Isaac Laquedem

Portland's streets - the question the council should be asking voters

The Portland City Council, having awakened to find that the city's streets are falling apart, has scheduled an advisory vote for May to solicit the public's opinion on how to best tax homeowners to pay for repairing the streets.  The council will then adopt the winning proposal and move on to determine how to tax nonresidential property.  Options include an income tax, a property tax, a gasoline tax, and others yet to be named.

The particular history is that in 1988 when the City Council first realized that Portland's streets were deteriorating, the council considered allocating 28% of the utility franchise fees that it receives to street maintenance and repair.  At the time, the city needed $38 million to catch up on street repairs.  The council set 28% as a target, but never achieved that target; in the first 8 years the council sent 12% of the utility fees ($29 million) to the transportation department for street repairs, instead of the 28% ($67 million) that the target called for.  The amount of money that the council chose not to send would have caught the city completely up on street repairs and the city would not now be facing a cost of $200 million or more to catch up.

I like the idea of the council asking the voters for their thoughts, except that the council is asking one question too few.  Instead of merely asking how the voters prefer to be taxed -- rather like the choice that Utah used to offer to condemned criminals, asking whether they would prefer to be shot or hanged -- the council should also ask the voters whether they agree or disagree with the choices of twenty years of city councils to divert money from street repair to other projects -- that is, whether the voters agree or disagree with the council's view that it's more important for the city to subsidize the Portland Public Schools and the Regional Arts Coordinating Council than to maintain the streets.

2014 Endorsements: Ballot Measure 86 (educational fund)

It's ballot season!  Leading off is Ballot Measure 86, which would amend the constitution to requirethe legislature to establish the "Oregon Student Opportunity Fund," to issue bonds to fund it, to invest the proceeds, and to devote the net earnings to provide financial assistance to Oregon students "pursuing post-secondary educatoin, including technical, professional and career training."

This measure attracted 14 "yes" arguments in the Voter's Pamphlet, and only one "no" argument, which came from the irrepressible Steve Buckstein of the Cascade Policy Institute.  "God," as Napoleon famously said, "is on the side of the big battalions," but sometimes public policy isn't.  The state needs to do more to support public education, but Measure 86 is a good idea poorly implemented.  Isaac will be voting against it.  Here's why.

First, it's missing an important definition.  The measure provides financial assistance to "Oregon students," but does not define whether an "Oregon student" includes only an Oregon resident studying in Oregon, or if it also includes an Oregon resident studying out of state, or an out-of-state resident studying in Oregon.  If the state is going to borrow money to invest in post-secondary education it should make it clear that the money will be spent only in Oregon.

Second, I'm innately suspicious that the trustees of the large fund will invest portions of the funds to advance noble social policy goals (e.g., supporting innovation in the manufacture and delivery of solar panels), or to high-fee hedge funds, rather than to provide a reasonable return combined with safety of principal.  Our track record of sticking to our knitting isn't very good.

Third is the loophole in Section 6, which provides that if the Governor declares an emergency and a supermajority of the legislature concurs, the money in the fund may be spent for "any lawful purpose," as long as the legislature approves a plan to replenish the fund eventually.  Would the legislature call the near-bankruptcy of several Oregon counties an emergency to justify tapping the fund?  Maybe . .  . and there goes the money for the fund's stated purpose.

The drafters of this measure meant well, but they executed poorly.  Thumbs down from Isaac.

Isaac to Jesuit High School: Protect your students, keep out the Texans

Jesuit High School is coming in for some criticism today after it cancelled the scheduled visit of nine student leaders from the African nations of Congo, Niger, and Ivory Coast.  The principal of the school, Paul Hogan, wrote that even though the students came from nations that have reported no cases of Ebola, "the situation with Ebola is fluid and uncertain at this time, including in the U.S."

