Letters To The Editor

EDUCATION

EWU appointee perplexing

As an alumna of Eastern Washington University, I noted with great interest Gov. Gary Locke’s three new appointments to EWU’s board of trustees.

While I can understand Messrs. Gordon Budke’s and Mark Mays’ appointments, since both of them reside in Spokane, I do not understand the significance of Lucy Isaki’s appointment. She is an attorney from the West Side of the state. The merger of EWU and WSU is an idea that involves two state schools from the East Side.

The idea of this merger impacts the political, social and economic climate of the East Side. What possible interest could the Seattle attorney Isaki have in this situation? What possible contribution could she make? Possibly influence her husband, who is the vice president of the Seattle Mariners, to bring the Mariners over to practice at EWU once in a great while as a token gesture of good faith in her qualifications and interest? Or, perhaps an appreciation appointment for a $1,600 campaign donation?

My questions to Gov. Locke are: Doesn’t Spokane have well-qualified attorneys to be on the board of trustees? Did the Spokane attorneys not contribute enough to your campaign? And finally, don’t Spokane attorneys have spouses in high enough places to suit your political agenda? Charlotte Benjamin Spokane

Forget the education hype

R. William Bender’s letter of Dec. 17 should have parents asking questions and demanding answers.

The state essential academic learning requirements are what every child should know and be able to do, what the child should look like as a result of his/her educational experience. Take a look at them, parents. Are these ambiguous outcomes what you want your child to look like when he/she exits the education system? How are these defined? What curriculum and supplemental teaching materials will be used to teach them? How will they be assessed? Who will be the judge of what is good enough? What if you don’t agree? What should be the purpose of education in a free society? The state has admitted that the new fourth-grade assessment is subjective. That assessment is to measure whether fourth-graders are mastering the essential learnings as benchmarked. If the assessments are subjective - attutudinal, affective - what are the essential learnings they measure?

Washington state has had a pilot in education reform. It began in 1987 and was known as the Schools for the 21st Century. Aggregated, the Schools in the 21st Century program scored from 5.4 to 9 points below the statewide aggregate scores on the new fourth-grade assessment.

Parents would do well to forget the hype about being oh so positive and start asking and demanding answers from their legislators, Gov. Gary Locke and Superintendent of Public Instruction Terry Bergeson. Lynn M. Stuter Nine Mile Falls

A no-nonsense approach to education

Gov. Gary Locke, like most professional politicians, has only one answer to any type of problem: more tax dollars. Feeding a new group of administrators with $25 million for a volunteer program isn’t going to clean up Washington’s education mess. How about using some practical self-discipline methods for school administration, teachers, students and parents? Make the school administration responsible to the public, and if they don’t show drastic improvement immediately, fire them - just as any other business gets rid of failing officers.

Set firm objectives teachers must meet. If they don’t perform, replace them with new graduate teachers, equipped with updated teaching skills, hungry for a job but destitute because of an outdated, abused policy called tenure.

To really get the students’ attention, institute policy to support flunking students repeatedly if necessary, until they perform as required. This would also be a sure-fire way to get non-attentive parents’ attention. Initiating this policy starting from grade one would halt the dropout problem in later years.

Increase school time by at least one hour per day and teach only hard-core education, such as math, reading, writing, economics, government and modern history. As for sex education and some of the other phony subjects that amount to nothing but busywork, make those available after school and weekends, taught by the administrators who deem them necessary. Washington’s educational system stands a better chance if, by making children succeed early in school, they will learn as they progress to want to succeed. Few things that are really valuable ever come easily. Bert A. Overland Spokane

Merger would enhance EWU

As a recently admitted EWU student I would like to say that Sen. Jim West’s proposal to merge EWU with WSU is an idea worth looking at.

After talking with West’s office and reading the arguments against the proposal, I believe the merger would have an extremely positive effect for the Spokane area and just may be the answer to Eastern’s enrollment woes and continuing financial crisis.

EWU’s enrollment problem stems from its perception as a second-rate institution despite its professional staff and upgraded facilities. Eastern can change this negative perception and gain WSU’s good reputation by accepting the merger offer. The WSU name will attract a great deal of students from the Spokane area that want a degree from an institution more prestigious than Eastern but are not able to move to Pullman. The merger provides another option for West Side students who still want the metropolitan services that Spokane, not Pullman, can provide.

As for increased tuition costs, West’s office says that there doesn’t have to be any. The purpose of the merger is not to raise costs, but to better utilize the existing facility, end the bickering between EWU and WSU on who gets the bigger portion of the Spokane pie, and to offer a major university as an educational option to Spokane students.

In the end, everybody wins. Stephen A. Taylor Spokane

ENVIRONMENT

Condemnation a bit naive

I was at a loss to understand Doug Clark’s condemnation of an event - a mesh maze erected in Riverfront Park, decorated with children’s posters - that would entertain and inspire thousands. Taking offense because there is a price tag on a project of this scope is perhaps a trifle naive.

The idea for the children’s maze comes from Nancy Joyce, an educator who discovered that when children are actively involved in the design of their own hands-on projects, then their learning is greatly accelerated. Clark’s summary, “Leave the mazes to the lab rats,” misses the obvious analogy.

We all live and breathe on a dying planet; the reward at the end of our maze is renewal of the Earth. Let’s hope our learning becomes more accelerated than it’s been.

Journalistic scruples aside, in person Clark gave every appearance of good will, warmth and wit. After reading his Dec. 16 column, though, I fear he more resembles a Grinch who buys ink by the barrel.

I’m grateful to Lucy Gurnea for six months of work, to Joyce for her inspiration and 10-year learning curve, and to Spokane’s numerous individuals and businesses who have already indicated their enthusiasm and support for the K.I.D.S. Enviro-Maze, including The Spokesman-Review. Judy G. Laddon Spokane

Give K.I.D.S. a chance

Regarding Doug Clark Dec. 16. Certainly in my almost 50 years I have been called worse than pure as the new, driven snow. Perhaps this can be perceived as progress.

The K.I.D.S. Enviro-Maze will get substantial national, and potentially international, publicity. Plans are for the projects made by Spokane-area students to join those from St. Louis and Washington, D.C., to form another Guinness Book of World Records Maze in the mall outside the Smithsonian Institution in October 1998, and to have a K.I.D.S. Enviro-Maze exhibit at the Year 2000 Worlds Environmental Fair in Hanover, Germany.

Nancy Joyce of St. Louis has taken portions of the maze to the U.S.S.R. four times. With Mikhail Gorbachev she hosted a historical party for children in Red Square. She brought a maze to Germany where she held a festival for children on the same location where the Berlin Wall once stood.

The K.I.D.S. Enviro-Maze presents an extraordinary opportunity for Spokane area students to take part in a global project that captures the imagination, and is, well, fun. Whether we look at the funding as supporting creativity, marketing Spokane, or just families having fun together, it can be raised by having one exclusive corporate sponsor, several co-sponsors, or having 20,000 students and parents each contribute one dollar. We can support worthy charities like those Doug listed and still buy presents - and take vacations. We can hang our students’ art work on our refrigerators and in stores downtown, and still contribute to a global project like the Maze. Lucy Forman Gurnea Chewelah, Wash.