Imagine the headline: "A capitalist, but a friend of Nazis"

Did you catch the long and prominently placed obituary in the Oregonian about Ben Brostoff?

He was a Polish immigrant who came to the U.S., made a fortune in the pizza business, but was always enamored with communism. He took trips to Russia and China to admire their governments, which apparently never lost their shine to him even after the collapes of the Soviet bloc.

The article is written in a very positive tone. Almost like: "isn't it charming, this guy who made millions selling pizza was an open communist sympathizer all his life."

Why is it that it is considered OK to have cozied up to communism? The Soviet communists murdered tens of millions of people. It is the bloodiest government in the history of the planet - yet for some reason it is considered cute to be a communist.

Hitler never aspired to the kind of bloodbath brought about by Stalin. Yet I doubt a successful businessman who admired Nazi Germany would get a glowing obituary in the Oregonian.

Closed PPS schools still vacant.

Remember the five elementary schools that PPS closed despite great controversy and opposition last spring? The plan was to lease out the facilities and make some money. Turns out, according to this story in the Tribune, that months later, four of the five buildings are still vacant, because the market wouldn't pay what the district was asking.

Well, Duh. A few years ago I looked into leasing one of the district's vacant facilities. They wanted $12 a square foot. That's about twice what school facilities are worth.

According to the story, the district thinks the newly closed facilities are worth $9-12/SF, but only one of the five buildings has found a tenant, and that is the Multnomah ESD. Great - one tax funded entity leases from another. Big net gain for taxpayers.

The district facilities guy is even quoted as saying that if a tenant needs access to the facility to make leasehold improvements, that they have to pay the rent during the time it takes to make the improvements! That's not how it usually works. Little wonder they can't find tenants.

I would happily lease the Applegate site from them for $6/sf for one of my Arthur Academy Charter Schools But the district wants more.

Actually, I think that PPS should let us use the facility for nothing. Arthur Academy is a public school educating PPS students. School buildings were paid for by taxpayers for the purpose of educating public school students. By what moral standard does the district charge money for public school students to use a facility for the purpose taxpayers intended?

I've asked this very question to Vicki Phillips, Julia Brim Edwards, David Wynde, Bobbie Regan and Dilafruz Williams. Not one of them would answer it.

So they not only want us to pay money to lease the public school facility that we want to use to educate Portland Public School kids, but they are also way off the market in their asking price!

Could it be they don't want to do anything that might help a charter school succeed?

Call me a cynic.

Just 2%... and our schools would be great. (We promise)

A local anesthesiologist wrote a piece for the Tribune that called for a 2% sales tax as a dedicated funding source for schools.

Click through to the link and read the column. It's really pretty funny in the over-the-top assertions that he makes, which he apparently thinks the reader should take on faith.

Here is what he says will happen if we send the extra $2 1/2 billion or so to schools:

"The quality of public education soars. The best teachers in the country compete to work in Oregon. Students learn more, learn faster and stay interested longer. Literacy rises. More literate high school graduates seek jobs with high potential, or plan for higher education. Welfare use drops. Recreational drug use declines. Teenage pregnancies go down. Prisons slowly empty as fewer criminals enter. New businesses look favorably on Oregon for relocation sites. And all of us enjoy safer streets."

Wow! A panacea! More money for schools will solve all our problems. Peace and prosperity will reign!

I just wonder - is the guy really that gullible? Or is his wife a teachers union boss?

Why use private dollars when we can spend tax money?

You may have seen the article about the new school that Portland School District wants to build in the Columbia Villa housing project.

They need a 550-student elementary school for the new neighborhood, and their plan is to close down nearby Ball Elementary, because it is in need of substantial repair. The problem is the District doesn't have the money to build the school.

So they have tried to put together a creative financing package that includes a bank loan, fundraising, tax credits and about a million dollars from the city of Portland. Last week the city said "No Dinero."

So they are stuck. Turns out that NOT building the school will cost them a million dollars or so since they will have to do the repairs to Ball, and bus the kids from Columbia Villa there.

Here's the punchline: they could have a brand new public school built on that parcel of land using no taxpayer money, but they turned down the offer.

