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. Getting Educated Your May 5 cover story on school reform ["None of the Above"] completely missed the mark. The reporting was inaccurate and one-sided. Here are just a few examples of the errors it contained. * The Department of Education's budget request for operations in 1999-2001 is $86 million, not $907 million. * State tests require about 9 hours and 15 minutes of a student's class time, not 11 days. * Students who receive special education must have access to and be instructed in Oregon's academic standards. Many students who receive special education take state tests. Special education does not offer "immunity" from school reform. * Oregon's statewide four-year dropout rate was about 22 percent in 1992 and has risen slightly to 25 percent in 1998. The dropout rate is not soaring. * Atkinson Elementary School provides students with 935 hours of instructional time. That is more, not less, than the required 900 hours. * Standards narrow and focus the curriculum, allowing teachers and students to go in depth, instead of barely finishing one chapter only to move quickly to the next. Oregon expects students to pass assignments and tests in basic academic subjects. Oregon expects teachers to use objective criteria in evaluating students. This is Oregon's school reform. This sound, long-term project will improve teaching and learning in our state and give our students the Oregon advantage. Stan Bunn State Superintendent of Public Education Oregon Department of Education Nigel Jaquiss responds: 1. I stand by my figures for the Department of Education's budget. Those figures come from the Legislative Fiscal Office. What Mr. Bunn is referring to is the "operations" portion of the Education Budget, which, by the way, has doubled since 1995 but is only a small part of the proposed $907 million budget. 2. Mr. Bunn is speaking about testing for fifth graders, which is spread out over 11 days. He is correct, however, that the tests do not take every hour of every one of those 11 days. 3. We may quibble over the meaning of "immunity," but students who receive special education are given special accommodations on tests, such as extra time, study aids and other allowances that other students cannot have. 4. My story referred specifically to the dropout rate in Portland, which, according to figures compiled by Mr. Bunn's department, have climbed from 24 percent to 40 percent in the past seven years. 5. My story simply said this: "At Atkinson Elementary, for instance, school lets out an hour and a half early each Friday so teachers can catch up on standards-related work. Over the course of the year, that means Atkinson students lose more than 60 hours of work to early dismissal." The Price of Art I would like to respond to Kate Bonansinga's review of Seeing Money ["Small Change," WW, May 12, 1999]. There was considerable focus in the review on the fact that the admission charge undermines the show's ability to influence our perceptions. Ms. Bonansinga has missed my point: We spend money on what is important to us. We choose to "express ourselves" every day when we spend money, whether it's for clothes, trips, education or art. It's silly to pretend that my $5 admission fee has kept the homeless from valuing art. I'm directing this event to the other 98 percent who can afford to attend the show but may not choose to. As a fund-raiser, I learned that donating is less about "ability" to give and all about "willingness" to give. When I was the development director at Friendly House, I observed that most of the teens who attended drop-in didn't pay the daily 25 cents. Not because they couldn't but because they wouldn't. These same kids always had a couple of bucks to spend on candy and Coke at the market across the street. We are free agents and "choose" to spend our money on what is important to us. If how we spend money is an expression of who we are, then express yourself. Come or don't come to Seeing Money, but don't blame the cost of admission as the reason. Money: It's oh so simple and oh so complicated, isn't it? Seeing Money is about raising awareness of our money-related beliefs and connecting them with how we spend money. It took me 47 years to purchase my first work of art, so I am fully aware of the mental games we play to avoid taking responsibility for our behavior. My idea for Seeing Money came from the money perspective, even though it was the purchase of art that provoked the idea. I am fascinated by the secrets we keep, the stories we tell and the pretense we maintain with others. All I'm asking is one simple thing. Spend $5 and start examining your beliefs about money. By the way, the involvement of charities hasn't gotten the attention that I thought it would. Six nonprofit organizations were chosen to be the beneficiaries from the proceeds from the sale of art: Arts Alive Fund of the Portland Public Schools Foundation, the Libri Foundation, H20 Headwaters to Ocean, the Orlo Foundation, Portland Old Town Arts & Culture Foundation and Sisters of the Road Cafe. The buyer of each work of art chooses which charity will receive 15-25 percent. I created this aspect of the exhibition because I wanted to demonstrate that "there is enough" to share with others. Helen Gundlach Project Director Editor's Note: Gundlach made the $5 admission fee optional for the last weeks of the show. Bomb the Freeways I commend Stephanie Groth's response to the recent cover story by Chris Lydgate ["Scrawl of the Wild," WW, April 21, 1999]. Before reading Stephanie's feedback, I was surprised and even angered at the negative and shallow comments by your other readers. I don't feel that graffiti artists are automatically "criminals." On the contrary, I see them as strongly in tune with their creativity and wishing only for a way to express themselves. The artists that you interviewed said themselves that they aimed to liven up and add colorful character to the bleak and boring concrete city. That was their terrible motive. Excuse my sarcasm, but we should be encouraging outlets for