As Texas has reported more Ebola infections than Congo, Niger, and Ivory Coast put together (it's not very hard to surpass zero), under the same principle Mr. Hogan should ban Texans, and recent visitors to Texas, from visiting the Jesuit campus while the situation remains "fluid and uncertain."  We can't be too careful about protecting the children!

Summer shcool in California

Summer is the time to touch up schools and the warning signs that keep children safe. 

This warning sign, caught by a friend in Millbrae, California, suggests that the painters should have paid more attention, not just on the street, but inside the classroom.

California has nothing on us, mellow-wise

We're so laid back that the schools don't close until two days after it snows.

Why does Riverdale have more money than Portland? Ask the Portland Development Commission

House Bill 2748 is one of the more curious bills in this session of the Oregon legislature.  Sponsored by the Committee on Education, it would prohibit Oregon school districts from charging tuition to out-of-district students who live in Oregon.  Many Oregon school districts, including Portland Public Schools, the state's largest, collect tuition from out-of-district students.  The tiny Riverdale School District, sandwiched between Portland and Lake Oswego, depends on out-of-district students to keep its high school open.  Forty percent of the district's students (roughly 230 of 567) come from other Oregon districts and half of those pay tuition: $5560 for kindergarten running up to $11,950 for high school.

The bill's chief proponent, Representative Sara Gelser of Corvallis, who chairs the Education Committee, didn't know about Riverdale's odd circumstances when she introduced the bill.  She's agreed to amend it to grandfather Riverdale in, under some conditions.  The bill is still troubling, and not just because it's a cure in search of a disease.  The Riverdale grade and high schools (there is just one of each) are putting out an educational product desirable enough that parents who can't afford to live in the district will pay nearly $12,000/year to send their child there.  Instead of forcing Riverdale to stop charging tuition, the Education Committee ought to be looking for ways to get other school districts to improve their own products.  Shouldn't every school in Oregon be one that is worth paying for?

Riverdale does spend more on direct classroom (teaching) and classroom support than does PPS, $8749/student compared to $7195/student for Portland.  It occurred to me to dig into the numbers a bit and see where the differences come from.

The first big difference is that Riverdale funds more teachers.  Its student-teacher ratio is 16.8:1 compared to 19.7:1 for Portland -- 17% more teacher per student.  The second difference, noticeable but not as significant financially, is that Riverdale's teachers are more educated and experienced than PPS's teachers: 88% have master's degrees (69% of PPS's do), and they have an average of 15.6 years of experience, compared to 14 years for PPS's teachers.  Teachers' salaries in both districts are figured on a matrix that runs from $35,000 to $73,000; a teacher's salary increases based on years of experience and on education beyond a bachelor's degree.  So the combination of education and experience results in Riverdale paying a higher salary per teacher even though the underlying matrix is similar to Portland's.

The Wall Street Journal famously identified Riverdale as the third-richest school district in the country.  The Journal was not quite accurate; Riverdale has the third-highest household income of any United States school district, but that's only partly reflected in the district's finances.  The Riverdale School District is discernibly richer than Portland, but not by a wide margin: despite having no commercial or industrial tax base, Riverdale has $1,007,000 of taxable real estate per student.  Portland has $858,000 of taxable real estate per student. 

What would bring Portland's tax funding up to Riverdale's level?  Part of the difference is property value per student.  The PPS system has about 47,000 students, so adding $150,000 of assessed value per student would require about $7 billion of assessed value (the value on which tax bills are based), or $10 billion of real market value (assessed value is running at about 70% of real market value).  That's equal to two Intel plants and unlikely to happen.  However, PPS includes at least $4.3 billion of what the state calls "excess value" in urban renewal districts established by the City of Portland.  Riverdale has no urban renewal districts.  Put another way, more than half the difference per student between what Riverdale taxes and what PPS taxes can be explained by Portland's urban renewal districts keeping $4.3 billion of property value from supporting the Portland Public Schools.  (Some bright soul at PPS headquarters has likely worked this out.)

