Selected editorials from Oregon newspapers:
The Eugene Register-Guard, July 10, on banning “lunch shaming”
House Bill 3454, which the Oregon House approved Thursday, is one of those pieces of legislation that’s easy to love and hate at the same time: love because in a political climate where the poor and disenfranchised have a limited voice, HB 3454 defends such people. Hate because it shouldn’t take a state law for school personnel to treat students with basic human respect.
HB 3454 bans in schools what’s become known as “lunch shaming” - publicly identifying and stigmatizing students whose accounts are out of balance.
If this phrase and concept are new to you, you’re not alone. But in our changing universe, it’s come to this: a law to ensure some fourth-grader isn’t humiliated by a cashier - “You’re out of money” - or sent to the back of the line. In worst-case scenarios, some children are forced to work off their debt; in best cases, they’re given meals that, unlike ones being eaten by their peers, don’t meet federal nutritional requirements.
For heaven’s sake, it’s 2017. Haven’t we come further than this? Apparently not. Thus is the U.S. Department of Agriculture requiring districts to adopt policies this month to address meal debts - and to do so with increased sensitivity to the children who often pay the price, in humiliation, for what’s clearly an adult responsibility.
The department’s National School Lunch Program funds free and reduced-price meals for the nation’s poorest children, which shields them from such scorn. It’s students on the next level who bear the brunt of humiliation.
According to PBS NewsHour, a 2014 federal report showed 39 percent of districts nationwide hand out cheap alternative meals to such kids that don’t meet the feds’ nutritional requirements. Six percent won’t feed students at all who come up short on money.
Armed with such data, the Agriculture Department is requiring districts to adopt policies this month for addressing meal debts with a decided emphasis on keeping kids well-fed and treated fairly.
But some states are a step ahead. Spurred by an advocacy group on poverty, New Mexico passed an anti-meal-shaming law in April. Now, Oregon has joined a handful of states to install a law that shouldn’t be necessary but is.
“HB 3454 will help ensure that all students have access to lunch while at school without having to worry about being publicly embarrassed because a parent or guardian failed to pay their bill,” said House Republican Leader Mike McLane, R-Powell Butte. “The last thing we want our children worrying about when they’re in a learning environment is where their next meal is going to come from.”
The law will prohibit schools from forcing students to do chores or other work to pay for meals - and make it illegal to single them out or stigmatize them in any way. Schools must deal with parents and guardians, not students, if accounts are out of balance.
It’s unfortunate such laws are necessary. And we’re not naive; unless history stopped repeating, some students of all economics classes will skip lunch, or mooch, and spend their lunch money elsewhere.
But most students, particularly those living on the ragged edge, have enough challenges to stay afloat in school as it is. Being branded with a scarlet letter for nonpayment of a lunch debt does nothing to help their cause - or, for that matter, education’s.
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The Bend Bulletin, July 9, on state justice system needing balancing
When somebody has a day in court, it should be a fair fight. But in Oregon, if the accused can’t afford a lawyer, there’s reason to worry.
The pay disparity between court-appointed indigent defense lawyers and the people who prosecute is substantial and problematic. The Legislature took up this issue again this year in House Bill 2561, sponsored by Rep. Jennifer Williamson, D-Portland. But again, this year the bill did not pass.
The reason is simple: It would cost the state millions to fix.
The bill directs Oregon’s Public Defense Services Commission to adopt policies that make appointed-counsel pay commensurate with the equivalent position within the office of district attorneys. That change would cost Oregon nearly $20 million for the 2017-2019 biennium and $26 million in the following biennium.
The pay disparity that would be corrected can be substantial. In Deschutes County, a public defender starts out at $63,000 a year. A deputy district attorney starts at about $84,000. And that disparity grows.
Thomas Crabtree, executive director of the public defender’s office for Deschutes County, provided a specific example. A decade ago, an attorney left his office and went to become a deputy district attorney in Deschutes County. For just switching jobs, the attorney immediately made $21,000 more a year in salary. That’s enough of a difference to make anyone think about leaving.
Crabtree says his office typically has not had the funding from the state to be able to offer cost of living increases or automatic salary increases every year. Deputy DAs frequently get both. So that deputy DA had his salary grow from about $70,000 to $113,000. An attorney hired to replace the deputy DA had his salary grow from $43,000 to $76,000 over the same time period.
Money isn’t everything. What matters is the quality of the legal representation. But the problem for Oregon’s justice system is that experienced public defense lawyers tend to leave. Many follow the money that can be made as a deputy district attorney or in private practice. That undermines the experience and quality of the defense, Deschutes County District Attorney John Hummel told us.
Trials need to be conducted in a way that protects the rights of the accused. It’s essential to a fair trial that the accused have legal counsel. And it’s only fair that the state pays enough to make it a fair fight. The Legislature needs to look for a way to make that happen.
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The Oregonian/OregonLive, July 8, on legislators disregarding voters’ will with insufficient education measure funding
Oregon voters enthusiastically endorsed two education measures on the ballot last November, directing legislators to devote millions of dollars to expand career and technical education for high schoolers and provide outdoor school programs for 5thand 6th grade students statewide. Measure 98, the high-school initiative, and Measure 99, the outdoor school initiative, both passed by huge margins - 32 percentage and 34 percentage points respectively.
