OPINION READER’S FORUM
Founded in 1906
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 5, 2022
A4
OUR VIEW
Rotten 2021 provides glimmers of hope for 2022
Looking back at 2021, we might be
tempted to despair. Pandemic, civil unrest,
insurrection and more were front and center
in the news. While we were all suff ering the
fallout from global and national catastro-
phe, each of us dealt with the same things
that have always troubled our lives — bills,
work, family squabbles and so on. How-
ever, when we look closer into the events
of the past year, we can have hope for the
newly arrived year.
One thing from 2021 that we can be
happy about is the mobilization to get peo-
ple vaccinated. In our community, there
were several people who worked tirelessly
to vaccinate others against the coronavi-
rus. Many of these people were in our com-
munity, at event booths, pop-up clinics and
even workplaces. We have benefi ted from
their service, and they were there for us.
We can also be glad for the work that
was started in 2021 that we will be able
to enjoy in 2022. The new Hermiston
City Hall is one of those projects. Located
downtown, the old 1965 building lacked
space and accessibility. Hermiston had out-
grown that building, and the new one will
off er us more.
As the roof has been recently added, and
the walls are being fi lled in, we are getting
a fuller look at the promise of the new city
hall. It will be a symbol for Hermiston. It
will show others the town is growing and is
worthy of its place on the map. The people
of Hermiston deserve to have such a struc-
ture, and we can be pleased to have it.
This is not the only construction that
is happening, however, as work is being
done throughout the area. To see this, we
need only to drive through our neighbor-
hoods and have a look around. We see new
schools, new homes and new businesses
being built. These are places that we will
come to fruition this year, thanks to the
hard work of people in our community.
We can be thankful for the people who
have made eff orts to give us hope in 2021.
Our local schools are fi lled with such peo-
ple, who brought our children back into
classrooms. Thanks to their work, they
were able to teach students again.
And it is not just school staff who got the
ball rolling on progressing our community;
it was also the many other workers. Labor-
ers kept our restaurants, stores and factories
open and productive.
In 2021, the Hermiston Herald was fi lled
with stories of people working to better our
community — not just paid workers, but
unpaid volunteers. These volunteers were
behind big donation drives, such as Christ-
mas Express. They provided for less fortu-
nate people. Locally, charity eff orts con-
tinue, fueled in part by organizations such
as Lions, Kiwanis, Rotary and Altrusa
groups.
Eastern Oregon Mission was also a big
contributor to our area in 2021. Its work
in 2021, in providing for people at Agape
House and Martha’s House, stood out. The
eff orts of their workers, paid and unpaid,
provide hope that we can solve poverty in
our community.
Our cities, like every city in the nation,
remain beset with problems. Looking back
at the stories of 2021, however, we are jus-
tifi ed to be optimistic. Yes, overall, it was a
wretched year. People died and livelihoods
were crushed. Likely, the stories of the year
will forever scar us. Still, there were many
good things and great people who made
news in 2021.
They give us hope for 2022.
PASTURES OF PLENTY
ANOTHER VIEW
Home-schooling will boom Transmuting moments of
long after COVID-19
vulnerability into magic
S
tudent enrollment in public
schools has nosedived as par-
ent disgust with school COVID-
19 policies, student learning losses
and controversial education policies
has gone through the roof. In the wake
of this enrollment implosion,
home-schooling has boomed
across the country.
At the beginning of the
school year, the U.S. Depart-
ment of Education estimated
1.5 million students had left the
public schools since the corona-
Lance
virus pandemic began.
Izumi
If students are not enrolling
in public schools, where are they
going? The numbers show many for-
mer public school students are now
being home-schooled.
The U.S. Census Bureau found the
percentage of home-schooling house-
holds more than doubled in 2020 from
5% in spring to 11% in the fall.
According to a recent University of
Michigan study, from 2020 to 2021,
the enrollment at public schools in
Michigan fell by nearly 46,000 stu-
dents, which represented a more than a
3% drop. Among kindergartners, there
was a decrease of more than 11%.
The increase in home-schoolers
does not come from just a narrow seg-
ment of the American population.
A University of Washington Both-
ell analysis found, “The diversity of
home-schoolers in the U.S. mirrors the
diversity of all students nationally,”
including all racial, religious, political,
and income groups.
For instance, the Census Bureau
found that among African Amer-
ican households the increase in
home-schooling was much steeper
than in the country as a whole, rising
from 3% to 16%, a fi ve-fold jump.
This increase in African American
home-schooling is not surprising given
recent research by McKinsey & Com-
pany that found “Students in major-
ity Black schools ended the (2020-21
school) year with six months of unfi n-
ished learning.”
Demetria Zinga, one of the coun-
try’s top African American home-
school YouTubers, says, “I believe
home-schooling is growing and
exploding amongst African Ameri-
cans and there will be more and more
home-schoolers.”
Home-school mom Magda
Gomez, an immigrant from
Mexico, has become an activist
for home-schooling in the His-
panic community.
She observes: “We His-
panics as a culture are usu-
ally very protective and loving
towards our children. How-
ever, I explain that love is not
enough to raise our children. We have
to educate ourselves in diff erent areas
(of education), especially since we
are not in our (native) country but are
immigrants.”
“It is my dream,” she says, “to see
more Hispanic families doing home-
school.” Her dream is coming true
with home-schooling doubling among
Hispanic households, from 6% to
12%.
In addition to the racial diver-
sity of home-schoolers, in 2021 the
school-choice organization EdChoice
found: “Many parents of children with
autism, ADHD, and other neuro-de-
velopmental disorders report that pub-
lic schools cannot eff ectively address
their child’s specialized learning
needs.”