How? Well, Portland School District approved a charter elementary school a few years ago that never opened because it could not find a facility. The charter school would have happily built the school on the Columbia Villa site, and offered to work with the district and the Housing Authority of Portland to make it happen.

The district had no interest. They would rather spend millions of dollars of taxpayer money to build a school rather than get the school for free. Why?

Well that would be a good question for the school board.

Penn & Teller on PETA

I didn't even know Penn & Teller, the offbeat comedian duo, did political stuff.

But you have to go watch this video exposing PETA for the radical violent hypocrites they are.

It's about 15 minutes long. Must see.

Is it any wonder our kids don't understand economics?

I got an email this morning from a friend whose son is a junior at Wilson High School. He attended the back to school night, and couldn't believe what his son's economics teacher proudly displayed as the first assignment of the year.

His Email:

Wilson High School Back to School Night
Junior Year

My son's first period class: Economics

1st assignment due 9/26/05:

Using Art, Poetry, Music or some other approved creative medium, Illustrate your understanding of one of the following:

Economic Resources
Economic Questions
Production Possibilities Curve
Forms of Exchange

Current events assignment: 5 of these are due per quarter. You may do all 5 early in the quarter, but you may only turn in one per week late in the quarter. (In other words, if he waits until the last 3 weeks, he can only turn in three of these)

Clip an editorial article, and State the subject, the byline The periodical from which you found it. State the who, what when where why and how; state whether the article is fact or an opinion, [Duh! It's an editorial! - RK] and if it is biased one way or another [Editorials are SUPPOSED to be biased! - RK]. Clearly state your understanding of the subject. [What kind of an instruction is this? It's not just awkwardly worded, it is difficult to understand what it is she is looking for. -RK]

(The teacher said she would deduct points if she had to actually read the article. Remember, this is not Journalism, it is Econ)

This is no joke. We have all seen e-mails and snippets that kid about this, but this is for real. I sat there last night and was shocked.

His class is Economics...not Art, not English Literature, not Music nor Applied sociology.

It occurs to me that several of you may have some Ideas for how my son can best complete this assignment. With your help, I am sure he will get an A in this class.


My response:

You've run into a shining example of "integrated" curriculum. That's where everyone pretends that there's great educational benefit drawn from melding two or more disciplines into one activity or lesson, which almost always results in a completely contrived exercise in which the actual learning objective becomes secondary to the form of the product.

Part of the philosophy here is that every student has a different "learning style" and so it is tyranny to expect all kids to perform an academic exercise in the same way, with the same medium. So things like music and art are fine substitutes for mundane skills like writing clearly. If Johnny isn't a verbal learner, but rather is a visual learner or an auditory learner, it is wrong to require that he produce coursework using the written word. It is perfectly OK for him to, say, perform a rap routine to demonstrate his mastery of economics as it is for him to produce a well articulated essay.

There is so much wrong with this way of thinking that it is hard to know where to start. First, we all know, after all, that his employers are going to similarly adjust what they require from him based on his "learning style," right? What message are we sending our kids when we tell them the world will constantly adjust what it requires based on what their strengths may or may not be? Of course we tell them that they shouldn't worry about getting better at what is difficut for them, and they only have to do what comes easy. There's a great message for our youth.

Second, there is absolutely no good evidence that 1) there are really "learning style" differences and 2) if there were, there still isn't any valid way for a teacher to gauge what student's learning style actually is. It's all just assumption based on theory resulting is some of the most inane classroom procedures ever concocted - a wonderful example of which you have given here.

Finally - just look at the exercise. Forget for a minute the part about using music or art. Even if the teacher had asked them to write an essay about one of those four topics - consider how murky the assignment actually is. What is the teacher asking them to prove they know?

Demonstrate their understanding of Economic Resources? What does that mean? Economic Questions? WHICH economic questions?

How unfocused could it possibly get? This assignment means nothing because any and all responses could be valid.

I am sad to say that this is the kind of stuff that is predominant in our high schools these days. It is an utter and complete waste of time.

However, I do have a suggestion for your son as to what he can do for the assignment. He should demonstrate his understanding of "Forms of Exchange.'

He should compose a rap song, perform it as if he is 50 Cent, in which he proposes to give a street whore drugs in exchange for sex.

Perfectly valid demonstration of the economic principle of barter, one of the original "forms of exchange."

