Oregonians unhappy with the direction of the state should remember how powerful that can be. Legislators need to think about the reasons two-thirds of voters backed both of these measures. Could our chronically poor graduation rate have been a motivator? Columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not nec- essarily that of the East Oregonian. OTHER VIEWS The West and what comes after W hile Donald Trump was nations under the pressure of mass giving a speech in Poland migration may become — as to lack last week depicting a West religious or linguistic or historical whose values, heritage and freedoms common ground. And it becomes are threatened by the weakening harder still when your ruling elite’s of borders and a loss of confidence cosmopolitanism is essentially within, I was reading about the last superficial, more “eating ethnic days when European empires ruled the food and cheering for Obama” than globe. “celebrating negritude while reading Ross Those years, the years of Douthat Goethe.” decolonization that followed World Thus the nationalist backlash Comment War II, are the subject of a book against cosmopolitanism, embodied by anthropologist and historian in its starkest form by Trump, is Gary Wilder, “Freedom Time: Negritude, somewhat equivalent to the anti-colonial Decolonization and the Future of the World.” nationalism that rejected Senghor and Wilder follows two black intellectuals and Césaire’s unionism as hopelessly naive. politicians, Aimé Césaire of Martinique Yesterday’s African nationalists argued, and Léopold Sédar Senghor of Senegal, reasonably, that you cannot develop an who shared a striking combination of African civilization if your center of political anti-imperialist zeal and desire for continued authority is still in Europe. political union with the French Republic. Today’s Western nationalists argue, also plausibly, that many European distinctives are Césaire’s tiny Martinique did indeed become a French département. But in Senegal unlikely to survive if nation-states are weak, mass immigration constant, Christianity and and Africa and the once-colonized world writ Judaism replaced by indifferentism and Islam, large, their project never had a chance. Once and young elites educated as global citizens the age of empire ended, political separation without knowing their own home. became inevitable. This nationalist argument comes in Yet against critics who deemed both men racist forms, but it need not be the white sellouts and self-haters for desiring to remain in some sense French, Wilder argues that their nationalism that Trump’s liberal critics read vision was complex and potentially prophetic. into his speech. It can just be a species of They were Western-educated Francophones conservatism, which prefers to conduct cultural exchange carefully and forge new who read deeply in the European canon, who believed in the “miracle of Greek civilization,” societies slowly, lest stability suffer, memory fail and important things be lost. who drew on Plato and Virgil and Pascal and As such, it’s a view I endorse. But in the Goethe. At the same time, they argued for European case I don’t necessarily believe their own race’s civilizational genius, for a that it will prevail. I certainly don’t believe negritude that turned a derogatory label into a celebration of African cultural distinctiveness. in Trump as its paladin — not when his entire career makes a mockery of faith, And finally they believed that part of the family, tradition, virtue. Nor do I have West’s tradition, the universalist ideals they much confidence that the present burst of associated with French republicanism and European nationalism is more than a spasm, Marxism, could be used to create a political a reflex — not when religious practice is so canopy — a transnational union — beneath weak, patriotism so attenuated, the continent’s which humanity could be (to quote Césaire) birthrate so staggeringly low. “more than ever united and diverse, multiple What’s more, I can read the population and harmonious.” projections for Europe versus the Middle East This vision was rejected by both the and Africa, which make ideas like “managed colonized and the colonizers. But in certain migration” and “careful cultural exchange” ways it was revived by global elites after seem like pretty conceits that 21st-century the Cold War’s end, with neoliberalism realities will eventually explode. substituted for Marxism, and a different set Which brings me back to Césaire and of transnational projects — the European Union, the Pax Americana — taking the place Senghor, men who loved their African heritage and yet also knew European civilization better of the pan-ethnic, multicultural French Union than most educated Europeans do today. Their envisioned by Césaire and Senghor. fantasy of a post-imperial union between north Of late, though, this project has run into and south, white and black, was in their times some of the same difficulties that made just that. theirs