Wasting time in Salem
Our elected representatives in Salem are only a few weeks away from finishing their work and going back home, where they can finally go back to campaigning for the 2006 elections, surely posturing one more as the defenders of public education, just like they did in 2004. Most of the commissions have shut down, and very little of substance has any chance to be approved at this point.
Both the
OSBA and
COSA have very good pages on their web sites where they have tracked the over 300 education related bills from this year.
So what is my opinion of the accomplishment of the 2005 legislature on education?
I am extremely disappointed. The bitter discussion over the budget rerailed any discussion on other substantial bills on education. And in the end nobody will be happy with the result of the budget negotiations. Those on the left will not appreciate a budget that will force Portland schools to do some more cuts. And those on the right will be mad about all the money going to those special interests like childrens and parents, crying foul aainst those who sold us out to the evil teacher's unions.
There are many districts that will have to do more cuts to their schools. but the big loser is the Portland School District. Why does a district that was able to pass a school levy AND a special income tax have funding problems is beyond me. Hillsboro, on the other hand is in pretty good shape. But the problem is that all the organizations that advocate for schools (including Stand and Oregon PTA) are very Portland-heavy, and the priorities of the rest of the state didn't get quite as much attention.
What really bothers me is that none of the structural issues with school funding got fixed. The state still has a revenue issue. Measure 5 and measure 50 are still killing us, businesses (mine included) are still not paying their fair share. Health care costs and PERS are still out of control, increasing in double digit every year, and taking money away from the classrooms. And the idea of letting growing districts like Hillsboro fund the building of new schools with system development charges did not get very far.
I think it is time to stop looking at Salem for solutions. It is time to come up with a reasonable plan for quality schools, and put it on the November 2006 ballot.
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Out of our schools' core competence
At the budget committee meeting last night, Hillsboro School Superintendent Jeremy Lyon replied to a question from one of the committee members about the proposal of outsourcing the custodians' positions. He said that we need to look at all that is not strictly within our core competence, which is educating children, to look for ways to save money.
Basically, the vast majority of classified employees should be aware that if the district management has its way, there will be a discussion on whether we should keep them as district employees or if we should outsource their jobs out. Are school buses next? Are we going to have secretaries in our schools who are employees of a temp agency?
I have my reasons to be against outsourcing classified jobs. I don't like the idea of eliminating a living wage job and having that same job done by a minimum wage worker who will rely on taxpayer money to keep his family off the street and out of malnutrition. Outsourcing support positions when it does not make us more efficient is not a good idea.
I have a button that says "I support the HCU bargaining team", and I wear it. One of the three people in the public at the budget meeting last night who was not a union representative or a school board candidate (a principal) approached me and asked me why. I support our classified employees, I support our teachers, I support our students and our parents. I support our schools and everyone in it. We need them, we need their commitment and their ideas. The little I have seen regarding the current contract negotiations make me think that I would not support the district position.
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On the calendar
This evening we have the annual town hall meeting for the
Hillsboro 2020 vision.
5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
Hillsboro Civic Center
150 E. Main Street, Hillsboro
I will attend, and see what is the new vision for the city when it comes to education. A few months ago I attended a presentation of the results of the previous five year vision implementation, and I did not see much related to local schools. After all, schools are not classified as an essential service, and the city and district don't talk with each other a whole lot, at least not as much as they should.
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An article in today's Christian Science Monitor talks about the
Rift over recruiting at public high schools, with a PTA at Garfield high school in Seattle passing a resolution against recruiting on campus.
High schools are struggling with a similar issue as the No Child Left Behind Act requires that schools receiving federal funding must release the names of its students to recruiters. Some feel that's an invasion of privacy prompted by a war effort that has largely divided the American public. Others say barring recruiters is an infringement of free speech - and a snub to the military, particularly in a time of war.
Personally I think that parents and students should be informed know their rights. There is a site called Leave My Child Alone that, while biased, contains a wealth of Information on the subject. It would be nice for the Hillsboro school district to enact policies that comply with the NCLB act but also protect the privacy of our students and keeps them informed about this matter of (literally) life and death. Actually, it would be interesting to see what the policies of the school district, period. They don't seem to be available on the district web site...