The Pledge

The recent court decision on the pledge was a topic on my radio show today. We've talked about it before, and treaded the usual territory about the meaning of the establishment clause.

I asked a question to my co-host, Marc Abrams, however, that seemed to distill the issue down to its essence.

Since our founding documents say people "are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights," and that the government's role is to "secure these rights" - I asked if liberals would have a problem with students being taught that in our system of government, rights come from God.

He said yes, that would be a problem. Can't do it. He said it would be OK to teach what the Declaration of Independence says about rights coming from God, but that it establishes religion to teach that our Republic is actually based on this notion.

Such are the intellectual contortions necessary to not offend the ACLU these days. Nonsensical.

Global Hype

You knew it had to come.

On the heels of disaster, the agenda had to be moved forward. And you knew the Oregonian would be ready and willing, almost panting to help out.

So we see the big front page story in the Oregonian today:

Researchers Examine Link Between Hurricane Intensity, Global Warming.

Nice charts accompany the headline. They typical reader would take a look at the story, read a few paragraphs, and be left with the decided impression that yep, scientists say Katrina was caused by global warming.

The agenda is moved, another step in the long term effort to convince us all.

Turn to the back page and you'll find the entire page taken up by the text of the story. It almost demands that the typical reader not read it. Who wants to read all the scientific technicalities? We get the point - global warming brings big hurricanes like Katrina.

So, you can hardly blame the average guy for not seeing all the disclaimers:

"Scientists caution that it's unknowable at this point whether the damage these potentially more powerful cyclones will bring upon people would be from global warming - or the simple chance of where people choose to build and live."

"Hurricanes more powerful than Katrina swept the Gulf Coast long before global warming."

"Some climate scientists believe that natural cycles are driving the observed variability in hurricane freqauency..."

In fact, the story taken as a whole can be summed up:

"One researcher says global warming might increase hurricanes, but nobody is really sure."

Front page news, ladies and gentlemen, at least if you have an agenda to push.

They will never stop

Read in the Oregonian today that local school leaders are trying to figure out how to package an income tax for schools that voters will accept.

Former Portland Superintendent Jim Scherzinger is spearheading the effort. According to the story he sent out info to local school districts outlining different prospective rates and how much each district would receive from it.

He's trying to downplay how far along they are, but apparently they are considering having the Metro government be the taxing authority, and the rate would be between .2% and .5%.

This is pretty amazing. They want to get hammered again? Make our day. Put it on the ballot.

I have a different idea. Why can't we approach it this way? Want more money for schools? I've got a suggestion.

It occured to me one day when my local district was pushing a local option tax, and a neighbor who supported the tax said that she thought local districts should have the right to tax themselves more if they so choose.

I thought: you don't really want the right to tax yourself more - you can do that any time you want by sending money straight to the district. Rather, you want to force the people who don't want to pay the tax to pay the tax, using majority rule.

Yes, I understand that majority rule is how we decide such things inour society, but does it always have to be? Maybe there is another way that would raise money for schools without forcing a tax down peoples throats who do not support it.

Here's how it would work:

School district proposes to raise (just to choose a number) $10 million a year through an increased property tax. Only those who vote yes will have the tax added to their property tax statement. The more people who vote yes, the lower the tax assessment on each voter's property.

The district could propose a minimum level of support below which the tax would fail. The campaign, then would be to maximize the number of yes votes in order to distribute the burden among the most taxpayers. But a no vote won't pay the tax at all. Nobody forces anything on anybody.

What is wrong with this?

Portland Tree Police

Just in case you thought that the City of Portland was starting to get it...... I get the email below forwarded from a friend.

Is this really what we want our government to be doing? Were you aware that there is an "Urban Forestry Division" in the Parks and Recreation department?

Of course they don't say what precisely a Tree Liaison will actually do, other than "promote proper tree care" and be a "resource" for the neighborhood. How will that actually manifest itself? " Will they police the neighborhoods to make sure that people treat their trees properly? A cadre of local tree police, deputized by the parks and recs dep't?

Such nonsense, and it is on your dime.

Help care for trees in your neighborhood by becoming a Neighborhood Tree Liaison. A Neighborhood Tree Liaison is a local leader who promotes proper tree care and serves as a resource for his/her neighborhood on tree issues. To become a Neighborhood Tree Liaison you do not need to know a lot about trees.

