Held to answer

What happens to a dream deferred? Langston Hughes said it explodes.

That might explain the noise coming from the education bubble bursting all around us.

Like the sounds inside Portland’s old Marshall High School auditorium a week ago.

“You should all be ashamed for recommending this pile of crap!” shrieked a Beaverton woman who identified herself as a teacher and a mom.

She was referring to something called “Your Education Funding Top 10 List,” a list of items that Gov. John Kitzhaber’s “education team” developed and is now asking Oregon residents to rank in order from one to 10. Items like “Early Learning” and “English Language Learners.”

Teachers, principals, counselors, college students, retired educators, parents – more than could possibly be accommodated in a two-hour hearing – signed up to speak at a meeting of the Oregon Education Investment Board at Marshall High. The board has been meeting around the state this month.

In Portland, after the first 24 persons spoke the microphone died. No matter. The last half dozen or so who spoke had no trouble being heard amid a rowdy crowd of about 150. They generally agreed on everything – except where to find more money.

Susan Barrett, a young mother, didn’t want to be forced to choose among a Top 10 list of competing interests. She waved the list and yelled to wild cheers and applause, “They have the audacity to say ‘Your’ education and ask us what to cut. They don’t ask us what we want to fund … This is a controlled set-up!”

“Where’s Rudy?” the audience shouted off and on.

Rudy Crew, appointed Oregon’s Education Chief earlier this year, did not attend the hearing. Only one member of the 12-member education board attended – Hanna Vaandering. She was accompanied by a budget analyst and a chief of staff. The three women sat at a table and stared straight ahead while the audience vented.

A teacher who said he had received good evaluations and recognition in the community announced that he was also “the worst teacher in Oregon.” Why? Because none of his students – who have significant disabilities – has ever passed a standardized test.

Tiffany Dollar, student body president at Portland State University, said she was still waiting for her financial aid for this fall.

“At PSU, students pay over 80 percent of the operating costs of that institution. … I really don’t want my tuition to be spent for another layer of bureaucracy…,” she said. “I want my teachers, I want my support staff to be well-funded.”

Rhys Scholes, a public employee and father with children at Cleveland High School, paced in front of the crowd like a preacher and yelled “TAX REFORM!”

He railed against the gross unfairness that one of Portland’s best restaurants charges more for its prix-fixe dinners than it pays in property tax. (More on this later.)

On and on it went. When the moderator, who tried to keep each speaker to two minutes, announced  “We have to be out of here by 8:20,” a white-haired man on the verge of a tantrum, roared back “Why?”

Not all of the speakers were angry. Some were anxious about the future of teaching, and they denounced online classes. Their anxiety reminded me of what’s happened to newspapers. Once profitable businesses, many newspapers have lost advertising revenue to the Internet. People still want news, but they want it for free online.

“There’s no data that this (learning) is effective with kids in front of computers,” said a high school social studies teacher.

“Any part of this report that puts people in front of computers is scientifically wrong … look it up on Lexis Nexis,” said Justin, who described himself as a professional educator and data scientist who has taught in Colorado, Indiana and Ohio.

“This is the richest country the world has ever known,” he said. There’s no need for funding cuts, he insisted, the problem is false data analysis.

The meeting ended noisily with people shooed out the door. As groups clustered outside, the lights went out. Even in the dark conversations continued. Justin said he had a job lined up at an area college, but it didn’t work out. He is now trying to make it as an entrepreneur.

His has become a familiar story. Even the educated can’t find work. Yet politicians talk about Cradle to Career education as if it can be made to happen by passing the right legislation or naming the right task force.

How many of the people yelling, “Where’s Rudy?” looked at the rising costs of all education and considered what the results are in return. Smarter students? More adults enjoying useful work?

Or, are we all developing warped standards?

Cruise the want ads on Craigslist, and you might be surprised at some of the $12/hour jobs that say “college degree preferred.” These jobs don’t really need a degree, but some employers have either bought into the myth that college should be required, or they’re taking advantage of a desperate workforce.

No wonder many parents are convinced their children must have a college degree to have a “career” instead of a “job.” What will happen as more parents decide college is not worth it? Are colleges prepared for this?

If I were young and starting out, I might look around at who has a job that seems interesting and has some staying power – keeping in mind that nothing stays the same.

In my neighborhood, which has a nice socio-economic mix, there are those who appear to have solid, safe careers: a lawyer, a nurse, a teacher. Those who have solid, useful skills: an accountant, a construction worker, an administrative assistant, a seamstress (who is well into her 70’s but still works part-time downtown).

And, of course, there are individuals in my neighborhood who have occupations vaguely described as “something to do with computers.” In the 1960s that would have been intriguing. Now computers have become both ubiquitous and the presumed answer to all unemployment, which makes me wonder how secure that field will be in the future.

Also related to jobs is the issue raised by Rhys Scholes, the public employee who denounced the low property taxes of a Portland restaurant. The restaurant in question was Beast where Scholes said a prix-fixed dinner cost $264, which was more than the restaurant’s annual property tax bill.

I don’t know how many people were at the $264-dinner that Scholes referred to, but the restaurant’s prix-fixe dinner is $75 (plus $35 for wine service) per person.  According to the Multnomah County Tax Assessor, the Beast’s taxes last year were $271.80 and this year will be $597.64. Yes, that is low.

A spokesman for the tax assessor pointed out that it’s complicated because property values in the neighborhood where Beast is located were depressed for many years, particularly at the time Measure 50 was passed.

But Scholes overlooks something when he tries to reduce this to a simple dollars-and-cents issue. Not everybody works for a public agency like he does. Restaurants are a very risky business. Most don’t make it.

The Beast’s chef-owners have beat the odds. What they contribute can’t be summed up in a property tax bill. They have added something beneficial to the neighborhood, and they have created a career for themselves.

On many of the various lists of Jobs You Can Do Forever is chef.

And where there’s a chef, there are usually waiters. At Beast, one of them spent four years at the University of Illinois studying landscape architecture.

– Pamela Fitzsimmons