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Strategic Planning, part 2
A few days ago, we received an email message from the Hillsboro School Board chair Monica Cordrey. It was in regards to our
previous post on the strategic planning meeting, where I expressed the concern that the team assembled for the strategic planning was not really representative of our schools, with too many people from the top of the district org chart and too few parents and teachers. Chair Cordrey's message tried to assure me that my concerns were not founded, but instead made things a lot worse...
For example, on my concern about having too many people from central administration in the team:
"Staff" on this list include 4 building principals, 2 teachers, one classified employee, and the respective union leaders of our Classified and Licensed staff (whom would certainly not call themselves "management!"). Of those remaining folks who actually are District-level management, we have our Superintendent, our Business Manager who handles daily oversight of the budget, the Deputy Superintendent in charge of facilities, transportation, Hispanic outreach and personnel, the Assistant Superintendent who works with daily school operations including curriculum and school improvement, our Special Education Director, and the Director in charge of technology and information services.
So we have two teachers and one classified employee who are there as themselves, and not as representatives of their union or as managers of their department.
Three Board members participated, as well as two high school students. We included representatives from law enforcement, city government, and the business community, as well as parents. We went to great lengths to balance the team by gender, as well as to find advocates for students in elementary, middle and high school.
Add to the list two high school students and an unknown number of parents, not including those parents who are on the team to represent other organization, such as the chamber of commerce. So my guess is that students and those people who have the most contact with students make up roughly about 1/4 of the team (1 classified, 2 teachers, 2 students and perhaps 3 parents our
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Oregon House: Our Own "Nuclear Option"
I began a very long day in Salem, yesterday. I was with a group of school advocates from the Oregon PTA and Stand for Children, who attended the House floor discussion on HB 2727. Iw was fascinating to see the pure arrogance of the republicans and of the speaker Minnis to eliminate the right of the minority of being heard. And the total lack of attention that the majority pays to the "special interest groups" such as the 19,500 students in the Hillsbor school district.
The Democratic minority had proposed a minority version of House Bill 2727 that replaced the content of the bill and replaced it with a proposal for 5.4 billion funding for K-12 education. Personally I don't like the idea of amendments to bills that don't have little to do with the original bill. I have seen to many bad ideas being attached to reasonable bills in the US Congress, and I don't like seeing that happen here in Oregon.
But the idea that the amendment was not in order because of its content never came into the discussion. The republicans moved to postpone the bill to August 31, which really means postponing it forever, since there is no way that the legislature will be in session by then.
The most disturbing thing to me was the power grab by the republicans, who hold a slim majorith in the house. Democrats have no right to propose amendments and have an up or down vote. This wholesale elimination of the rights of the minority is similar to what the republicans in the US senate are planning for the next few days, something they call the "nuclear option".
We had four months of intense debate in the legislature and around the state regarding K-12 school funding. The revenue estimate has been revised many times, including a very positive one last May 13. School districts are finalizing their budgets for the next year, as required by law. So why are Derrick Kitts and the republicans in the house delaying the vote on the K-12 funding even further? We need stable and adequate funding, and we need to know what the funding for the next biennium is going to be. The time for action is now.
The discussion on the house floor was revealing. One one side of the isle, representatives were quoting school superintendents on the level of funding needed to avoid cuts, usually above 5.4 billions, in some cases significantly higher. They were pointing out the urgency of the decision. On the other side of the isle there was deafening silence, broken occasionally by the annoyed comments of a republican legislator that wanted to limit the discussion to the August 31 date, and nothing else.
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An Informed Public
The Oregon form of government requires an informed public aware of the deliberations and decisions of governing bodies and the information upon which such decisions were made. I read this snippet of
chapter 192 of the Oregon Revised Statutes at the Hillsboro School District budget committee yesterday evening, to make the point that while the school district follows the letter of the law in regards to public meetings, the lack of any funding for communication in the budget for the next year does not comply with the spirit of the law.
We don't have an informed public here in Hillsboro, when it comes to our schools. The only people who are aware of the good and the bad of our local schools are those who are already well plugged into the district. Even people who are active in schools don't know much. And the 75% who don't have any connection with schools don't hear anything, except for the occasional bad news on the newspaper, such as the purchase of a $270,000 dollars postage machine reported erroneously in the Oregonian.