individuality and expression; instead we are suppressive and so godly. One of your readers wrote in that graffiti is ugly, that it's not art. Only when a piece is accepted by an elite gallery, and stays within certain boundaries, are most people willing to consider it as viable art. I will express here that I do not applaud artists for using random proprietors' storefront windows as a platform for self-expression. I stand for a stronger code of respect than that. But what about the endless stretch of freeway overpass, gray, ugly and abandoned? Why is it such a crime to paint on them? As Stephanie pointed out, why aren't electronic billboards and other methods of corporation propaganda not seen as "criminal"? It seems to me that as long as money is there to back up an artistic movement, it is hailed as acceptable. I hail it as hypocritical. Marrla Wilkinson Northeast 46th Avenue A Basic Education I would like to offer a few observations and comments on Nigel Jaquiss' article regarding Oregon's efforts at school reform ["None of the Above," WW, May 5, 1999]. To begin with, Vera Katz was not Speaker of the House of Representatives in 1991 when the reform bill was adopted. That honor belonged to Rep. Larry Campbell (R-Eugene). Ms. Katz was, however, a member of the House Education Committee, as was I. This fact is important when one considers the political issues that were interwoven in the school reform debate. In the fall of 1990, Oregon voters made two major policy decisions that are still driving education policy today. The first was approval of Ballot Measure 5, which established caps on property tax rates for schools and local government. The second was giving control of the House of Representatives to the Republican Party for the first time in 40 years. Speaker Campbell and many of his colleagues firmly believed that the government should be run like a business...particularly like a manufacturing business. Raw material should enter one end of the process and a finished product should emerge from the other end. Another cliché-driven concept of the newly enthroned majority party was that every level of government, including public education, is inherently inefficient. Given these two party-line tenets, the Republicans embraced the education reform effort. Efficiency and accountability seem to drive Republican policy alternatives much more strongly than a clear understanding of society's needs or legislative commitments. Most of us on the other side of the aisle viewed the school reform effort as a fiscal issue that had to be addressed as a result of Ballot Measure 5. If the Legislature was to be the primary source of education funding, it was incumbent on the Legislature to determine just what it was going to fund. And then fund it. Over the years many attempts have been made at defining "basic education." The House Education Committee took on the assignment during the 1985 session. As chairman of that committee and as a member of the Revenue and School Finance Committee, my approach was again directly related to funding. School districts would use state funds to pay for basic education elements and fund other activities such as sports and co-curricular activities from local property tax revenues. Needless to say, all hell broke loose when some of us actually had the gall to suggest that football was not an element of a "basic education." Testimony from the Oregon School Activities Association is particularly memorable. The Katz approach was a hybrid of the basic education effort. What Vera and many others suggested was that we jettison the American public-education model that had been in effect since the Industrial Revolution. Instead of relying on how many years a person sat in a classroom to determine one's education, we would approach the efficacy of public education in a novel manner. The new question was to be, "Have you acquired the basic skills necessary to be a meaningful addition to our society?" If the education reform effort has failed, the primary reason is that not one member of the House of Representatives sitting in Salem today was a member of that body in 1991, when this issue was debated and adopted. The passage of the education reform bill required a substantial financial commitment. Instead, the Legislature has focused on funding the Department of Education to produce the assessment tools without funding the classroom tools such as smaller class sizes, current technology, faculty involvement, relevant materials, assisted-learning centers, library and other research support, not to mention ensuring that kids understand what is expected of them and why. All of these elements and many more are needed to overhaul our public-education system. And they are expensive. The only reform-related product to reach the classroom has been the assessment portion. No wonder there is such frustration. The dream many of us shared in 1991 included full integration with the community colleges, the education service districts, the private sector, teachers and administrators, and especially parents. Nothing but tests has materialized. We still have football games, however. By the way, the article quotes former State Superintendent of Public Education Norma Paulus as supporting the reform bill as a way of reducing the school dropout rate from 25 percent to some lesser figure. In 1989 my administrative assistant, the late Ms. Lee Penny, and I researched the Oregon dropout rate from 1958 through 1988. Remarkably, but not surprisingly, the dropout rate directly correlates with the economy. When the economy is booming, the dropout rate rises. When times are tough, the dropout rate drops. One has to remember that the most important thing in the world to a typical 15- or 16-year-old is a car (or sex). The choice of acquiring a car or acquiring an education is a no-brainer for most hormone-driven youth. Plentiful job opportunities means a higher dropout rate. Bruce Hugo Public Policy--Government Relations Scappoose - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Willamette Week | originally published June 9, 1999