OPINION
A4 HERMISTONHERALD.COM
SATURDAY, APRIL 4, 2015
EDITORIAL • COMMENTARY • LETTERS
HermistonHerald
VOLUME 109 ɿ NUMBER 21
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newsprint
The end of the
Civil War: The
150th anniversary
W
hen we were
teenagers,
my “the
South’s gonna do it
again” younger brother
bought into some weird
conspiracy theory that
Gen. Robert E. Lee
didn’t really surrender at
Appomattox Courthouse,
Virginia. Lee supposedly
thought he was merely
handing his sword
over to someone for
cleaning. (The deniers
who concocted the
theory apparently also
believed that Europeans
never really landed in
the New World but just
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somewhere.)
I rush to get this
into print because April
9 marks the 150th
anniversary of Lee’s
surrender, which for all
intents and purposes ended
the American Civil War.
One must be careful
to specify “the American
Civil War,” because civil
wars remain a dime a
dozen around the globe.
Thank goodness we’ll
never see another “brother
DJDLQVWEURWKHU´FRQÀLFWLQ
this country. No, it would
be “brother against sister
trapped in a brother’s
body” or “blue against
gray trapped in a turquoise
uniform” or...
*Ahem* Well, at least
there’s no more chance of
a full-blown War Between
the States, with all its
VDFUL¿FHVDQGXSKHDYDOV
Or is there? (“Please!
We’ll wear rags on our
feet and eat rat-on-a-stick!
Just please ignore our
neighbors and give our
state that professional
sports franchise!”)
The string of 150-
year milestones over the
past four years has given
teachers an opportunity
to excite students about
history. Many young
scholars have had a lot to
learn. (“That marching
song ‘Eatin’ Goober Peas’
— it goes all the way
back to Hootie and the
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Yes, students have
learned to pay rapt
attention to descriptions of
the horrors of war. (“Yeah,
yeah — amputated legs,
shrapnel in the eyes ...
We want to hear about
the coping mechanisms
of the poor soldiers who
had their texting thumbs
amputated!”)
People from all parts
of the country have been
interested in the Civil
War sesquicentennial, but
Southerners have probably
DANNY TYREE
TYRADES!
Cagle columnist
been more passionate.
A disturbing number of
Yankees just can’t fathom
lingering Southern pride
and animosity. (“Why
can’t they just get over
it? Hey, is that Benny
Dinglewicz coming out
in his front yard? That
*&%$# scratched my
snowplow back in ‘93.
He’s dead to me, I tell you
— DEAD!”)
After sesquicentennial
festivities die down,
we’ll hear less and
less about regiments,
blockades, ironclads,
raids, massacres, charges,
campaigns and the like.
People suffering from
vicarious combat fatigue
will welcome the change,
but others will suffer
withdrawal. (“It was
nice to hear about a few
‘campaigns’ that the Koch
Brothers didn’t have any
money in!”)
Civil War reenactors
ZLOO¿QGVOLPPHUSLFNLQJV
but the more dedicated
ones will still pour their
hearts into their hobby.
Maybe drifting public
attention will at least
weed out some of the
ones who didn’t really
belong. I mean, if you
think “secession” was how
your new niece entered
the world, you probably
shouldn’t be a Civil War
reenactor!!!
In a perfect world,
interest in the Civil
War would now segue
smoothly into widespread
acknowledgment of
the sesquicentennial of
various Reconstruction
milestones, but I don’t
see that happening. It’s
a shame. Reconstruction
lasted 12 years, cost
millions and produced
uneven results. (“TELL
me about it,” lamented one
aging actress.)
Go out and celebrate
heroism and peace on
April 9. But be careful
about handing over your
keys to a valet parking
attendant. It could be a
trick! (“The South did it
again! D’oh!”)