I talked with a lot of voters in the past few weeks about our schools, and many people have a very negative view of how our local public schools are managed. As far as I can tell, the district does not plan to do any significant activity to change that perception. At the budget committee meeting, I tried to make the point that dedicating even one tenth of one percent of the budget to improving communication would make a huge difference. The reaction? Crickets chirping.
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Turnout: 13%
What in the world is wrong, people? As a community, we chould be ashamed of the incredibly low voter turnout for the school board elections. In Washington County the turnout was only 13%.
There is something wrong when only one in eight registered voters can be bothered to vote in a vote-by-mail election that impacts our public schools. 45% of the state budget goes to K-12 education, and that is a significant chunk of our tax dollars. Yet we don't seem to pay any attention to the election for the people who are managing those funds.
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An interesting article in the Sunday Oregonian titled
Metro area's millions float other schools on the wide range on per student funding for K-12 education, with some of the lowest numbers being in the suburban communities of Washington county.
Sherwood is the lowest with only $5,800 per student, Beaverton is close by with $6,300 (not including the local option funds) and Hillsboro is around $6,500. All of them well below the state average of $7,200 per student. I can see that there are higher costs for things like transportation in other parts of Oregon, but since K-12 education expenses are mainly for labor and benefit, our higher cost of living here in Washington county should be taken into account. Our superintendents makes that point in a couple of quotes in the article:
"'We do need some kind of recognition in the funding formula of the higher costs of living,' says Hillsboro Superintendent Jeremy Lyon.
But with statewide funding being squeezed, this isn't the time for that change, he says.
'Looking at ways to divvy up that pie at other school districts' expense is not any solution I would be interested in,' Lyon says."
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On the radio
I was a guest on the The Jayne Carroll Show on AM-1360 KUIK yesterday, when Tom Cox was guest hosting. It was an interesting segment, I think.
I got to talk about the reasons why I am running, but a couple of times the segment took some serious detour. The first one came when I mentioned the older gentlemen that I met a few days ago when I was canvassing in North Plain, who asked me about my position on the second amendment. I asked if he meant he wanted to see more guns in schools, but he was more interested in the hanting and fishing aspects. We had a good conversation about the benefits of preserving the environment for the next generations.
But I digress.
I should have known better than to mention the second amendment in an interview with a libertarian. Tom Cox started talking about concealed guns and terrorism in Israel, for a significant part of the segment.
At one point Tom mentioned that we only spend 50% of each school dollar in the classroom. I tried to make the point that while I am all in favor of spending our money in ways that benefit the student's education, the other 50% is mostly stuff that people really care about, and they would be up in arms if we were to propose cutting them. Like busing, or school cafeterias. After all, we are in the business of educating children, we are not public transit and we are not a food enterprise, right? And no, I am not in favor of eliminating busing and cafeterias, I was just trying to make a point.
It's like the discussion that I had with more than one person during the past few weeks about the excessive amount of money that, in their opinion, we spend on school administrators. I make the point that we have probably 40 people in the district that are considered administrators according to the Oregon Revised Statutes. And I mention that 80% of them are school principals, and more than half of the total are elementary school principals. But people like principals, it's just those evil "administrators" that they don't like. Go figure.
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School funding forum, Wednesday May 11, 7 PM
Would you like to talk about the future of our public schools and share your concerns and your opinions with other members of the community, one or two state legislators, as well as some of the candidates for the Hillsboro school board? I am helping the Hillsboro chapter of Stand for Children to organize a community forum on school funding and the future of public education.
School Funding Forum
Are you concerned about…
Classroom size?
Shortened school years?
Inadequate facilities?
Get involved!
Attend the School Funding Forum
Wednesday, May 11th 7 – 8 p.m.
Hillsboro School District Office
3083 NE 49th Place, Hillsboro, Oregon 97124-6009
Discuss your concerns with our special guests:
Oregon State Representative Chuck Riley (confirmed)
Oregon State Representative Derrick Kitts (invited)
Betsy Biller – Asst. Superintendent, Hillsboro School District (confirmed)
Download a flyer (PDF).
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In the past 3 days, a group of 31 staff and volunteers has been working on the renewal of our strategic planning for the next 5 years. The
press release on the district web site lists the people who are part of this first team.
