Page 4A
East Oregonian
Saturday, January 27, 2018
KATHRYN B. BROWN
Publisher
DANIEL WATTENBURGER
Managing Editor
TIM TRAINOR
Opinion Page Editor
Founded October 16, 1875
OUR VIEW
Raising the graduation bar
Education is the key to a better life,
and a high school diploma or GED
is a bare minimum requirement to
enter adulthood with the skills to be
successful.
That’s why it’s a shame Oregon is
stuck at a solid “C” when it comes to
high school graduation rates.
The report card released this week
shows Oregon high schools graduate
fewer than 77 percent of students on
time, an increase from previous years
but still short of the 84 percent rate
across the U.S.
Hermiston’s rate of 65.8 percent for
the district (72.5 percent if you don’t
count online school) is the lowest in
Umatilla County. It’s also the largest
district.
Small districts had more success,
including a big jump for Umatilla from
72 percent to 82 percent. Pendleton also
ticked upward.
But we agree with the administrators
we spoke to this week: Regardless of the
rate, there’s more work to be done.
Here are a few ideas on how to set a
higher bar and get more students out the
door on time with a diploma in hand.
Don’t take an easy out. When bad
news comes — and this report wasn’t
pretty for some districts — it’s easy to
try to deflect and dodge.
From the outset, we should say that
statistics are easily malleable. Tuck
a few lower-achieving students here,
explain away a few there and pretty
soon your graduation rate looks pretty
good.
But keep in mind, the base rate — the
one we reported in the paper Thursday
— is the same rate every district in
the state uses. It accounts for students
who have moved and not registered
elsewhere, gone on to get a GED or
fifth-year diploma or simply dropped
out.
Just as no two students are the same,
neither are any two districts. Socio-
economic factors make it an inherently
uneven field.
But that’s no reason to allow a
quarter of students or more to fall by the
wayside before graduation, no matter
the external factors.
The buck stops with administrators,
tasked with hiring and developing
competent educators and guiding
students from kindergarten to graduation
day, no matter when, where or how they
enter the system.
Ask for help. It was disheartening to
hear Hermiston principal Tom Spoo say
the district hasn’t looked around at other
districts to see how they’re doing or
what’s working. Especially so because
there are several neighboring high
schools with similar demographics that
found ways to increase their rate.
Since Hermiston has withdrawn from
the InterMountain Education Service
District, collaborating with others must
be intentional. The district can’t become
an island.
Both Hermiston and Umatilla
said a key strategy has been bringing
administrators in to work with struggling
students. It would appear, based on the
data, that some of those conversations
and methods have been more effective.
Spending some time learning what
is working up the road could make a
difference for Hermiston students.
There may also be academic
programs in place in smaller districts
that could be scaled up, or from larger
urban districts that could be scaled
down.
Try something different. Accepting
the status quo shouldn’t be acceptable,
East Oregonian file photo
Hermiston High School’s Class of 2017 celebrates graduation.
and the state average is a low bar to leap
for. In order to get radically different
results, radical changes are often
necessary.
We’ll leave it up to the school
administrators to decide where serious
changes could be implemented, but
we’ve got some ideas.
A district with low rates could start
by examining and defining its priorities.
Athletics, everyone’s favorite connection
to their alma mater, teach important life
skills but don’t do much to academically
prepare a graduating class.
Hermiston is in a unique position
of gaining some extra hours in the
next school year as it moves into
Washington’s athletic conference.
Student athletes will spend fewer hours
on the bus, and the district will shell
out fewer dollars for transportation. We
hope the school will funnel those saved
dollars directly into academics.
Districts that allow students to
leave for lunch (including Pendleton
and Hermiston) could also consider
closing the campus, or at least
restricting the number of students
who can come and go. By creating a
more focused academic atmosphere
for students, where every day is built
around education first and social and
extracurricular activities second, fewer
students will slip through the cracks, fall
behind and drop out.
Get everyone involved. We’ve
heaped the responsibility on
administrators, and they are the ones
ultimately responsible for raising the
level of academic success. But it’s not
our intention to hang them out to dry.
Education is a community process,
guided by an elected school board and
funded by taxpayers.
The classroom teacher — the core
element in an education — can only do
so much, and we want to put them in a
position to succeed.
OTHER VIEWS
The Jordan Peterson moment
M
YOUR VIEWS
Kill seals and sea lions to
protect endangered fish
According to a recent article, there were
more than 1,000 seals and sea lions in the
Astoria boat basin on a single day in 2015.
That is about half the total number there
were in Oregon in 1956. I was a fisheries
biology major on a day-long field trip in
May of that year. From Garibaldi to Astoria
we saw no seals or sea lions and we were
with people who knew where to look. There
definitely were none in the Columbia River
because Bill Puustinen didn’t allow them
to stay in the river. He was the seal hunter
the Fish Commission hired in the 1950s and
1960s to manage the seals and sea lions.
I only had the pleasure of meeting
Bill one time when I was a kid, but was
impressed with his stories about herding
these pinnipeds back to sea. He claimed
they were very smart and he only had to
kill a few to make them fear him. He said a
fisherman would report there was a sea lion
or seal in the river and all he had to do was
start his boat and they would be heading
back to sea. He claimed they recognized the
sound of his boat as far away as eight miles.
