Opinion/Engagement Editor Jon Alexander [ 208-735-3246 • jalexander@magicvalley.com ]
• Sunday, March 22, 2015
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Lawmakers Failed to Protect Victims
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Charles Krauthammer takes up the Israeli election • C2 READER COMMENT
Learning is a Lifelong Process
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pring is a wonderful time of year. When I lived in The Dalles, Ore., on the east end of the Columbia River Gorge, it was the only time of the year when the hills across the river were green for a few months before they turned brown. There aren’t a lot of hills in this area, but I love to see the signs of spring all around and the weather starting to warm up. Spring break is just around the corner and I hope you have a chance to get away with your family and enjoy some quality time together. Even if you can’t get away, perhaps you can find something to do locally that can create some memories. Along with spring flowers and better weather comes state testing time for students. In the Minidoka County School District we are actively preparing to make sure we are ready to assess student’s abilities the first week back. We have upgraded all of our computer labs and our building testing coordinators have met to make sure everything is in order. We are doing all we can to make sure that this is a positive experience for students, and it is my hope that students and parents alike recognize the importance of this opportunity. The opportunity to participate in the state test allows students, parents and teachers to see where each student is at academically and how much they have progressed since the last assessment. Teachers assess students every day, through the questions they ask in class, through their observations of students as they do their work, and of course through the infamous pop-quiz. Our teachers rely on these assessments to determine the effectiveness of their teaching as well as individual student progress. I know there are mixed feelings about state testing. Some feel that education is all about “teaching to the test.” I can assure you, however, that is not the case in our district. Our focus is on what the student learns,
Kenneth Cox Minidoka County School District
not on how they can perform on a test. The Idaho Core Standards help teachers focus on helping students understand what they are learning rather than just memorize facts or algorithms for solving problems. This is also a focus of this year’s state test, to assess student’s understanding of a subject rather than just what facts they can remember. There is some confusion as to whether this is a state or federally mandated test. While the state test itself is not federally mandated, the state has agreed that in order for each district to continue to receive federal funds (which amount to nearly 15 percent of our district’s budget) we need to have at least 95 percent of our students participate. So this is one reason we encourage you to help your student prepare to do their best on the upcoming assessments. In conclusion, I would like to point out that even as adults we spend a great deal of time comparing ourselves to others, and what they have or can do, that we don’t or can’t. I know that I labeled myself a C+ student throughout high school because that is what my GPA said I was. What I have learned, however, is that we must learn to know ourselves and we must understand that we can change. Yes, I was just an above average high school student, but through hard work and the desire to be better than I was, I got a 4.0 in my graduate studies. I certainly don’t share this to brag, but to show you that if I can change that much (and, yes, it took many years to make the change) so can anyone. If you put your mind to the task, exercise faith in yourself, and stick to it, you can make a difference.
Cox is superintendent at Minidoka County School District.
We are doing all we can to make sure that (testing) is a positive experience for students, and it is my hope that students and parents alike recognize the importance of this opportunity.
wo women called us in the past few days desperate to stay out of the newspaper. Their stalkers would find them. One woman wanted us to pull a marriage announcement from our website. The other had recently been convicted of a DUI. We almost never make exceptions when folks ask to be left out of the matter-of-record news we often print. It becomes an awfully slippery slope if I start picking and choosing whom to leave out. But for only the second and third times in my career, I opted for these women to withhold the names. The first, which happened several years ago, was for a man entering the Secret Service who needed his identity protected. In balancing their safety with the public’s right to know, safety wins. If only the Legislature took women’s safety
Matt Christensen Editor
as seriously. Last week, the House Judiciary committee scuttled a bill that would have helped protect potential victims of domestic abuse. The bill was brought by the Idaho Prosecuting Attorneys Association seeking clarification on a state Supreme Court ruling from the fall. The court had ruled that a man who showed up at a homeowners’ association meeting didn’t violate a no-contact order against him because he was only in the presence of the person who’d filed the order and hadn’t literally made contact. The bill would have allowed judges to set broader conditions for no-contact orders, to keep men from harassing women in ways beyond
actual contact. “The victims have to be protected,” Holly Koole Rebholtz, the IPAA’s legislative counsel, told the committee. “And it has to go beyond the word ‘contact.’” But, as has become typical this legislative session, paranoia prevailed. Lynn Luker, a Republican from Boise who is also a lawyer, worried the bill would give judges too much power. Lawmakers on the committee didn’t trust judges to — ahem – judge what conditions might be appropriate to protect victims. There are already laws on the books that punish harassment and stalking, Luker reasoned. He’s right. But by the time a man is already harassing and stalking a woman, it’s too late. Why should women have to be victimized again before the state is willing to protect them? You can’t help but think
of Leann Schuldies, who was shot to death with her daughter by her ex-boyfriend George Salinas Jr. in November in Twin Falls. He sent 650 text messages to Schuldies in the weeks leading up to the shooting. In several messages, he threatened Schuldies and himself. But police could do nothing about it. “At that point he hadn’t committed a crime that we could charge him with,” Twin Falls County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Lori Stewart told the Times-News in January. “He made veiled threats over text, and none was enough to do anything about it.” Lawmakers had a chance last week to protect women like Schuldies. They were content to do nothing.
