READY FOR A NEW YEAR
DEFENSIVE STAND
Celebrations start around the globe, A7
Ducks send Aliotti out a winner, B1
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 31, 2013
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Redefining retention Coos Bay school board in limbo over threshold on holding back students ■
BY CHELSEA DAVIS The World
By Lou Sennick, The World
Jake Reigard loads up some fresh-cooked Dungeness crab at Chuck’s Seafood in Charleston Monday afternoon.The shop was busy with crab and seafood sales on this holiday weekday.
Crab light on landings, but big on quality BY TIM NOVOTNY The World
CHARLESTON — The Oregon commercial Dungeness Crab season hit the two-week mark Monday. While it is still very early, the indications are that the preseason predictions about a season of mixed blessings were accurate. Hugh Link, executive director of the Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission, said 4.2 million pounds of crab have been accounted for, so far. The “so far” was added for two reasons. First, it can sometimes take quite a bit of time to get the numbers through the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife system. Secondly, the
ODFW moved into a new office in Salem this summer and Link said he was told by staff that some of their mail has been having a difficult time finding them. “There are still boats out there fishing and they’re still pulling in crab,” Link said by phone Monday. He said the average cost of the crab has risen 10 cents since the start of the season and is currently going for about $2.75 per pound. Part of the reason for that is the relatively slow start to the season. According to the ODFW website, the commercial Dungeness crab landings have averaged 16.1 million pounds per season over the past 20 years. A record-high 33.5 million pounds were landed in the 2004-2005 season. Just two weeks in, it seems as
though the final numbers for this season may come in a little below average. But, as Link points out, even for a top-heavy fishery, the season is still young. Typically,he says,the first eight to 10 weeks of the season bring in about 80 percent of the crab in Oregon. “It does appear that the South Coast is pretty light this year,” he admits, adding that it appears the majority of the landings may come from Newport, and farther north, this season. The good news is that the crab that is being brought in continues to draw rave reviews. “From what I’ve heard,” Link said, “the quality of crab is exceptional this year. So, keep your eyes open for the crab in the markets, and get it while it’s fresh.”
2013
2013 had plenty of hiccups along the way ■
BY NANCY BENAC AND JULIE PACE The Associated Press
The Associated Press
The Associated Press
Dr. Bruce Goldberg, acting head of Oregon's troubled health insurance exchange, at a news conference earlier this month at Cover Oregon headquarters in Durham. The disastrous rollout of Cover Oregon was voted by newspaper editors as the top Oregon news story for 2013. medical marijuana, hoping to wipe out the black market in pot grown under the cover of providing medicine. The Legislature authorized licensed medical marijuana dispensaries to sell to cardholders. Some cities objected, enacting prohibitions. Meanwhile, Washington and Colorado went even further, authorizing the sale of marijuana to anyone old enough to buy a drink, purely for recreational use. Washington lawmakers refused to go along with Oregon’s idea of a new bridge across the Columbia River that would include light rail trains to carry commuters between Vancouver and Portland. After sealing a deal with Democrats and Republicans alike, Gov. John Kitzhaber called a special session of the Legislature that adopted sweeping changes to cut
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The Legislature tried to take control of medical marijuana by allowing sales to patients through dispensaries, and joined with the governor to make historic cuts to state employee pensions. Timber counties struggled to provide basic services, such as law enforcement, because federal subsidies were dwindling and taxpayers refused to fill the gap. But as significant as these news stories were in 2013, they were eclipsed by the travails of Cover Oregon. Once considered a national health care leader, Oregon produced the worst rollout in the nation of the new national health insurance program. While the crippled federal website eventually got up and walked, Oregon’s remained comatose, unable to enroll a single person online. The state had to resort to hiring 400 people to process paper applications. The Cover Oregon fiasco was voted The Associated Press Oregon news story of the year by newspaper editors across the state. While Cover Oregon staggered in the dark, lawmakers tried to shine a light into the shadows of
costs at the state public employee pension system, known as PERS, and to increase state revenues by boosting cigarette taxes, increasing some corporate taxes, and limiting deductions for seniors’ medical expenses Most timber counties continued to struggle. A federal subsidy to make up for logging cutbacks on national forests appeared gone forever. Lane County, the biggest single recipient, managed to win voter approval of a tax increase to stop the revolving door at the jail. But voters in Curry and Josephine counties would not. Then Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., pulled another rabbit out of a hat, and Congress approved a one-year extension of the subsidy known as the Secure Rural Schools Act. SEE OREGON | A8
Layton Moore, Gold Beach Alexander Czemy, Coos Bay Wendell Torquist, North Bend William Edwards, Roseburg Paul Cary, Coos Bay Gordon Tullos, Lakeside
WASHINGTON — It was a moment for Barack Obama to savor. His second inaugural address over, Obama paused as he strode from the podium last January, turning back for one last glance across the expanse of the National Mall, where a supportive throng stood in the winter chill to witness the launch of his new term. “I want to take a look, one more time,” Obama said quietly. “I’m not going to see this again.” There was so much Obama could not — or did not — see then, as he opened his second term with a confident call to arms and an expansive liberal agenda. He’d never heard of Edward Snowden, who would lay bare the government’s massive surveillance program. Large-scale use of chemical weapons in Syria was only a threat. A government shutdown and second debt crisis seemed improbable. His health care law, the signature achievement of his presidency, seemed poised to make the leap from theory to reality. Obama had campaigned for reelection on the hope that a second term would bring with it a new spirit of compromise after years of partisan rancor on Capitol Hill.