You do need to have a passion for trees, desire to learn, and the commitment to help. This program offered by Portland Parks Recreation teaches you about tree care, and then works with you to develop tree projects in your community. The Neighborhood Tree Liaison class teaches; tree biology, pruning, planting, preservation, tree identification and common tree diseases.

Classes are hands on, and taught by leading professionals in the tree care industry. The first class is on September 17th. Registration is required, and the cost is $20. For the complete class schedule and to sign up and call Portland Parks Recreation at 503-823-1650 or visit http://www.portlandparks.org/TreeServices/NTL.htm.

Karl DawsonPortland Parks
Recreation Urban Forestry Division
503-823-1650
kdawson@ci.portland.or.us

Mainstream Extremists

One of the things that drives me crazy about Portland: complete wing nut extremists who are in positions of significant influence, but who somehow are considered to be solidly in the mainstream because of the piss-poor job old media does of telling the truth about them.

Today's best example: Rex Burkholder, Metro Councillor.

The guy is a card-carrying member of the bike-nazi gang. He hates cars. He wants you to drive less. He makes sure that Portland roads are as congested as possible by "enhancing" major arterials such as Spokane Avenue in Sellwood with "traffic calming" devices. He's a dreamy-eyed social utopian who waxes eloquent about "community" and "happiness quotients."

He is an extremist, but nobody knows it.

A good example of his extremism: his recent post on the "Portland Transport" blog. I've pasted part of it below:

"Think of it if every residential street was only wide enough for one car to pass through at a time, going slow, sharing the road with kids and dogs and soccer games. Is there any reason traffic on a residential street should go faster than 10mph??? "

There you have it. Rex Burkholder wants the speed limit on residential streets to be 10 mph. And this guy is in the mainstream, treated as a credible adult.

I wonder what the people of Portland would think of Rex if he was actually able to implement his speed limit? After a few weeks of driving 10 mph I can guarantee you that 9 out of 10 Portlanders would speed up quickly if they saw Rex in the crosswalk.

Go read the rest of his post. It is amazing.

SAT Scores: Oregon Losing Ground

You don't have to investigate too deeply before you realize that the headlines we always see about Oregon doing well on the SAT is not really true.

For years we were told "Oregon is #1 on the SAT." A couple years ago Washington passed us up, so we were #2. For several years they never even bothered to report that this ranking was actually only for a sub-group of states - those states with more than 50% of the students taking the test.

After we badgered the Oregonian's education reporters time and again, they finally started putting in their story that they were excluding about half the states by only ranking those with 50% of graduating seniors taking the test.

If you include all states, Oregon was 25th last year and 28th this year. But it isn't valid to even rank the states this way. Go the the College Board web site and you will see that they say:

"Media and others often rank states, districts, and schools on the basis of SAT scores despite repeated warnings that such rankings are invalid. "

But Susan Castillo and the Oregonian disregard this warning and do it anyway. Castillo's press release today says: "Oregon still ranks second...."

Here is the real news, which you won't find being reported: Since the implementation of the CIM, Oregon's performance on the SAT has gotten worse compared to the national average.

Five years ago, Oregon's combined SAT score was 1054, and the national average was 1019. Since then, the average has grown to 1028 (increase of 9 points) and Oregon's score is exactly the same - 1054.

At this rate of travel, Oregon will be below the national average in a little more than a decade. A far cry from the rhetoric that surrounded the School Reform Act, which brought us CIM/CAM.

It's time for some honesty about Oregon's SAT scores. If we are honest with ourselves, we would admit that Oregon is just about average.

Flores Op-Ed Piece on Castillo

House Education Chair Linda Flores wrote this op-ed piece. She was one of the bright spots of the legislature this session.


Castillo Needs Reality Check

State Representative Linda Flores
(House District 51, Clackamas)

Oregon’s education system is much better off thanks to the 2005 legislature despite of what’s been reported. Even before the session ended our State School Superintendent was bashing legislators for what didn’t get done on her wish list. In many ways she has only herself to blame and now she’s asking Oregon voters to re-elect her.