an impossibility. The cultural reality But as a striking sort of African-European that Césaire and Senghor grasped — that hybrid, as prophets of a world where the civilizational difference is real and powerful colonized and the colonizers had no choice and lasting — has a way of undoing the but to find a way to live together, the West’s political unity for which they fondly hoped. future may belong to them in some altogether On the evidence of recent European unexpected way. controversies, it is hard enough for a political ■ union to reconcile the different branches of Ross Douthat joined The New York the West — German and Mediterranean, Times as an Op-Ed columnist in April 2009. French and Anglo-Saxon. It becomes harder Previously, he was a senior editor at The when that same union is trying to manage Atlantic. a society so multicultural — as European YOUR VIEWS Too many junk laws out of legislature In reading the laws recently passed by the legislature, I was dismayed at the ludicrous ones passed by elected persons who are supposed to be doing something responsible for the people. An example of this is when they passed a law that lets 16-year-old persons register to vote, even though the law says they can’t vote until 18 years old. Excuse me, but when you register to vote the state will send you a mail ballot allowing that person to vote. I for one do not feel that persons in high school should have access to vote for various taxes that I would have to pay — and, of course, they do not. Why can’t we get legislators to do a proper job instead of passing junk laws like this? James Tiede Hermiston Barreto’s ‘no’ vote no help for district So, Mr. Barretto, let me get this straight: You voted “no” on the transportation bill because they didn’t need your vote. So I take it that you knew the bill was going to pass. Where does that leave those of us who live in District 58? Oh yeah, we get to pay higher gas taxes, higher income taxes, a bicycle fee, higher vehicle registration fees, and higher costs on car purchases. What do we get with your “no” vote? Absolutely nothing in earmarks for needed transportation projects in our communities. Just who are you representing in Salem? Certainly not the people who live in District 58. When you were elected in 2014 it was a concern that you would vote in accordance with your ideology and not in the best interest of those who live in the district. That concern was just confirmed. Thanks for your support! Ed Taber Pendleton Leave Renewable Fuels Standard alone As an elected official, I understand the challenges (and the pressures) of complex policymaking, where we must represent diverse interests and balance all perspectives. But that’s exactly why Oregonians have asked us to do this job. Sometimes, we must examine the larger picture to make the right decision, whether it’s here at home or in Washington, D.C. One such topic is the Renewable Fuels Standard, a bipartisan policy that promotes competition at the gas pump from homegrown biofuels, including those produced right here in the Beaver State. It has and will continue to deliver significant benefits to our economy and environment in Oregon and across the United States. While there’s no shortage of opinions about the RFS, there’s no debate that clean fuels are helping to deliver savings at the at the pump for consumers. And because they compete against foreign oil, biofuels increase American energy security. I encourage Congressman Greg Walden and his colleagues to recognize that any legislative or regulatory changes to the RFS would be disruptive to a program that is currently working. When so many other policies are in flux, consumers and American businesses need to have a stable energy sector. Please reject pressures to undermine the RFS and protect current renewable energy goals. Craig Pope, Polk County commissioner, Monmouth Goats or fish, you can’t have both The main stressor on fish in the Umatilla River is lack of oxygen, caused by water that gets too warm (warm water holds less oxygen) and nitrogen-rich pollution that promotes algae growth (that uses up the oxygen). Goats eat the reeds, shrubs, and small native trees that would normally thrive along the river, and grow into larger trees. Goats eat the bark from saplings, killing them, too. These would normally produce the shade that helps keep the river cooler — and more oxygen rich. Goats produce nitrogen. Each goat produces 5-7 pounds of nitrogen rich poop each day. If there are 50-100 goats for 10-14 days, they will produce one to five tons of poop! That poop, besides being something you do not want your children to play in, also sends a flood of nitrogen into the river each time it rains, feeding those slimy algae blooms that clog the river, use up the oxygen and suffocate the fish. Want fish? No goats. No livestock of any sort near the river, period. Jill Johnson 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 resi- dence 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.