I was a little surprised at the fact that the district management is heavily represented on the team, and that the "Community, parents and patrons" group is only 1/3 of the team. Many of the names I recognize are people who were on the strategic team 5 years ago. I hope that the new people on the team are aboe to bring some fresh ideas to the table. The previous strategic plan
is still quite relevant, and because of budget cuts many of the proposals in it were never implemented.
I hope that the team updates the previous plan for these days of lean funding, but that they also come up with great, bold and new ideas that can turn the Hillsboro public schools into something to be proud of.
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Ballots are out
I received my ballot in the mail on April 29. I was a little surprised to find that the only thing on the ballot was the Hillsboro School Board election. Your ballot may have more things to vote on.
At this point, everyone who is supposed to be receiving a ballor should have one. If you still don't have a ballot, click on the There's more! link to find out how to get one.
If you do not get your ballot by May 6, 2005 call the Elections office at 503-846-5800. If you have moved since the November election, you will need to update your voter registration with the new mailing address and request a new ballot. The postal service will not forward your ballot to your new address.
The Washington County election office is located at 3700 SW Murray Blvd. Beaverton, OR 97005, a block north of TV Hwy.
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Imagine
Imagine no school busing. I wonder if you can.
I grew up in Italy, and many people have asked me what the school system was like there and if my experience with Italian public schools is relevant to what I would like to do as a school board member.
My days in high school started with a ride on public transit. There are no school buses in Italy. Elementary students walk, middle school students walk or get a ride from their parent, high school students take transit or ride a Vespa (no driver's permits until you are 18 in Italy).
School started at 8.30 AM and ended at either 12.30 PM or 1.30 PM. when we all went home for lunch (we also had no cafeteria). We did this six days a week. Yes, Saturdays too. We had no elective classes. I went to a high school with a science focused curriculum, and everyone took exactly the same classes. Math every year, foreign language every year, Latin every year, history every year, one hour of PE every week, plus lots of literature, philosophy, writing, and geography.
When I do door to door talking to people all over the Hillsboro school district, the main concern I hear is class size and funding. But many parents are even more concerned about the quality of the education that their kids are getting. Some see that our schools have become "glorified day care centers" or that we "spend too much time planning the next party or the next extracurricular activity". I hear from business people who are very disappointed (to put it mildly) at the ability of the high school graduates that they hire to do simple math and to talk on the phone correctly, let alone their work ethics.
We have very low expectations of our students. And they tend to match those low expectations. Last week I attended a school board worksession where the board discussed increasing the number of credits required for a high school diploma from the state minimum of 22 to 24.5. It was rather disappointing to hear so little enthusiasm from the current members for a proposal that (in my humble opinion) is still not enough.
I went to public schools in a far away land where schools were lean and had no "frills", but academics were the focus of our days. Why can't we have world-class K-12 education here in our town?
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The ballots for the May 17 election will be mailed one week from today, along with the voter pamphlets. A few people have asked me where to find more information on the other candidates running. There isn't a lot of information out there that I am aware of, but the voter pamphlet statements are available online on the web site of the Washington County election office.
http://www.co.washington.or.us/deptmts/at/election/may05/vp0505-B.pdf
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80 people attended today's performance of
Witness our schools by Sojourn Theater at Glencoe high school in Hillsboro. Next week is the last weekend of performance of this incredible piece on our Oregon public schools. If you have not had the chance to see it during the many performances during the past nine months, head to Roosevelt High School in Portland on April 25 at 7 PM. It is an incredibly powerful portrait of our schools and of the opinions of Oregonians about them.
It is hard for me to describe what Witness our schools is. It is based on interviews of 500 Oregonians about public schools, and the words of the play are often those of people around the state.
For me, those words were often the words of my neighbors. In the past few weeks I have knocked on hundreds of doors, introducing myself as one of the candidates for school board. The dozens of conversations that I had on doorsteps and living rooms match precisely the ones in Sojourn's piece. I saw the talented actors play parents who are involved in their schools and in their kid's education. I saw them play educators who work hard to do what is best for their students in spite of federal and state mandates, and who don't get the recognition they deserve from some parents and from the community at large. I heard the voices of people in my neighborhood who don't see the value of public schools because they don't have any connection with them.
