A4
OPINION
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, June 1, 2022
OUR VIEW
New governor
needs a plan
for education
O
regon does not have a detailed plan of how the state will
improve K-12 education.
Let’s repeat that.
Oregon does not have a detailed plan of how the state will
improve K-12 education.
Plenty of goals, plans, programs and initiatives are out there.
Almost every legislative session something new and diﬀ erent
gets passed. State employees and school district oﬃ cials then go
oﬀ to add the latest churn on top of the churn.
Having a broad, statewide plan is no guarantee of success.
But Oregon does need a long-term approach to education goals.
It needs measurements. It needs reporting requirements. It needs
speciﬁ cs about how funding gets us to goals and how new initia-
tives ﬁ t in.
Much of that exists. What is missing is how it all ﬁ ts together
in a detailed road map for the future. Any state plan should be
heavy on goals and providing performance data and easy on dis-
trict ﬂ exibility to reach goals. There would also need to be a
mechanism for accountability.
What are our candidates for governor going to do? They can
reﬂ ect parental dissatisfaction easily enough. What are their
plans for statewide improvement? Do they believe Oregon needs
a statewide education road map?
Oregon’s public education is far from a mess in every class-
room in every school district. It succeeds for many students.
And not every education problem is directly related to bad
teachers, bad curriculum or poor education investments.
But Oregon’s public education system does have problems.
Here are some facts from a new state audit of public education:
Less than 25% of Oregon students meet proﬁ ciency standards
in math in 11th grade.
Oregon’s graduation rate may be improving. It has still been
near the bottom in the nation.
A statewide review in 2020 found only a third of Oregon chil-
dren eligible for early intervention special education programs
had access to them.
And many of the students that are performing poorly in the
system are minorities or low income.
Oregon is getting its level of performance with more recent
investment in education. Measure 98 was passed in 2016 to
increase graduation rates and career readiness. It was essen-
tially another $800 per high school student per year. Oregon also
established a corporate activity tax in 2019 to bring in what was
hoped to be an extra $1 billion a year to improve education in
early childhood and K-12.
We are going to have that new governor in not so very many
months. It looks like Oregonians will have three major candi-
dates to choose from: Democrat Tina Kotek, independent Betsy
Johnson and Republican Christine Drazan. Which one would
be the most likely to deliver a plan for improving K-12 educa-
tion and pull it oﬀ ? We don’t see anything like that on their cam-
paign websites. Should it be?
OFF THE BEATEN PATH
Of women and woodworking
“A
nyone interested in
woodworking?” asked a
woman.
The women’s group explored
ideas for their next project. They’d
sewn ﬂ annel, baby receiving blan-
kets for humanitarian needs, enjoyed
lessons on baking, quilting, canning,
gardening, and home repairs.
“My husband is a cabinetmaker,”
the woman added. “Sometimes he
gives woodworking lessons. If any-
one is interested, he agreed to show
us how to make a breadboard.”
Saturday morning the group gath-
ered at the carpentry shop. On a
table, the cabinetmaker stacked wood
strips about an inch wide and a cou-
ple feet long made from a variety of
woods with names from the exotic to
the common. The colors of the wood
ranged from rosy-red to ebony, and
from tan to deep brown. The cabi-
netmaker showed us how to lay out
wood strips, glue, and hold parts
together with wood clamps.
The next week after sanding and
applying a food-grade ﬁ nish, each
participant went home with a per-
sonalized breadboard. After ﬁ nish-
ing that project, the group moved on
elsewhere to scrapbooking and family
history research.
I asked the cabinetmaker about the
possibility of a woodworking class on
another project — I wanted to make
a six-inch wooden recipe box for rec-
ipe cards. No problem. The cabinet-
maker’s wife and
I would work on
projects made of
wood.
I wondered if
my love of wooden
objects dated back
to the hours in my
Jean Ann
childhood I spent
Moultrie
perched in trees.
I paid for a lesson and the wood.
Topic for the ﬁ rst day of class: Safety.
While clad in my safety goggles and
earplugs, I received lectures on the
importance of not leaving a ﬁ nger
behind in a saw blade. Then equip-
ment demonstrations — a multitude
of saws: table, band, miter, circular.
And more equipment: router, orbital
sander, jointer, planer, lathe, drill
press, dust collector, chisels, screw-
drivers, etc.
Second class: The wife decided
instead to work on a craft and laid out
fabric on a table.
Time to sketch out my project.
What if I build something bigger than
a recipe box? No problem. I’d pay a
fee each time I came to class, along
with payment for the lumber.
My six-inch recipe box turned into
a six-foot baking center/dish hutch
base with ceiling-high shelving!
I thought if I built something more
complex, I would be able to build lots
of projects on my own — just fol-
low the directions. Not so. The mas-
ter craftsman had to tell me each step,
in detail.