Christensen is editor of the Times-News. Reach him at 208-735-3255 and mchristensen@ magicvalley.com.
OUR VIEW
Shrouded in Clouds
STEPHEN REISS, TIMES-NEWS
25 years after Idaho’s Public Records Law Sunshine is still Spotty
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wenty-five years with little progress is unacceptable. It’s time Idaho, and its local governments, must stride into the 21st century and improve transparency and ethics. Last week marked the 25th anniversary of Idaho’s Public Records Law, a necessary step toward assuring the citizens’ allimportant right to know. But even that move came more than a decade after freedom of information and open meetings laws swept the country after Richard Nixon’s fall. Idaho, as is too often the way, dragged its feet. Now we have the Idaho Education Network scandal and the Corrections Corporations of America tragedy. Lawmakers are getting caught flat-footed and unaware of how bad things have actually gotten until it’s too late. Elected officials still don’t report their assets and, all too frequently, legislators pitch bills that pad their wallets. Idaho’s ethics laws cater to cronyism. Just this session, legislation that would have finally empowered the citizen, by creating a review board for public record denials, died amid local government complaints. Instead, the status quo prevailed: The only recourse for violation is a costly lawsuit, and a truly open government remains unattainable. A House committee all but gutted a bill that would have boosted fines for governments that flout transparency laws. And, when the bill returned to committee with the fines reduced, Rep. Lance Clow, R-Twin Falls, opposed it. It was a “feel good” bill, Clow said, noting that a punishment had never actually been leveled for an infractions.
Clow’s perspective is backward.Violations happen all the time. The prohibitive enforcement mechanism, which force people to fund a war with city hall, is the problem. Lawmakers won’t even consider a bill that would create a much-needed inspector general post. They say it isn’t needed. But fear of someone looking over their shoulders is the real hitch. The Center for Public Integrity gives Idaho failing grades for both legislative and executive accountability, mind you. Color us shocked. Just last year, the Times-News had to threaten Gooding School District with a lawsuit for details of obviously public buyout deals with administration. The city of Twin Falls had for years pulled an end-around on sunshine law with its secretive backroom subcommittees and only changed, kicking and screaming, after we crusaded against them. We’re not patting ourselves on the back. The paper is in a position to fight for the cause. Rankand-file citizens, however, aren’t. Twin Falls City Council meetings that, a few years ago, might take 20 minutes — because the real debate happened behind closed doors — now drag on for hours. The city’s residents are better off for it. And Twin Falls is one of the better actors in the region. Twin Falls County’s website is a relative barren wasteland. Good luck finding the budget, let alone detailed reports on spending, infrastructure and social welfare programs. We remain unconvinced by prosecutor Grant Loebs’ excuse as to why last week’s homicide
was kept under wraps for days. Protecting an investigation is one thing. Notifying the people that a shooter is on the loose is also important. And county commissioners, elected to represent the people, instead exacerbate the county’s culture of obfuscation. The commission’s daily agenda simply says,“Commissioners are meeting all day.” That’s about it. The reports they’ll receive aren’t posted anywhere. The most recent posted meeting minutes, as of Friday, were from Jan 5. Good luck staying current, folks. If state lawmakers were committed to transparency, every local government would be required to post detailed agendas, all committee reports and detailed minutes within a day or two of the following meeting. All private contractors must be forced to comply with requests for records. Idaho’s is a system that favors the plugged-in and directly involved. It’s the general theme at all levels of government in Idaho, a structure designed to defend cronyism and patronage. Information is of no use to anyone if it becomes public only on the back end. The Internet offers a straightforward method of delivering information.Yet it’s going untapped by governments either too comfortable with the old ways or simply too secretive. Officials squeal about cost, but it’s just a smokescreen. Transparency isn’t an annoyance. It’s no less necessary than fixing roads. Celebrating a 25th anniversary of an important milestone is just dandy. But it takes real guts to fix what’s broken.