Many of the voices that I heard today were those of students. They were very well represented in the audience. It was very interesting to participate in the discussion after the play with those high school students. They really deserve to be heard, because of their personal experience and because of their vested interest in the quality of education.
Not surprisingly, the audience was made of people who were very vocal about our schools. They are students, parents and teachers who want to be equal partners in shaping the future of our schools.
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An editorial in the Hillsboro Argus last Thursday (
65 Percent Solution) uses some interesting statistics to continue the myth that schools are wasteful places...
According to the article, Oregon spends 58.8% of its funding "in the classroom", which the columnist thinks is too low. Evil bureaucrats waste the remaining 41.2% on school busing, principal salaries and facility maintenance.
Statistics can be conveniently used to prove nearly every position. But the reality is the money we spend on items that impact the kids education directly (and that includes anything from school buses to toilet paper) is closer to 88% in our district.
I just hope that the district starts doing a better job at communicating the reality of the district budget this year. And I hope that the Argus starts to look at some good ideas coming from both sides of the isle, not just from those that seem to be interested in having public education fail.
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Hillsboro School Foundation
I had the pleasure to attend the HSF dinner and auction yesterday evening. I am guessing that between the fundraising last night and in the phoneaton last fall, the foundation raised around $100,000 to be spent on activities that enrich the classroom experience for the students in the Hillsboro schools. Alongside the HSF we have booster clubs, PTO and PTA groups that collectively raise probably over $600,000 a year, and businesses like Nike and Intel that provide another $100,000 or more in funds when their employees volunteer in our schools.
All that money is spent on activities that enrich the classroom experience in many ways, ranging from art to music to activities before and after school hours. Those hundreds of people who donate and raise funds deserve our deep gratitude. Without their effort and the strong committment of our educators, our schools would be a dull place with mediocre education.
On the other hand, the million dollars that we are able to raise and spend are almost pocket change compared with the over 150 million dollars a biennium that the district receives from the state. Think of what we could do with an additional 1% increase in our state funding.
And how long can we go before the handful of people that are helping with the needed funding for all those activities get burned out?
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3000 doors
Over the next few weeks, I will be knocking on doors all around Hillsboro and North Plains, to introduce myself. I want to talk with all of your about the value of our public schools, and hear your opinions and your ideas. I have already visited close to 500 homes, and I had some very interesting conversations on many doorsteps...
I have talked with many people who, for one reason or another, are not very supportive of our local public schools. I met with a retired couple who really does not want any more of their property taxes to go to fund public schools. My answer to them and to many others who have no current connections in our schools is that that they should vote and help elect someone like me who will help manage our limited funding well, to get the best educational value out of the taxpayer's dollars. The district recently refinanced many of the school bonds, which will reduce the total property taxes in the district by over two million dollars.
I met with the parents of an ADHD student who ended up taking their child out of school and homeschooling. I heard their story and shared my vision of a public school system that meets the needs of every student, including special needs students, ESL and TAG students. I want to see students, teachers and parents work together to find ways to improve our shcools. And I would like to see some meaningful conversation between the homeschooling community and the public school community in our neighborhoods. I think that we have much to learn from each other's experience.
I met with a first grade teacher, who teaches in one of our elementary schools where a large percentage of students are from Hispanic families. We talked about the gap that my wife and I see in the reading skills in our own school, for those kids are bright and hard working but don't have someone to help them after the school day is over. I listened and shared my ideas on how we can increase the quality and quantity of parent involvement both inside and outside the classroom.
I talked with a father of a second grader who feels that with our current system and our current resources kids who are more talented are not challenged. I told him of teachers I have seen do the impossible, and be able to challenge students according to their skills. I shared my idea of having our great teachers share their experience with their peers across the district, so that we can all benefit.
I heard from many people who are angry at some of the bad decisions that they feel that the district made in the past. I heard a lot about the new administration building, and the new facilities building. I told them that I feel that transparency is critical and that good communication is essential for people in the community to be aware of what is happening.
I talked with many parents, who were pleasantly surprised to see someone care enough about their schools and their opinion to walt to their home and knock on their door.
The countless conversations I had in these past two weeks have been wonderful. I am having a great time and I look forward to visiting three thousands homes during this campaign. All the rain in the past few days hasn't slowed me down a bit.
