TUESDAY, JUNE 22, 2021
Baker City, Oregon
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EDITORIAL
Lowering
students’
standards
Some high school graduates are profi cient in calcu-
lus while others struggle with algebra.
Some graduates can write complex sentences
without pondering the mysteries of clauses, while
others can’t distinguish between the passive and
active voices.
But despite the range in accomplishments, it’s
hardly an extreme notion that Oregon students
should demonstrate basic abilities in math and writ-
ing before they receive a diploma.
Beyond the obvious reason — after 12 years in
school, students ought to be capable of proving
they’ve learned a certain amount in those two sub-
jects — to distribute diplomas to students who lack
these skills is to set them on a potential path of frus-
tration and failure, particularly if they go to college.
But Oregon’s Democrat-controlled Legislature
thinks differently.
Lawmakers recently passed Senate Bill 744, which
now awaits Gov. Kate Brown’s signature. The bill will
suspend for the next three years the Essential Skills
graduation requirement, and it directs the state
Department of Education to evaluate how Oregon
determines graduation requirements.
(Baker County’s two legislators — Rep. Mark
Owens of Crane, and Sen. Lynn Findley of Vale, both
Republicans, voted against Senate Bill 744.)
An evaluation is reasonable.
But it’s hardly necessary to waive the current
requirements while evaluating them.
Oregon initially suspended the Essential Skills
requirement due to the COVID-19 pandemic, during
which many students in the state have taken mostly,
or only, online classes.
That suggests, if nothing else, that “comprehensive
distance learning” wasn’t especially comprehensive.
Another fl aw in the concept is that it ignores the
reality that most students preparing to graduate
were subjected to distance learning for less than a
year and a half. Surely it’s not too much to expect
that many of those students would have acquired
the necessary skills to show profi ciency even before
computers monitors replaced actually classrooms.
An organization that supports the bill, Founda-
tions for a Better Oregon, said in a statement that
“An inclusive and equitable review of graduation and
profi ciency requirements, when guided by data and
grounded in a commitment to every student’s suc-
cess, will promote shared accountability and foster a
more just Oregon.”
That statement falls squarely within the category
of “sounds nice but what, exactly, does it mean?”
First, why would any review of graduation require-
ments be anything except “inclusive and equitable”
if the same standards, as they do now, apply to all
students?
Second, what evidence is there that the current
graduation requirements are not “grounded in a
commitment to every student’s success?” What else
would they be grounded in? The entire purpose of
graduation requirements is to ensure that students
have learned what they need to learn to have a
chance to be successful.
The last part of the sentence from Foundations for
a Better Oregon is even more perplexing. What does
“shared accountability” mean in this context? That
schools are responsible for teaching, and students for
learning? If so, just say that.
It’s a laudable goal to improve Oregon’s gradua-
tion requirements. High school diplomas should have
relevance; they should ensure that the students who
receive one have, during the preceding years, learned
enough to pursue a productive life as an adult.
But suspending such requirements, even for a few
years, is more likely to hurt students, by awarding
them diplomas that imply a level of education that
they haven’t actually attained.
— Jayson Jacoby, Baker City Herald editor
Your views
It’s time to start thinking
about the drought
Guess it’s time we talked about the
drought.
Being a farming and ranching com-
munity, this is likely to hit us pretty
hard in the near future. Tourism isn’t
enough to save us economically. The
long-range forecast says this drought
condition will continue to worsen. In
fact, some areas are seeing the driest
conditions in 1,200 years.
If you can’t grow crops or water
cattle, what are we to do?
Then you have to consider people in
town here. We HAVE to have water to
drink. That’s priority No. 1. Nothing
can live without water and that in-
cludes us. Will it get so bad later in the
summer that we can no longer water
our grass or fi ll a pool? Quite possibly.
And we should be thinking about this.
I see all the sprinklers going this
morning as I write. Worked hard the
past couple of years to give my place
a nice yard with grass that looks like
premium carpet. Might I have to give
it up soon? Watch the fl owers wilt and
turn to dust? And the grass will become
sunburnt and lifeless. I will if that’s
what needs to be done.
I hope the town leaders have some
vision of what to do when this comes
calling ...
Dan Collins
Baker City
Another date should join
Juneteenth as national holiday
On June 19, Juneteenth, 1865
federal troops landed at Galveston
Bay in Texas and ended 200 years
of slavery. It is now and should be a
national holiday. But there is an even
more important date — April 19, 1775,
when at a bridge on Lexington Green a
shot heard around the world was fi red.
That shot was literally heard around
the world. It challenged tyranny, which
at that time was vested in royalty. Roy-
alty, the idea that you are born to rule
and could pass that on to your heirs.