Superintendent Susan Castillo says there were too many “missed opportunities”. She should call them “bureaucratic blockades” because her agency and its friends created them. Castillo is right about one thing she said: “turf and preservation of the status quo won out over what was best for students, schools and taxpayers.” Her turf and her status quo.

As Chair of the House Education Committee I know first hand the struggles we faced trying to implement the very reforms Castillo pretends to embrace, but in reality opposed.

For example, Castillo wanted a stable school funding plan. The Speaker of the House produced one and it wasn’t good enough for Castillo. She wanted more accountability and consolidation. The education bureaucracy fought hard and the result? Modest Education Service District reform.

According to Castillo we failed to make changes to the Certificates of Initial and Advanced Mastery programs. The House approved replacing that flawed system with a better, less expensive system to comply with federal standards. Once again, Castillo and her friends in the education establishment put a stop to that in the Senate.

As I said in the beginning the 2005 session did a lot of good things for Oregon schools. Things you haven’t heard from Castillo. We gave K-12 a 6-percent increase in state funding. We added two credits and an extra year of math and English in order to graduate. We allowed juniors and seniors to take college classes, paid for by their high school. In addition, we increased safety with stronger laws against child abuse and bomb threats in schools.

Some districts are still trying to make up from program reductions in recent years, but new test scores show significant improvement. I believe we have many hard working teachers and students focusing on basic skills rather than administrative tasks.

Yes, we have challenges ahead. Instead of taking up an entire day teaching kids the format for their next CIM test…teach them about Oregon’s rich pioneer history. Instead of two report cards on school performance, one for the feds and one for the state, why not consolidate? The list goes on and on.

Yes, there is plenty of room for improvement. It would be beneficial to Oregon if Superintendent Castillo and her allies would decide to partner to make progress. As a former legislator, Susan knows better than to block legislation, then turn around and blame the legislature for not passing it. As we prepare for the 2007 legislative session I am developing a long list of positive changes and I plan to keep pushing for needed reforms – for our children.

Bojack

On my radio show tomorrow (just a few short hours away) I will have as co-host Jack Bogdanski, of the ubiquitous "Jack Bog's Blog."

I've never met him. I'm a faithful reader and occasional poster on his blog, which Willamette Week tabbed the best local blog in their recent "Best of Portland" issue. I've always been impressed by his crap detector.

I spoke to him briefly on the phone after e-mailing him to invite him on my radio show. It was immediately obvious to me that he will be great on the radio.

Don't be surprised if you hear him on the radio a lot in the next few years.

He's a law perfesser up at Lewis & Clark. L&C is mostly known as one of the premier "environmental law" schools, which basically means they print a lot of lawyers who can't stand American-style capitalism. I don't think Jack is from that mold, but we will see tomorrow.

Hope you tune in.

Vicki Phillips and Steve Goldschmidt

Her gambit failed. That's my read.

Vicki Phillips fired Steve Goldschmidt and refused to pay his obscene severance package that was negotiated back when Ben Canada was the super.

Right after she did it she was on my radio show. I told her then that I admired her guts and I still do.

She was taking a chance. She basically dared Goldschmidt to seek arbitration to get his obscene severance paid. She hoped that he might be ashamed to insist that $325K or so be extracted from a district already in total financial disarray.

But looking for shame from a Goldschmidt reminds me of when Kevin Mannix said he would solve the PERS crisis by "sitting down with the unions in a positive way and talk about the long term public good."

They just ain't concerned about it.

So, Vicki Phillips miscalculated. If she is to be criticised at all, it's not for the gambit - but because she obviously didn't create much of a paper trail that would support her contention that Goldschmidt had a "gross neglect of duty." She's been around long enough to know that if you want to fire someone you have to document their performance.

And just a couple months prior Goldschmidt had a glowing review from Jim Scherzinger, who approved the $14K performance bonus called for in his contract. Kind of hard to argue he was incompetent after that.

(Easy, though, to argue Scherzinger's incompetence. Goldschmidt had been a problem at PPS virtually since he started. He makes about $130K before all the goodies such as annuity, car allowance and whatnot. Why would Scherzinger approve the bonus?)

So, while I admire her guts in looking Goldschmidt in the eye and making him sue to get his severance, she miscalculated, and that cost the district another quarter million plus whatever they spent in lawyers.