But what voters approve isn’t necessarily what lawmakers do. For the coming biennium, legislators have set aside $170 million for Measure 98 programs, a little more than half of the $300 million that the initiative called for in funding of career and technical education, dropout prevention efforts and expanded college-prep courses for high school students across the state. As for Measure 99, the Legislature is allocating only $24 million of the $44 million envisioned by the initiative to pay for the multi-day outdoor education program for middle-schoolers that several districts have struggled to maintain through fundraising or reserving scarce funds.
There’s nothing wrong with legislators’ amending what voters hand off to them. Making funding decisions and changing state law, whether it originates from the initiative process or legislative process, are routine functions of the Legislature. Initiatives are blunt instruments as public-policy making goes, rarely including the detail and nuance needed to fairly, legally and effectively administer the programs they create. And an initiative’s focus on a single issue contrasts with the broad array of concerns and needs that legislators must balance in making difficult budget decisions.
And many school districts aren’t geared up yet to take advantage of the funds for either program. Adding or expanding curriculum in these programs involves far more than just flipping a switch, particularly for career and technical education, even if the funding is available in full.
Still, the amounts allocated for programs identified in both Measure 98 and 99 are not sufficient for what’s known to be needed now. Toya Fick, executive director for Stand for Children Oregon, a primary backer of the Measure 98 campaign, called the $170 million “a down payment” but warned that it is far from what will be required to help high school students. That’s not hyperbole, considering that some 10,000 students a year drop out of high school in Oregon, which has the third-worst graduation rate in the country.
Similarly, Rex Burkholder, chairman of the Outdoor School for All committee, told The Oregonian/OregonLive Editorial Board that those tasked with administering the outdoor school fund have tallied the cost of existing outdoor school programs at $30 million, $6 million more than the allocation from legislators. That means the fund won’t cover current demand nor can it accommodate additional outdoor school programs from other districts that want to start a program in the next two years.
Elected leaders have bemoaned the budget crisis that they faced this legislative session due in part to the new initiatives. But voters - who cast their ballots amid a sustained economic boom that continues to generate record amounts of tax revenue - aren’t to blame. The culprits have been legislators who ignored for years the question of how to pay for Medicaid expansion and who have refused to confront escalating pension and health benefits costs for public employees.
Ultimately, legislators need to think about the reasons two-thirds of voters backed both of these measures. Could Oregon’s chronically poor graduation rate have been a motivator to back these two measures? Both invest in strategies known to engage students in their education, open them up to new experiences and career tracks, and keep them connected to high school. Could it be frustration with the paltry offerings that some school districts offer? Or could it be a message to legislators to do a better job of directing Oregonians’ tax dollars into student-focused programs instead of employee benefits, which are taking larger and larger shares of school district budgets? Even an 11 percent increase in the K-12 education budget for the coming biennium isn’t enough to stave off layoffs in some districts because of those surging personnel costs.
Legislators and voters alike should remind themselves of a simple truth. These measures began as petitions filed by citizens who wanted to put new laws on the books because policymakers weren’t addressing the need. They gained traction, attention and, in the end, overwhelming victories that deserve respect, even by those who opposed the initiatives. This is what voters’ will looks like, and Oregonians unhappy with the direction of the state should remember how powerful that can be.
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The Medford Mail Tribune, July 6, on popularity taking toll on state’s wilderness areas
Oregonians are rightfully proud of the stunning scenic beauty of their state and are accustomed to striking out to experience it whenever they wish, backpacking into pristine wilderness areas at a moment’s notice.
But some of the more popular areas are not so pristine any longer, largely the result of overuse and too many people behaving thoughtlessly while they are there. The U.S. Forest Service has responded by proposing to start requiring paid permits to hike and backpack in specific wilderness areas.
For now, the program would apply to the Mount Jefferson, Mount Washington, Three Sisters, Diamond Peak and Waldo Lake wilderness areas. None of those is in Southern Oregon, but they are popular destinations for local residents.
The Forest Service is compiling comments on the plan and will issue more details in time for a new comment period in February 2018. If adopted, the permit system likely would take effect in 2019.
The reaction from outdoor enthusiasts understandably has been negative. But look at things from the Forest Service’s point of view.
The number of visitors to the wilderness areas in question has soared. The Bend Bulletin reports that 46,999 people visited the Three Sisters Wilderness in 2011. Last year, 132,118 people did. And they left more than footprints.
Forest Service rangers hauled 1,200 pounds of garbage out of Three Sisters in 2015-16, and buried human waste 850 times - something the visitors who produced it couldn’t be bothered to do.
Better wilderness etiquette on the part of visitors would go a long way toward solving the problem, but people being people, we’re not holding our breath. And the Forest Service is proposing the paid permit system because it’s been proven to work.
Permit systems already are in place for specific locations that draw large numbers of visitors, including Obsidian Trail in the Three Sisters Wilderness and Pamelia Lake in the Mount Jefferson Wilderness. Officials say the permit requirements successfully limited crowds and damage there.
Permits reportedly would range from $6 to $12. Recovering some modest administrative cost is acceptable, but fees should not be a money-maker for the Forest Service. If a permit is required for every person in a hiking party, the cost could become prohibitive.
If all visitors treated the wilderness as their own backyard, permit fees wouldn’t be necessary. Since they don’t, measures like this are an unfortunate necessity.
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