Eugene Weekly

The first “Alternatives” class at the Osher Lifetime Learning Institute (OLLI) began with our watching an informative TED talk by Richard Wilkinson on how economic inequality harms societies. If you look at a long list of health and social problems, such as life expectancy, math and literacy, infant mortality, violence, imprisonment, teenage births, trust, obesity, mental illness, addiction, and social morality, there is little correlation between the wealth of the nations, but a very strong correlation between income inequality. Continue reading →

In the 1980s, Eugene elementary school students got physical education (PE) four to five days a week year-round. Today, after years of budget cuts, most elementary schools have a PE teacher on-site just nine weeks a year, with some students getting PE just once a week. Last year, nine elementary schools had no PE teacher. There’s less PE in middle and high schools, too. Continue reading →

No more “Insider Baseball.” I’m not an insider any more, and my knees don’t allow for softball, much less baseball. But I continue to watch the Salem political game from afar; shoveling horse pucky here in the south hills of Lane County and reflecting on the days when horse pucky was my day job in the Legislature.  Continue reading →

At a recent City Club meeting, Oregon’s Chief Education Officer Rudy Crew passed up a great opportunity to peel his hands off a “cow” that’s sacred in some circles — opposition to school choice — and make current investments in public education work a little more efficiently. The last question of the program was, “Can you find ways to make the charter schools in Oregon operate as part of a comprehensive system of public education?” He answered, “No. Charter schools are the competition.” If he looked at the local evidence, he might see things differently. Continue reading →