The idea of republics, where the people
elect their leaders caught on. Bolivar
in South America challenged Spanish
royalty, the French chopped their heads
off. Later the Russians shot their royal
family. The republic idea caught on,
except in the so-called Great Britain,
Islands, where they still kiss the royal
arse.
I guess it is the failure of the Ameri-
can education system that subjects me
to what Megan and Harry are doing.
They are everywhere, even Fox News.
Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity both
have had Piers Morgan on, because he
trashes Harry and Megan. Morgan is a
staunch supporter of the royal fam-
ily. He is, however, a vocal opponent of
our Second Amendment. It shouldn’t
be hard to google Piers defending the
British idea that only the elite should
possess arms, the exact opposite of the
American ideal.
Enough crap about whether Biden
violated royal protocol and other such
tripe. I don’t care if there is another
royal brat, I don’t want to hear any-
more about an American royal baby.
Titles of royalty are specifi cally pro-
hibited in our constitution. Coverage
of Megan and Harry gives our poorly
educated citizenry the idea that royalty
is a legitimate form of government.
That shot fi red at Lexington Green
challenged that.
It is time to teach history in our
schools again and it is time that April
19 becomes a national holiday. It
set the idea that people of all colors
all around the world are capable of
controlling their own lives. People of all
colors.
Steve Culley
Baker City
Biden and Putin have met,
but will things get better?
Editorial from The Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette:
President Joe Biden and Russian
President Vladimir Putin have had
their much anticipated summit meet-
ing in Switzerland. Now the question is:
Will it improve anything?
Will Putin cease meddling in other
countries, including our own?
Will he cease persecuting dissidents
and lovers of freedom in Russia?
Will it lead to better U.S.-Russian
relations?
Biden’s own answer was: “We’ll see.”
That’s not encouraging, for there is
little ground for optimism.
So, the question then becomes: What
will Biden do when what we see is not a
change but more of the same?
No president would show all his cards
in a situation like our current one with
Russia.
And it is better that neither president
saber-rattled in the meeting.
But it is hard to avoid the sinking
feeling that the answer may be: The U.S.
president will not do much at all about
V. Putin.
There are limits, of course, to what
any U.S. president can do about any
tyrant in any foreign land.
But Putin could not be blamed for
assuming there will be no real test of his
limits.
Biden’s argument for chastising and con-
taining Putin might be called realism, plus.
He knows we cannot dictate terms to
Putin.
He also knows we cannot trust him.
He knows Russia is a brutal autoc-
racy, of the kind he has vowed to oppose.
But Biden’s basic argument is that
world opinion and economic self-inter-
est will bring Putin around.
That is, it is in Putin’s interest to seek
the approval of civilized nations and not
to be seen as a rogue autocrat leading a
rogue state.
It is in his interest to accept interna-
tional norms.
If he wants expanded U.S. trade and
trade with the NATO countries, he will
clean up his act.
If he wants U.S. business investment,
he will cease kidnapping and jailing
U.S. businessmen, like Michael Calvey.
In short, the new realism assumes
Putin is a rational actor.
Call it realism, plus hope.
But why would Putin be a more
rational actor after the summit than in
the years before?
All these reasoning calculations could
have been made by him prior to the
summit — for many years prior.
Why would he start caring that the
world thinks him a thug, now?
It was Biden, after all, who called Mr.
Putin “a killer.”
He was right.
Killers usually do not seek the ap-
proval of rule followers.
So there is no reason to believe that
Putin has been in any way chastened
by this meeting.
Moreover, Biden’s promise that if
Putin persists in his Putin ways, “we
will respond,” probably does not change
much, either.
And restoring full diplomatic rela-
tions, now promised, is probably not the
right signal to send.
Realism really means that the life
of one man — like dissident Alexei
Navalny, who is now being slowly killed
in a gulag — is not suffi cient cause for a
new cold war.
But what if the cold war is already
on?
And what if Putin did not get, and
does not plan on receiving and read-
ing, the West’s memo about reason and
reputation and good opinion?
The good opinion of the West, and
cordiality with the United States, did
not stop the Putin regime from poison-
ing dissidents, from jailing them or, yes,
from killing them.
So, maybe the way to get the dicta-
tor’s attention, and to drive home the
larger point about democracies having
as much guts and staying power as
autocracies, is to say: The consequences
are now. We are not giving you another
chance. Free Navalny and free Calvey
now. And then we will trade robustly
with you and send a new U.S. ambas-
sador.
Maybe the true realism is standing
for American values as well as inter-
ests.
Maybe playing nice with a killer
and warning that one day there will
be consequences isn’t realistic at all.