WW welcomes letters to the editor via mail, e-mail or fax. Letters must be signed by the author and include the author's street address and phone number for verification. Preference will be given to letters of 250 words or less. Not Making the Grade Willamette Week quoted me recently as saying that, "From an outsider's perspective, I would give school reform a failing grade." As a key proponent of education reform in Oregon, I know my comments raised eyebrows and generated calls from some legislators for making school reform optional for school districts. Wrong. Oregon's school reform needs more support, more attention and more communication. In fact, the failing grade I gave was for the lack of adequate communication with students, teachers, parents and the community regarding impending school-reform changes and the reasons for them. Regarding the school-reform effort itself, I told the Willamette Week reporter it deserves a B- to C+ grade. Like a lot of people, I am frustrated not only with the length of time it has taken to begin implementing the reform, but also with the fact that it has never been adequately funded. I also have concerns about how some of the specific reform elements were implemented after I left the state Legislature. For instance, I, too, am concerned about the impact on students by the manner in which some of the testing and assessments are occurring this year. But now is not the time to give up, especially when school reform is showing signs of success. In the interview, I gave a B+ to schools across this state in which the standards have given a focus to the teaching and at the same time allowed for innovative, hands-on learning. We should be proud that in spite of the lack of resources, there are Oregon school districts committed to providing extra time and help so that even their struggling students can achieve higher standards. Much work needs to be done to succeed at school reform, and to fail is not an option. Stable school funding plus money to implement the different aspects of school reform are necessary. Even more important are the will and the stamina necessary to work hard at moving forward. Onward! Vera Katz Mayor of Portland WW responds: Here are excerpts from the taped interview with Mayor Katz: "From the parent's perspective, from the outsider's perspective, I would give--you are going to quote me on this--I would give it a failing grade, from the outside. From the inside, I think far more schools--because of leadership in those schools--saw this as a) necessary, b) an opportunity to make some changes, and actually have accomplished incredible, incredible work. I would give that probably a B- or a C+. It wasn't the Legislature's responsibility to implement. It is the Department of Education's responsibility to implement, but also it was the school boards' and superintendents of school districts'. Some of them that moved fast and others.... I always said, and I said it in the Legislature, it was easier to get a rock to sing than to change the educational system." School-Reform Menace Bravo for your exposé on school reform ["None of the Above," May 5, 1999]! It is about time someone revealed the truth of this menace to our children's future. I have a child in the second grade enrolled in a public school. He is reading at the fifth grade level and, according to his teacher, he is "tops in his class in math." My boy decided two months ago that he did not want to take the third grade CIM test. I told him that I supported his decision. He felt, as did I, that it would be a waste of his time to take the CIM test just to find out that he is reading above grade level and is very good at math. We already know these things. So why should he take the test? On test days we'll do something enjoyable. The Oregon School Reform Act for the 21st century should be legislated out of existence as fast as possible. This would allow our 6- to 16-year-olds to enjoy school and actually live part of their childhood as children should, free of worry as to whether or not they might make the grade 20 years down the road as employees of the members of Associated Oregon Industries, the primary financial backer of Vera Katz's horrible school-reform bill. The only regret I had about your article is that it did not deal with campaign contributions by AOI and how they influenced the enactment of Katz's anti-child folly. Michael Hill Northeast Alton Street Child Abuse In a letter to the editor last week, ["School-Reform Success Story," May 19, 1999], West Linn school board member Jeffrey P. Chicoine said that the educational reform package "is a good, sound and effective concept at its heart." We certainly do not know this, because as they are being implemented, the "educational reforms" are abusive, expensive and are wrecking Oregon's public school system. The educational reforms (including the "benchmarks," statewide assessments, CIM tests, etc.) are so bad that I sent a letter to the head of testing at the district where our fifth grader attends school and asked that he be excused from all statewide assessments. (According to Oregon Department of Education guidelines, any parent or guardian can request this exemption.) If the educational reforms and the statewide testing (including the CIM tests) are not abusive, then: 1. Why does the ODE have no proof at all for the validity of the CIM tests? (Forcing students and teachers to squander precious time and effort on unproved and almost certainly worthless tests certainly seems abusive to me.) 2. Why has the ODE not gathered data to indicate how the scores of youngsters taking the CIM tests would score on nationally normed, standardized tests? 