Back to the field trip. When we returned
to class the following week there was
justifiable concern for the fact there were
only about 1,000 seals and 1,000 sea lions
in Oregon waters. I didn’t see anything
wrong when the marine mammal protection
act came into existence. Unfortunately,
emotions now trump reason.
Seals and sea lions no longer need
protection but endangered fish do. The
Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) is
spending about $500 million dollars a year
of electrical ratepayers’ money trying to
protect and enhance these fish.
What can we do? We can be creative. If
the military can drive ISIS out of Iraq, our
National Guard should be able to drive a
few thousand seals and sea lions out of the
Columbia. I would think the military could
come up with some non-lethal ordnances to
assist in hazing these animals out to sea.
After you get them out of the river, in
might be advisable to hire a few Finnish
descendants in Astoria to keep them out,
doing whatever needs to be done.
Carlisle Harrison, Hermiston
Quick takes
Makad’s lease payments delayed another two years
Data center? I can’t even get cell service when I go up there.
— Laura Smith
Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the
East Oregonian editorial board. Other
columns, letters and cartoons on this page
express the opinions of the authors and
not necessarily that of the East Oregonian.
y friend Tyler Cowen
on the point between order and
argues that Jordan Peterson
chaos. Chaos is the realm without
is the most influential
norms and rules. Chaos, he writes,
public intellectual in the Western
is “the impenetrable darkness of a
world right now, and he has a point.
cave and the accident by the side of
Peterson, a University of Toronto
the road. It’s the mother grizzly, all
psychologist, has found his real
compassion to her cubs, who marks
home on YouTube, where his videos
you as potential predator and tears
have attracted something like 40
you to pieces. Chaos, the eternal
David
million views.
Brooks feminine, is also the crushing force
In his videos, he analyzes classic
of sexual selection. Women are
Comment
and biblical texts, he eviscerates
choosy maters. ... men do not meet
identity politics and political
female human standards.”
correctness and, most important, he delivers
Life is suffering, Peterson reiterates.
stern fatherly lectures to young men on how Don’t be fooled by the naive optimism
to be honorable, upright and self-disciplined of progressive ideology. Life is about
— how to grow up and take responsibility
remorseless struggle and pain. Your instinct
for their own lives.
is to whine, to play the victim, to seek
Parents, universities and the elders of
vengeance. Peterson tells young men
society have utterly failed to give many
to never do that. Rise above the culture
young men realistic and demanding
of victimization you see all around you.
practical wisdom on how to live. Peterson
Stop whining. Don’t blame others or seek
has filled the gap.
revenge. “The individual must conduct
But what’s most interesting about
his or her life in a manner that requires
Peterson’s popularity, especially the success the rejection of immediate gratification, of
of his new book, “12 Rules for Life,” is
natural and perverse desires alike.”
Instead, choose discipline, courage and
what it says about the state of young men
self-sacrifice. Never lie. Tell your boss
today. The implied readers of his work are
what you really think. Be strict with your
men who feel fatherless, solitary, floating
children. Drop the friends who bring you
in a chaotic moral vacuum, constantly
down. Break free from the needy mother
outperformed and humiliated by women,
haunted by pain and self-contempt. At some who controls you.
And Peterson personifies the strong,
level Peterson is offering assertiveness
training to men whom society is trying to
courageous virtues he champions. His most
turn into emasculated snowflakes.
recent viral video, with more than 4 million
Peterson gives them a chance to be
views, is an interview he did with Cathy
strong. He inspires their idealism by telling
Newman of Britain’s Channel 4 News.
them that life is hard. His worldview begins Newman sensed that there was something
with the belief that life is essentially a series disruptive to progressive orthodoxy in
of ruthless dominance competitions. The
Peterson’s worldview, but she couldn’t
strong get the spoils and the weak become
quite put her finger on it. So, as Conor
meek, defeated, unknown and unloved.
Friedersdorf noted in The Atlantic, she
For much of Western history, he argues,
did what a lot of people do in argument
Christianity restrained the human tendency
these days. Instead of actually listening to
toward barbarism. But God died in the
Peterson, she just distorted, simplified and
19th century, and Christian dogma and
restated his views to make them appear
discipline died with him. That gave us the
offensive and cartoonish.
age of ideology, the age of fascism and
Peterson calmly and comprehensibly
corrected and rebutted her. It is the
communism.
most devastatingly one-sided media
Since then we’ve tried another way
confrontation you will see. He reminded me
to pacify the race. Since most conflict is
of a young William F. Buckley.
over values, we’ve decided to not have
The Peterson way is a harsh way, but it
any values. We’ll celebrate relativism
is an idealistic way — and for millions of
and tolerance. We deny the true nature of
young men, it turns out to be the perfect
humanity and naively pretend everyone
antidote to the cocktail of coddling and
is nice. The upside is we haven’t blown
accusation in which they are raised.
ourselves up; the downside is we live in a
■
world of normlessness, meaninglessness
David Brooks became a New York Times
and chaos.
All of life is perched, Peterson continues, Op-Ed columnist in September 2003.
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