— ©2015 Danny
Tyree. Danny welcomes
email responses at
tyreetyrades@aol.com
and visits to his Face-
book fan page “Tyree’s
Tyrades.” Danny’s weekly
column is distributed
exclusively by Cagle
Cartoons Inc. newspaper
syndicate
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Support BMCC bond
Editor,
The following quote by T. H. White,
from “The Once and Future King,” is
one of the many reasons I am voting
“Yes” on the upcoming BMCC bond:
“The best thing for being sad…is to
learn something. That’s the only thing
that never fails. You may grow old
and trembling in your anatomies, you
may lie awake at night listening to the
disorder of your veins, you may miss
your only love, you may see the world
about you devastated by evil lunatics,
or know your honour trampled in the
sewers of baser minds. There is only
one thing for it then — to learn. Learn
why the world wags and what wags it.
That is the only thing which the mind
can never exhaust, never alienate, never
be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and
never dream of regretting. Learning is
the only thing for you. Look what a lot
of things there are to learn.”
I live in an average home. By my
calculations the bond will cost about “a
dime a day.” That seems to be a bargain
IRU WKH PDQ\ EHQH¿WV RI KDYLQJ D YL-
brant community college in our region.
Please join me in passing the bond.
KIM B. PUZEY
HERMISTON, OREGON
BMCC bond passage critical
for companies
Editor,
Our community is fortunate to have
a fantastic educational resource in Blue
Mountain Community College. Many
high school students, graduates and
those already employed in our com-
munity are getting educated in a variety
of methods through this local resource.
Like me, you probably know many
persons in our community that have re-
ceived education through BMCC, and I
am proud to help support the future of
this resource.
BMCC is a vital asset to our region,
and an investment in this bond would
continue to allow many members of our
community to further their educations
in a high-quality setting with a regional
impact.
Support of this bond is critical to the
future success of the companies that
have invested and have created jobs and
opportunities for our local workforce.
Your support can help ensure that ed-
ucation programs are available to meet
the needs of this ever changing and
technical workforce. Did you know that
nearly 82 percent of BMCC graduates
stay in our local region? Let’s ensure
that our local students and employees
have access to this training right here in
our community.
I have lived and worked in this
community for over 23 years and un-
derstand the importance of educational
opportunities for our area.
Please join me in voting YES for the
BMCC bond!
DEBBIE RADIE
VP OPERATIONS
BOARDMAN FOODS, INC.
Common Core tests are failures
A
sixth-grader in east Texas
recently challenged state
lawmakers to do what she
and every other public-school kid
have to do during testing season:
“Sit in a room for up to four hours,
without talking, writing, drawing,
reading, or using your cell phone.”
Because millions of children are
taking Common Core standardized
tests this time of year, I did her one
better. I took a fourth-grade English
Language Arts practice test. The
good news is I passed.
The bad news is that the test is
basically worthless, highlighting the
folly of using standardized tests to
measure a child’s ability to read and
write. And to the Texas sixth-grader’s
point, in no way whatsoever was I
able to quietly sit still for that long.
Of course, it didn’t take me four
hours to complete the sample test.
I don’t want to brag, but I’m very
advanced for a fourth-grader.
I took a sample test from the
Smarter Balanced Assessment
Consortium, one of two groups doing
the Common Core testing. Twenty-
one states belong to the SBAC,
mostly on the west coast, the Black
Hills, New England and some of
the Great Lakes area. Other states,
such as Alabama, Alaska, Kansas,
Pennsylvania and Utah, have voted
to pull out of SBAC mostly because
their legislatures have political
differences with President Obama,
and not for any pedagogical reasons.
Common Core — originally a
state-driven guideline to make sure
Americans got a good education
— isn’t a bad idea. Unfortunately,
trying to measure the growth of a
child’s mind with a standardized
test just corrupts the whole process.
-$62167$1)25'
Cagle columnist
To get students ready to take an
English Language Arts test, they
don’t do what you and I would
recognize as reading and writing. An
education that prepares a kid to take
a standardized test is a perversion of
the idea of education.
Completely absent from the
sample test on English Language
Arts was any literature, A.K.A.
the art of the English language. A
9-year-old in the English-speaking
world is heir to a cultural fortune,
including “James and the Giant
Peach” by Roald Dahl, C.S. Lewis’
“The Chronicles of Narnia,” and
“Charlotte’s Web” by E.B. White,
among many others. Sadly, this
canon is not aimed at our children.