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My goals
Manage our money wisely, looking at the futureAs a taxpayer, I want our tax dollars to be used wisely and prudently. This means getting the most effective quality public education out of our limited funding. Let's maximize the funds that go into the classroom, especially for K-3 students who need to learn the basics well, so that they can reach their potential in the rest of their years in school. But balance that with reasonable spending in infrastructure, maintenance and classified personnel, so that schools are supported and we are not penny wise and pound foolish and end up spending more than we should at a later date.
For the many small and large maintenance and construction contracts that the district has with external companies, let's make sure that we are getting not just the lowest price, but the best value for our dollars. And invest a small percentage of the money spent for those contracts to monitor and audit like we do for our large construction projects.
And let's work with our representatives in Salem to find ways to help our district and all the public education system be more efficient, keeping health care costs from spiraling out of control and optimizing the value of the services we receive through the Educational Service District.
Communication, communication, communication
There are many reasons to be proud of our public schools and of how they are managed, but in the past few years the district has not done a good job at communicating to the public about it. You can't have transparency and trust without good and plentiful communication.
If elected, I will be accessible. I will "adopt" a group of 5-6 schools in the district and I will attend school councils, PTA meetings, and other gatherings in these schools at least twice a year, to be able to listen to teachers, families, students, classified workers, and all citizens in those neighborhoods, and to establish personal relationships. I will do all I can to get the district to be much more active in its communication efforts, but in these days of lean budget I pledge to be an active part of the solution, at the very least.
I would also like to see the board and the district play an active role in building a stronger dialog with our elected representatives in the North Plains and Hillsboro city councils, in the Washington County Board of Directors and Metro, and in the legislature. Public schools must be represented and heard when decisions that impact them are made.
Bring new ideas to the table
While I don't yet have the in-depth knowledge of the workings of the district that the current members of the school board have, I can bring a fresh point of view and new ideas.
Let's all get together and think out of the box to find low cost ideas to improve education. Some examples: Train volunteers to tutor and read to K-3 students, especially in the English learner communities. If we want kids from families where English is the second language or where the parents work two jobs to succeed, we should involve them and help them. Offer classes for parents and volunteers so that they can be better prepared to play an active role. As a community, we can add to the great work done in our classrooms to help our kids do their best.
Why not have teachers share some of the outstanding work that they do in their classrooms with their colleagues, so that we can all gain from their knowledge? Sharing experiences among colleagues is a best practice in many professional organizations, we should encourage more of it within our schools.
These are just two examples of what we can do in the short and long term if we put our minds to it. Think of what we could do if we were to tap the minds of the people of the district for more and better ideas. In the next few months the district will work on its strategy for the next 5 years. I want to see that process evolve into a constant source of input from the community and of renewal of our vision and our goals.
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Some good news
The Governor announced that we may see more money for all public education (pre-K to college) compared to his initial budget. The
$5.25 billion for the next biennium for K-12 education that he talked about yesterday translates into 7-8 million dollars in additional funding for the Hillsboro public schools. This means no further increases in class sizes and perhaps enough funds to spend wisely on restoring a few of the things that were cut in the past three years. This is still not enough for quality education for the long term, but at least it is a step in the right direction.
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Last Friday, my wife and I attended the
hearing of the Lottery Commission on the rate proposal for the new line games. Tavern owners came from all corners of the state to testify about how dependent their business is on the income from gambling. But it was not supposed to be that way. The profits from the gaming in their establishments were supposed to be in addition to their normal food and beverage business, which was supposed to be viable on its own.
Instead, we heard from tavern owners who claim to be losing money since they agreed to lowered rates on the video poker gaming last year, from those who claim that thousands of jobs will be lost due to the lower rates. We have created an industry that survives only thanks to the public funding in the form of rates that are higher than necessary. We have an industry that is addicted to the revenue from gambling.
In the testimonies of the tavern owners we also heard the stories of folks in rural Oregon who already spend all that they can afford on gambling. The owners argued that the new games would not get them to spend more. It is very sad that because of the lack of courage on the part of our elected officials (starting from our governor), we are forced to depend on people's destructive behavior to finance important public services, from schools, to parks, to the police.
It should not be that way.
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