Pediatric nurse and home-school
mom Jackie Nunes unenrolled her spe-
cial-needs daughter from public school
saying, “There just wasn’t enough of
the things that matter — time, atten-
tion, patience, persistence, passion,
support.”
The coronavirus pandemic has
exposed all the fl aws in the one-size-
fi ts-all public schools, which is why
the home-school boom is shaking up
American education.
———
Lance Izumi is senior director of
the Center for Education at the Pacifi c
Research Institute.
I
’ve been thinking recently
about vulnerability. What
it looks like, feels like,
entails.
If vulnerability is the mul-
tiplier, what do we multiply
it with, what is the product,
the outcome of this action?
Courage adjacent, vulnerabil-
ity asks to shed light on the
innermost workings of
our hearts and mind and
past. The process then
is honesty and bravery
in spite of the nagging,
intrusive thoughts.
It’s a realignment, for
those of us who have
Alex
fought against and lost
Hobbs
many times over to the
self-preservation instinct
which tells us to harden our-
selves against disappointment.
There is no guaranteed
upshot. Only ripples. Ever-ex-
panding. A seed buried in the
cold hard earth.
In 2009, I was 19. A soph-
omore English major whose
identity was fully wrapped
up in the brick-clad build-
ings of academia. Of Ameri-
can literature anthologies and
annotations, of my column
in the university newspaper,
in booze-laden conversations
only undergraduates have once
they become equipped with
the multisyllabic language of
romanticism and philosophy.
Before then, existing on a
college campus seemed beyond
contemplation. Unobtainable.
Freshman year had sputtered
to a close, but my sophomore
year held vast potential. A fog
had lifted and in its stead, the
sun, lionhearted and lemony,
blossomed.
But in October of that year
four incontrovertible lines,
like Roman legions conquer-
ing Gaul, spread across the
planes of two pregnancy tests.
I capped the tests and placed
them gently in my pocket.
It was raining that night and
would continue to rain for
some time.
That moment has been with
me on repeat since its occur-
rence. Echoing in perpetu-
ity. A constant companion.
The clarity with which
I instantly understood
my path still befud-
dles me to this day. My
hand had been forced
and I would deal with
the repercussions as
they came, but at that
moment I knew what
I would do despite the
control which would
soon be wrested from me.
I would keep my son
because I could see him with
such clarity that it seemed
almost preternatural. Marry-
ing this sense of fate with grief
is a strange experience. Simul-
taneous blooming and wilt-
ing. Stranger still is purpose-
fully walking forward with
the understanding that a giant
precipice nears, that soon
you will be unable to halt the
momentum, and that over the
edge is all that lies ahead.
That fall, I moved back
home to Eastern Oregon
where I waited for my son to
be born into the spring. I met
him earthside in May 2010.
He was round and perfect and
had long strands of dark hair
(those would later be spun
to gold). I can still feel his
cheeks squish beneath my lips
like a mud-luscious puddle.
Accompanying me at
this moment, however, was
grief. Unimaginable, all-con-
suming, fl ailing, despairing
grief. It shrouded everything
it touched with a blackness
so complete that when I look
back on that day nearly 12
years later, I feel heartbroken
for that girl and her baby —
alone in a sterile room, save
the doctor and nurse. Mov-
ing forward despite the ground
opening up and swallowing
her whole. The breaking of the
world and torrential rains —
too much to bear now.
That rain, however, nour-
ished the seedlings left behind
by the rotten fruit — the grief,
the sadness. I didn’t under-
stand the anatomy of a blos-
som then. Soon those seed-
lings would germinate and
take root. They would twist
and embrace and stretch and
fi ll the hollow ground with
hope and with gratitude. With
love.
Why share this story?
We are complicated crea-
tures capable of holding
simultaneous confl icting
beliefs, emotions, wants, and
needs. Accepting suff ering as
a gift is a radical act of vul-
nerability. So is arriving at the
understanding that those com-
plicated moments will irre-
vocably change us. Moments
in time that you cannot undo,
words that cannot be unsaid,
emotions that can no longer
be neglected. Stepping into
that reality is terrifying but
the alternative is scarier — a
denial of self. I cannot change
the past no more than an
alchemist could translate mer-
cury into gold. But I can trans-
mute moments of vulnerability
into magic.
We can plant the seeds
and hope the fruit they bear is
sweet.
———
Alex Hobbs is a former
educator turned full-time
homeschooling mom.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Donate to cultural nonprofi ts
that matter to you
Twenty years ago, a mighty
group of visionaries celebrated
the fulfi llment of a dream — a
simple and eff ective way for Ore-
gon taxpayers to direct funds to
cultural activities. This was the
genesis of the Oregon Cultural
Trust and its cultural tax credit.
It remains cause for celebra-
tion. As the Oregon Cultural
Trust marks its 20th anniver-
sary, it has proven itself a stable
source of funding for Oregon’s
arts, heritage and humanities
nonprofi ts.
The state tax credit is available
to any Oregonian who donates
to one or more of the 1,500-plus
cultural nonprofi ts and makes
a matching gift to the Cultural
Trust. At tax time, the amount
you gave to the trust comes back
to you — dollar for dollar. And
the state sets those funds aside for
Cultural Trust grant awards the
following year.
Since its founding in 2001, the
trust has raised — through the
cultural tax credit — more than
$74 million for culture statewide.
It has distributed nearly 10,000
grant awards totaling more than
$34 million and its permanent
fund now exceeds $33 million. In
addition, the Cultural Trust net-
work of County Cultural Coali-
tions enabled the distribution of
more than $25 million in Coro-
navirus Relief Fund for Cultural
Support awards to 621 organi-
zations struggling to survive the
CORRECTIONS
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VOLUME 115 • NUMBER 1
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