3. Why does the ODE refuse to debate this stuff in public against informed critics, such as Mark Shinn, Ph.D., and Bonnie Grossen, Ph.D., both of the University of Oregon? Why? (Proponents of the "reforms" can give me a call at 288-4558, and I will help set up such a debate!) 4. Why is the drop-out rate from Portland public schools so high and getting higher? 5. Why doesn't Oregon throw out the incredibly expensive unproved CIM tests and use nationall normed tests, tests which are accepted throughout the United States? (Don't we want youngsters to be able to move to other states? So why force them to exert great time and energy to pass these bizarre local tests?) 6. At what dollar point (we have probably spent over a billion dollars on this nonsense already, according to one educational expert I talked to) will we cut our educational losses and place our children in curricula with a proven track record? Parents should certainly be able to demand that the ODE and other educational leaders defend these "reforms" in public or these parents should be allowed to demand that their youngsters be taken out of this educational experiment (which the "educational reforms" are) and be placed in curricula of proven effectiveness. And parents and teachers should also be very, very grateful for Nigel Jaquiss' superb exposé of Oregon's "educational reforms" in his May 5, 1999, article, "None of the Above." Keep digging into this, Mr. Jaquiss! As a parent and as an Oregonian, I applaud your work on this issue! Caleb Burns Northeast Broadway No Respect I am writing in response to H.V. Claytor Jr's article, "Hip-Hop, You Don't Stop" [WW, May 5, 1999], dissing Eternal Golden Void's performance at the Tiger Bar on Monday, April 19. I think Claytor wrote his article from false assumptions. It was a record release party for EGV, and the "peculiar" records he was playing were of his own music. EGV has been one of the cornerstones of Portland's electronic music scene for the last four years. In fact, EGV has released two independent-label records and has played countless live shows. It made me wonder what Claytor's intentions were in singling out EGV, when there was actually another DJ spinning records alongside EGV, and yet there was no mention of him or the other DJs who also played afterwards. Claytor finishing saying "Hip-hop is about bringing everybody together, and it is definitely going to take all of us to blow up the spot," which is ironic seeing as how he chose a rising local musician to disrespect. Maybe EGV needs to work on his turntable skills, but why try to clown him like that? Hip-hop and electronic music share lots of common ground. I know that a lot of people, myself included, give EGV the respect and support he deserves, and felt that Claytor's article was unfair. People thinking that white, electronic-music programmers who also use turntables are misrepresenting hip-hop should look into the history of their music and see that it's taken people of all colors and talents to keep it strong. Tu Tran Southeast 37th Avenue Keeping It Unreal Clearly Mr. Claytor does not have a grasp on underground hip-hop culture or the skill to write about it. His muddled article on hip-hop ["Hip-Hop, You Don't Stop," WW, May 5, 1999 ] claims to address hip-hop in Portland but instead widely praises the over-marketed, multibillion-dollar efforts of the commercial rap industry. Instead of writing about any of the ongoing local hip-hop nights (at the Tiger Bar, Cobalt, Tonic Lounge, Mad Hatter--need I go on?), the article highlighted mainstream national acts that can be seen and heard anywhere, USA. Instead of intelligently critiquing Eternal Golden Void's April 19 performance, Mr. Claytor took cheap shots at a credible local artist. His friend from Philly was amused by Eternal Golden Void's performance. But what did Mr. Claytor think? His journalistic skills offered up a vague, one-word review of "wack." Actually, I doubt he was even there. If he was, he neglected to mention three other local performances--Tremor's wicked four-turntable trickery and freestyle MC, DJ Wiseguy's ass-shaking cuts and Magneto's skillful set. Mr. Claytor said himself hip-hop is about bringing everybody together. Apparently his idea of "everybody" is skewed. Peace. Leeanne McManus Southeast Washington Street - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Willamette Week | originally published May 26, 1999