“Cut that board along the pencil
mark. Don’t sand the veneer board
too deep. Those other boards need
more sanding.”
One class, I used the “biscuit cut-
ter” to make “biscuits.” In techni-
cal jargon, the “thingamajigs” ﬁ t into
the “doohickeys” to hold the “what-
chamacallits” in place. One surprise
in woodworking: Glue holds a lot of
the parts in place. Nails and wood
clamps hold pieces until the glue
dries.
The big thrill — cutting boards
where the saw blade spews sawdust
all over. A powerful activity on a Sat-
urday morning!
The top of the base turned out the
most spectacular. The teacher located
stunning bird’s eye maple boards —
and when cut, glued, sanded and pol-
ished with a food-grade beeswax, I
thought it looked too beautiful to use
to knead dough. Instead, on it I dis-
played hand-thrown pottery and a
butter churn.
Craftsmen would rate my proj-
ect as plain. I thought it wonderful
— months of labor. Shows you don’t
have to be the best, or even good at
something, to enjoy doing it.
Jean Ann Moultrie is a Grant
County writer. She hopes someday
to turn wood on a lathe to make
six-inch-high candlesticks and not
end up making 16-foot Greek col-
umns for the porch.
OUR VIEW
It only takes a single spark
ay is Wildﬁ re Awareness Month and,
while the weather the past few weeks
delivered wet and cold conditions, it
is wise for residents to remember the hot and dry
days of summer are just around the corner.
Warnings about ﬁ re danger are now nearly
routine because of the dangerous, overgrown
state of our forests. The climate isn’t helping
much either. Add drought to the bigger picture
and a recipe for potential disaster is mixed and
ready.
Yet the climate can’t take all the blame for
dangerous wild and forest ﬁ res. Blazes acciden-
tally — or otherwise — ignited by humans con-
tinue to be a growing problem.
That means those of us who want to take
advantage of the great vistas and mountains
around our region need to be aware of the dan-
ger from ﬁ re.
Fires start with a spark and that means camp-
ers, hikers and anyone else trudging throughout
the great expanse of wilderness around us should
M
take heed to minimize the potential for an inad-
vertent miscue with ﬁ re.
One spark from equipment — especially
motorized equipment, such as cars, trucks and
ATVs — can create mayhem in terms of ﬁ re.
Sparks are also generated by such things as
electricity, chainsaws or even target shooting.
Last year, more than 1,000 ﬁ res scorched
huge swaths of land in Oregon, and while many
were sparked by Mother Nature — such as from
lightning strikes — the source of other ﬁ res
could be traced back to human error.
Now, with rainy, cold weather, the threat of
wildﬁ re seems like a distant concern. Yet the
weather will shift and soon the local climate will
be warm and dry. Once we enter into the summer
months the threat of wildﬁ re is a real one and all
of us should be mindful a major blaze can erupt
quickly.
We should all expect to enjoy our great out-
door recreation spots this summer. But with
our privilege to tromp around the area’s forests
comes the responsibility to always use caution.
Blue Mountain
EAGLE
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
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John Day, Oregon
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John Day visit
rekindles memories
To the Editor:
I grew up in Mt. Vernon, com-
pleted my education there — all 12
grades in the same building — and
graduated in 1964.
My son and I just spent two
nights and three days in John Day
while squirrel hunting in the area.
It is always a treat to come to the
John Day Valley area and let my
mind be ﬂ ooded with old memo-
ries. Fishing, hunting, and explor-
ing are but a few of the enjoyable
memories I treasure.
After looking at my credit card
and cash expenditures I realized I
spent nearly $900 while in the val-
ley. We really enjoyed a lunch of
L
hamburger and fries in Mt. Ver-
non. The accommodations in John
Day were clean and pleasant, and
John Day restaurants served up
excellent fare.
Overall, your area economy
seems to chug right along, which
is good to see. I hope to continue
these annual visits in the future.
Gary Stolz
Hermiston
Hitch your wagon to
success, not failure
To the Editor:
Elon Musk may not be the smart-
est man in the U.S. but he is cer-
tainly the richest. He didn’t get that
way by buying a winning lottery
ticket but by making sound business
decisions made possible by the Amer-
ican capitalist system. Socialism did
not make him successful, so why are
so many liberal Democrats wanting to
go down the path of failed ideologies?
Musk has stated the Democratic Party
is one of division and hate and he will
no longer support it.
So who would you hitch your
wagon to? Musk or the likes of
Biden, Harris, Pelosi, Schumer,
AOC or other far-left Democrats
that are forcing America to the brink
of disaster?
A recent poll reports that only
18% of the country believes Amer-
ica is heading in the right direction.
Daily the numbers plummet, and
as the little boy famously said, “It’s
only gonna get worser.”
Dave Traylor
John Day
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