But for her the good news is she comes out a winner anyway. She looks like a fighter who will clean up the excesses of her predecessors.

And while that is probably true and certainly necessary, it is far from sufficient if she is serious about getting PPS on track.

And that is where I'm afraid Vicki Phillips is NOT being as bold as she should. We don't need any more "five year strategic plans." (See my blog post below.)

It is very disappointing that she is headed in this direction. Kudos for the Goldschmidt gambit, even though it failed. But PPS will only survive if it makes structural reforms, and I've yet to see anything out of Phillips that would suggest she is a reformer.

Virtual Charter School Ruffles Feathers

Let the games begin.

You may have read the front page Oregonian hit piece on ORCA, Oregon's first and only virtual charter school. The article was about what you'd expect from the O - time and again it chose phrases intended to invoke negative feelings.

Right off the bat - the opening sentence:

"SCIO -- This tiny Western Oregon farming town is about to become home to Oregon's first public school run by a private, for-profit company."

As if the most important thing about a new way of educating kids is the fact that somewhere someone might make money doing it. Smelling salts please.

I think it might be more important to point out that in a very short period of time ORCA has enrolled more than 650 students in its virtual school program, despite the fact they have been actively marketing for less than a month. Obviously there is a huge pent up demand for what they are offering.

Did the Oregonian bother to quote even a single parent who has signed his or her child up for ORCA? Nope. Apparently not really interested as much in what positive benefit might come from a new and innovative way to teach kids as they are in pointing out ad-nauseum that there might be profits involved.

As if nobody is making any money on traditional schooling. All the textbook companies, of course, are non-profit organizations, right?

And teacher unions.... they don't benefit financially at all from the current system, right?

OH WAIT! Maybe I'm on to something here. Turns out that the teachers ORCA hires will not be part of the teachers union. That means no annual alms to union bosses. If ORCA enrolls 650 students, then it will need 13 teachers. It plans to grow to as many as 3000 students, which means 60 non dues-paying teachers will be employed.

They can't let such a dangerous idea spread, which explains why the OEA put so much weight behind insisting that their lapdog Peter Courtney push through SB1071.

Perhaps they can't kill ORCA, but they can make sure that there will be no others.

Portland is Not Competitive and Doesn't Want To Be

Read this column by a friend of mine, Larry Huss. Larry was formerly the Oregon chief at U.S. West, and since his "retirement" has been active in the Oregon political scene. He writes a weekly column for the Medford Mail Tribune, which I have pasted here.

Larry nails it.


CHASING MEDIOCRITY

It appears that the Portland business community is having an identity crisis. First Tim Boyle, President of Columbia Sportswear, in a speech to the Portland business community, unleashed a sharp critique of the anti-business attitudes that are pervasive in the Portland/Multnomah County local governments. Boyle knows of what he speaks. He finally moved his business from Portland to Beaverton when local officials thought his corporate building site on the banks of the Willamette River would be a better fit for their county offices than for Boyle's business.

In a criticism of Boyle's speech, Randy Miller, chairman of the Portland Ambassadors program noted, "We're so collegial in Portland. It didn't exemplify the culture." And so what is the culture of the Portland business community? What kind of culture tolerates the loss of 30,000 jobs between 2000 and 2004? And what kind of culture then concludes that the best way to attract new business is to support not one, not two, but three efforts to increase taxes on business in Portland/Multnomah County?

Well, last Sunday's Oregonian contained an inescapable clue. John Barrows, a well-traveled and successful businessman, may have given us the answer. In a guest editorial, Mr. Barrows writes:

"Finally, someone's spit out what no Oregonian will admit: We're an also-ran and we don't much care."

Barrows continued, in explanation:"Oregon is an also-ran when [it] comes to education, business competitiveness and leadership. . .

"But let's be honest with ourselves: The policies and politics of Portland and Oregon are purposefully constructed to reflect the desires of the residents - low energy, uncompetitive and hard work adverse - at least compared to other states and cities that drive the American economy.

"Trust me, Barrows' list of Portland's shortfalls is thorough and accurate. But here is the stunning part - the part which helps define the culture of the Portland business community. Barrows thinks that's okay. He's a very happy camper. His analysis is not meant as a criticism but rather as a request to "don't worry, be happy." Barrows is an admitted "burn-out" from the corporate wars:

"I chose this lifestyle because I was tired of working so hard. I wanted to watch my grandchildren grow up because I missed my children's early years; I was working all the time.

