is that the rural constitutents have duped the worst! They are the ones loosing their local health clinics- a lot their don't even have murses anymore. Hope ya don't get sick- or old- Eldercare in many of those communities has turned to squaler. I almost feel sorry for most of the rural libertaian types who vote Republican. They are going to suffer enormously.
But I don't feel at all sorry for the Greshamites (the great east county unwashed) who put corrupt Republicans like Karen Minnis into office and then piggyback on to our own county school funding measure. If I had it my way, not ONE DIME would find its way to her district.
I also don't feel sorry for a lot of people in Hillsboro- who you may have been reading about in Doonesbury. Year after year,they vote in a far right wingnut named
Republican Charles Starr, who as the year's Education System Chairman, promptly issued a statement that public schools are run by "socialist ideologies, and are a place from which parents and children should flee."
Of course, since he's a Republican, our "newspaper" gave him an official pass, in what must have been the most skilled apologia I've ever read. If it were up to me, I'd have his head photoshopped on a pike and run it on the front page for a week!
Others are more forgiving- Here's a letter in today's Oregonian responding to more of the seemingly endless Republican lies.
Rep. Tootie Smith's (another wingnut) statement that Oregon's children will receive an education that is competitive with any child's in the nation ("School funding debate comes down to $250 million," by Julia Silverman of The Associated Press, www.oregonlive.com, July 28) is ludicrous.
My wife, daughter and I ran from the "train wreck" called Oregon schools in June. We are starting a new life in North Carolina.
My wife's elementary library teaching position was eliminated in Hillsboro. My daughter's first grade class had 31 students and her second grade would be more crowded. Both their schools were losing physical education, music, library, art, band, sports, and so on.
They both lost 17 days of class time in 2003 and were set to lose class time in 2004.
In our new home of Mooresville, N.C., my daughter will have 18 other children in her class as well as physical education, music, band, art, library and computers. She will have 190 days of school this year, nearly four weeks longer than in Oregon!
My wife's intermediate school library is state of the art. Her position as librarian is so cherished that her school district would lose its accreditation without a librarian on staff at each school. Her salary will be higher than in Oregon, too!