Instead, a prepubescent test-
taker will have to read antiseptic
“selections.” In one passage that
recalled Native American folk
tales but was not described as such
(depriving the student of any cultural
appreciation of literature), a coyote
dresses up like a bear to steal honey.
It was so boring I had to make
blinders of my hands to force myself
to focus on the text.
Then there were the questions,
some of which seemed confusing
for a 9-year-old and some that
puzzled a middle-aged columnist.
One question asked which sentence
out of a paragraph “best supports
the inference that Coyote uses his
imagination.” A kid could get tripped
up on the word “inference,” and it
was irrelevant to the concept being
tested. Asking what “best shows
Coyote uses his imagination” would
have worked better.
Then there were the questions
that made me want to strangle the
committee that wrote this test. None
of the possible answers for what
“best describes the lesson Coyote
learned” had anything to do with
the real meaning of the parable,
and a student is asked to decide
whether a particular metaphor about
a “tree’s belly” is humorous, playful
or surprising, even though humor is
often playful and surprising. Maybe
I shouldn’t be surprised that people
who write standardized tests do not
fundamentally understand humor.
The writing portion of the test
was ludicrous. Students were given
a business card-shaped rectangle in
which to record their analysis. You
could replace this entire test with
a book report and come out ahead.
Actually, you could probably buy
HYHU\FKLOGLQ$PHULFD¿UVWHGLWLRQV
and come out ahead. The price tag on
SBAC tests in California alone is $1
billion.
We’re so focused on measuring
children that we’ve stopped
developing them. These tests don’t
measure what we want our children
to learn and are a waste of money.
That Texas sixth-grader has a point.
I can’t sit quietly. This test is failing
our children.
— © Copyright 2015 Jason Stan-
ford, distributed exclusively by Cagle
Cartoons newspaper syndicate. Ja-
son Stanford is a regular contributor
to the Austin American-Statesman, a
Democratic consultant and a Truman
National Security Project partner.
You can email him at stanford@
oppresearch.com and follow him on
Twitter @JasStanford
ELECTED OFFICIALS
STATE
District 29: Sen. Bill Hansell,
R-Umatilla Co., 900 Court St. N.E.,
S-423, Salem, OR 97301, 503-986-
1729. 101 S.W. Third St., Pendleton,
OR 97801 (541) 278-1396. E-mail:
ssen.billhansell@state.or.us.
District 30: Sen. Ted Ferrio-
li, R-John Day; 900 Court St. N.E.,
S-223 Salem, OR 97301, 503-986-
1950. 750 W. Main, John Day, OR
97845, (541) 575-2321. E-mail: ferr-
ioli.sen@state.or.us.
District 58: Rep. Bob Jenson,
R-Pendleton; 900 Court St. N.E.,
H-480, Salem, OR 97301, 503-986-
1458. 2126 N.W. 21st., Pendleton,
OR 97801, (541) 276-2707. E-mail:
rep.bobjenson@state.or.us.
District 57: Rep. Greg Smith,
R-Morrow, 900 Court St. N.E.,
H-280, Salem, OR 97301, 503-986-
1457. P.O. Box 215, Heppner, OR
97836, (541) 676-5154. E-mail:
smith.g.rep@state.or.us.
FEDERAL
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden
Sac Annex Building, 105 Fir St.,
No. 201, La Grande, OR 97850;
(541) 962-7691. E-mail: kath-
leen_cathey@wyden.senate.gov;
(Kathleen Cathey, community repre-
sentative); 717 Hart Building, Wash-
ington, D.C. 20510, (202) 224-5244.
U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley
One World Trade Center, 121 SW
Salmon Street, Suite 1250, Portland,
OR 97204; (503) 326-3386; Dirksen
6HQDWH 2I¿FH %XLOGLQJ 6'%%
Washington, D.C. 20510. (202) 224-
3753.
U.S. Rep. Greg Walden (2nd
District)
843 E. Main St., Suite 400, Med-
ford, OR 97504, (541) 776-4646,
(800) 533-3303; 2352 Rayburn
+RXVH2I¿FH%XLOGLQJ:DVKLQJWRQ
D.C. 20515, (202) 225-6730