"So let's just admit to ourselves what the rest of the country and the nation's business community already know: We're not competitive. We choose not to be...It's the lifestyle stupid.

"There it is folks - Portland's great solution-quality of life. When I was an active participant in the Portland business community associations, the business leaders eschewed issues like taxes, regulatory burden, and land use restrictions in favor of salmon recovery, bike paths and light rail. I would point to states like Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Utah and Idaho that had robust and growing economies and ask, impolitely apparently, how Oregon intended to compete. The standard response from local politicians and business leaders was always - our quality of life. And while I grant you that the quality of life is worth a premium, it is not, contrary to their views, unlimited.

But there are two problems with Mr. Barrows' view of the world. First, while it may be fun to coast through life, it seldom provides you the financial means to build or enjoy the quality of life to which he refers - that is both on the micro and macro levels. It is also much easier for someone who has already achieved financial independence to proffer such foolishness than someone who is trying to find or hold a job to put food on the table.

Second, while Mr. Barrows' reggae attitude might reflect the attitudes of Portland's business community, he is dead wrong that it reflects the attitudes of all of Oregon. According to a July 26 report by the Oregon Employment Department's Oregon Labor Market Information System (OLMSI), Portland remained a drag on Oregon's job recovery. While the state as a whole has recovered the 64,000 jobs lost during the recession, Portland is still 14,000 jobs shy of recovery-and that is after four years.

It appears from the report that Medford, Bend and Salem have shouldered the largest share of job growth accounting for over 25 percent of the total state job growth. And these statistics don't tell the whole story. When OLMSI refers to Portland, it really refers to the seven county metropolitan area, including Clark County (Vancouver) Washington which is experiencing unprecedented growth. Business has been fleeing Portland in droves and relocating to Washington (Beaverton/Tualatin) and Clackamas (Lake Oswego/Milwaukee) counties and Vancouver. The job recovery for Portland/Multnomah County is far less than its surrounding counties.

And so while Portland focuses on its quality of life through more skateboard parks, bike paths and light rail, it appears that the rest of state is focused on building quality of life through a good job.

But don't worry, be happy - it's all about the quality of life.

Why Schools of Education are Worthless

My friend and fellow blogger "Professer Plum" over at Educationation has a wonderful post that critiques the "Standards" that are used to evaluate schools of education by the #1 ed-school accreditation organization, NCATE.

It is not only on-point, but also funny.

Sadly, what passes for teacher education in this country, mostly due to folks such as those who run NCATE, is a very bad, sick joke.

Kremer & Abrams KATU Commentary is now online

My radio co-host Marc Abrams and I recently started doing twice weekly "Face2Face" political commentaries on KATU's five o'Clock news broadcasts.

KATU keeps an archive of all of the commentaries, available here.

Check them out - and drop me a suggestion for future topics.

Another Five Year Plan for the New Soviets

Remember the five year plans popular in the communist government of Russia? Every few years they would roll out another one, ever confident of its success, and never admitting the last one's failure.

A "Soviet" is a local elected council. In Russia, the Soviets were the instrumentalities that implemented their five year plans.

Well, the Portland School Board is trying to replicate the Soviet model. Five years ago, with great fanfare, at great expense, and with unparallelled hours of public volunteer involvement, the district developed its last five year "Strategic Plan."

It failed miserably to meet even one of its goals, so now Vicki Phillips is embarking on the next five year plan.

I'm pretty well versed in the last one. I volunteered to be on one of the seven planning teams whose job it was to develop a strategy to tackle one big challenge facing the district. I knew going in it was an exercise in futility, but I did it anyway.

Here is how they went about developing the Plan: A "Core Planning Team" made up of 25 or so well meaning but gullible education establishment folk and civic leaders met for a few days in a hotel in Vancouver to decide on the the "Core Values" that would be reflected in the plan. The group had a rule that governed the proceedings: "Consensus."

They defined "consensus" to mean that whatever the group decided upon had to be unanimous. In other words, any single person had veto power over any "Core Value" that the group proposed.