Wally Collins, Coquille Beatrice Knutson, Coos Bay
Obituaries | A5
FORECAST
BY JEFF BARNARD
INSIDE
SEE RETENTION | A8
Obama’s year had great expectations
Cover Oregon is state’s top story
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COOS BAY — No student wants to be held back a grade and teachers hate having to make that decision. Marshfield High eighth-grade teacher Lynda Sanders said the district policy committee’s proposed revisions to its retention policy doesn’t give it “enough teeth.” It’s up for discussion as part of the Coos Bay school board’s ongoing policy review. The committee’s proposal says retaining an eighth-grader should be considered if he or she fails all four core classes (language arts, math, science and social studies). Sanders’ proposal says that threshold should be lowered to failure of two of the cores. “Now, we understand retention is not the best policy in all cases,” she said. “But retention at the elementary level is different than at a higher level. At a lower level you’re retaining because kids that just really aren’t ready or they need another year of learning.” That changes when students reach seventh and eighth grade. “They are most oftentimes making choices as to whether they are going to make any effort to learn,” she said. “What we have found is when you start drawing a line in the sand and say if you don’t, you’re not going to go on, kids begin to worry and they begin to do their work.” Last year, four eighth-graders were held back, three of whom have shown improvement. The fourth is no longer enrolled in Coos Bay. None of the retained students
had failed all four cores. “Had we sent them on to ninth grade they would not have been successful,” she said. According to this school year’s student-parent handbook, eighthgraders who fail two or more core classes will be considered for retention. “If a student is not making the cut in math they just go on to the next grade and try to make up that math,” said board member Rocky Place. “Well now they’re always behind in math and they’re never getting caught up.” Superintendent Dawn Granger said the policy was never followed in the past. She has no data on past retention rates or whether those students who were retained ended up succeeding. The district “did not have a consistent procedure and record-keeping requirements in place,” said board chair James Martin, a practice he said must change with the revised policy. Millicoma Principal Travis Howard asked the board to consider summer school in lieu of retention. “It doesn’t carry the social stigmas and it doesn’t have the damning effect that retaining a student does for an entire year,” Howard said. “I just think you’d get more bang for your buck if you spend the time and money there rather than retention.” But board member Samuel Aley plans on siding with the policy committee after looking at research from the National Association of School Psychologists. According to that organization, at least 2 million students nationwide are held back every year. “This research shows that kids who are retained are more likely to abuse alcohol, drugs and drop out of high school,” he said.
“My expectation is that there will be some popping of the blister after this election, because it will have been such a stark choice,” he’d said. Instead, great expectations disappeared in fumbles and failures. Obama’s critics doubled down. Fractured Republicans, tugged to the right by the tea party, swore off compromise. The president’s outreach to Congress was somewhere between lacking and non-existent. Obama’s team dropped the ball — calamitously — on his health care law. Snowden’s revelations had Democrats and Republicans alike calling for tighter surveillance rules. Foreign leaders were in a huff — Brazil’s president snubbing the offer of a White House state dinner, Germany’s Angela Merkel incensed that her cell phone calls had been intercepted. The president’s misplaced pledge that people who liked their health plans would be able to keep them ran into a harsh reality as millions saw their coverage canceled. The year ended with a smallbore budget deal that was welcomed as breath of fresh air, a telling sign of how wildly things had veered off course in 2013. White House communications director Jennifer Palmieri called it a year of “fits and starts” for the president — and predicted better days ahead. “We’ll probably come out of 2013 in better shape in terms of Congress and the White House
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