Right there I knew the process was doomed. To require unanimous agreement before any position can be taken is a prescription for banality.

Margaret Thatcher once said about consensus:

"the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies in search of something in which no one believes, but to which no one objects; the process of avoiding the very issues that have to be solved, merely because you cannot get agreement on the way ahead. What great cause would have been fought and won under the banner "I stand for consensus"?

And that is pretty much what we got out of the "Core Planning Group" after days of meetings. Go take a look at what the group came up with.

"We believe every human being has intrinsic value"
"Everyone has the ability to learn"
"Adult behavior is a powerful teacher for young people"

Bromide after bromide is all they could agree on - which was tragically and utterly predictable.

They also said that by 2005, they would meet the following "Strategic Objectives:"

1) 100% of our students will demonstrate significant growth every year toward achieving rigorous system-wide academic expectations.

Did they meet this goal? Do they even know if they met it? Have they even been trying to track the data?

2) 100% of our students will continually set ambitious learning goals, persist in pursuing those goals, and demonstrate evidence of progress.

I love this one... it is impossible to define or track - the perfect goal! How do you "continually set ambitious learning goals." Is it a third grader's job to set her own learning goals in the first place? Total nonsense.... but that's what you get from consensus.

3) 100% of our students will willingly and regularly contribute to the community.

This one I love. It's got such an Orwellian tone about it. "You WILL contribute, and you will do it WILLINGLY!"

Hard to believe, but it was otherwise intelligent adults who came up with this stuff.

But that was just the beginning. After the "Core Planning Team" crafted this nonsense, they had a big kickoff meeting. More than 600 well meaning citizens came, listened to a lovely presentation and then split themselves into seven groups, each which would hammer out plans and objectives to address one of seven challenges the Core team decided needed to be addressed.

I was on "Team 4 - The Achievement Gap."

The team was comprised of about 60 people. Our first big meeting was on a Saturday, scheduled to go for four hours. The first order of business was for the entire group to sanction the ground rules.

The facilitator sent out a sheet that stated that the group would operate on a basis of consensus, and it defined consensus basically as "Everyone might not agree to every detail of a decision, but commits to support the decision."

I raised my hand. "What it one of us doesn't agree that consensus is how we should operate?"

Hmmm. She thought about that for a minute, kind of stunned. I expanded: "It seems that "consensus" gives a minority of one the ability to veto any decision the group makes. So can a minority of one veto the decision to operate on a basis of consensus?"

Remember that Star Trek episode when the cyborgs were given a logical contradiction "everything I say is a lie" - and it literally blew their minds? That's kinda how the facilitator looked.

Of course all I did was mark myself as a troublemaker. She simply said: "Interesting question... anybody else have something to add?" And consensus was adopted.

It didn't get any better. The group met for a total of about 40 hours over 6 months. All the group-dynamics professional-facilitator garbage was rolled out. We spent time in breakout groups discussing issues and reporting out to the full group. We spent time sticking colored circles on statements written on butcher paper stuck on the walls. We spent time in countless pointless activities avoiding any inconvenient questions.

Here is the sum-total of the output from this charade, as it made its way into the final plan:

"We must increase our capacity to provide intense, immediate and innovative support for low-achieving students. The disparity in achievement has existed for too long, and the number of children at risk is growing. We must develop the capacity to do whatever it takes to help children achieve."

That's all. Just "increase capacity." What on earth does that mean? How will they know when they have done it? Seemed to me strategic objectives should be measureable. You want to narrow the achievement gap, let's measure it, track it, and use teaching methods that are proven to narrow it. Wouldn't that have some meaning?

But no, the group of 60 or so people operating on "consensus" decided we should attack the problem by throwing our hands in the air, and saying let's do "whatever it takes." So, five years later it is fair to ask: was this objective met?

Again - these were othewise intelligent adults, well meaning and trying to do the right thing. Their time was utterly wasted.

So here we are five years later, and Vicki Phillips wants to do it all again? I'm sorry, but that is very disappointing. She was supposed to be a leader. This type of exercise is an excuse not to lead.

The structure for the next five year plan looks an awful lot like the last one.

Well, the Soviets never learned, either. The fundamental flaw of the Soviet model was only apparent after it was piled high on the scrapheap of history.