Part of the difference is tax rate: PPS is charging $7.26 per thousand, none of which is bonded indebtedness.  Riverdale charges $8.25 per thousand, of which about a third is a bond levy for the replacement grade school it built a few years ago.  If Portland taxed at Riverdale's overall rate, it would generate an additional $858 per student, which would cover the other half of the gap in classroom cost per student.

Though I don't support Representative Gelser's bill, I am grateful that her idea spurred me to look into these figures and see just how much urban renewal is costing Portland's schools.  Maybe PPS will take urban renewal more seriously.

A third oddity in the Multnomah County voting registration figures

As of August 20, Multnomah County had exactly one registered voter who lives within the Hillsboro School District, which (as I discovered to my surprise) takes in a small portion of NW Skyline Road, well beyond the limits of the City of Portland but distinctly within Multnomah County.

Lincoln High School should wait its turn

I've followed with some interest the efforts of the City of Portland and Portland State University to create an urban renewal district that would encompass, among other not very blighted areas, the buildings and grounds of Lincoln High School.  (Professor Bogdanski has commented in some detail on the City's efforts, here and here.)

I don't begrudge Portland State trying to get something for itself, not just because state support of higher education has dwindled so dramatically in the last twenty years.  I am, however, mystified by the participation of the Portland School Board in a process that would move Lincoln High School somewhere else, at great expense, for the Lincoln High School building is, I think, the second-newest Portland public high school, having been built in 1952.  Only Wilson is newer.

It's true that the Lincoln building is 60 years old, but it's still modern by Portland standards: a little Googling shows that the new portion of Cleveland opened in 1948, Roosevelt opened in 1921, and Franklin opened in 1917.  Rich as the Lincoln parents may be, the school district has facilities needs far more pressing than rebuilding LIncoln.  Metaphorically speaking, it would be gratifying to see the school board insist that no matter how much it may desire a facelift, Lincoln must defer to its elders.

Why all college athletic departments are failures

In the last few years there have been calls -- not only by lawyers -- to reduce the number of law schools in America, because too many law school graduates can't find jobs as lawyers.  Here's an example from 2009, by Professor Stephen Bainbridge of UCLA.  Law schools that can't place a large portion of their graduates -- at least half to two-thirds -- at a law firm, with government, or in a judicial clerkship are scorned as being failures.

So:  why is it that a law school that places only (say) 50% of its graduates in law jobs is a failure, but a football program that places only 5% of its graduates in football jobs is a success?   Maybe it's because only 1.7% of NCAA college football seniors even get drafted by an NFL team, a remarkably dismal placement record that would get any non-athletic department laughed off campus.

A reading for Back-To-School Day, in place of Labor Day

Labor Day does double duty in childful households of being the last day of summer vacation, the day before the first full day of school.  In past years I've marked the occasion with an apposite quotation in memory of Grandmother Laquedem, who carried her support for the working classes to the point of dying on Labor Day itself, some years ago.  (Cigarettes, rather than protest songs, were the actual culprit.)

This year, instead, I offer a passage from A.P. Herbert's essay, "What is Education?"  As with many of his essays, it's in the form of a judicial opinion set in the 1930s.  Mr. and Mrs. Bloggs, operators of two cargo boats on the canals between Birmingham and London, have been charged with not sending their children to elementary school, and in their defense they ask the question, "What is elementary education?" as defined in the Education Acts of Great Britain.  The government asks the court to say that elementary education is "education in those elementary subjects which are ordinarily taught to our defenceless children, as reading, writing, and arithmetic."  Mr. and Mrs. Bloggs argue that "elementary education" means education in "the elements or first parts to be learned of any subject which may be useful or necessary to the good citizen in that state of life for which he is destined by Providence, heredity, or inclination."  The court describes the education of the Bloggs children as follows:

Now, the children of Mr. Bloggs, though they have not attended a school, have already acquired the rudiments of their father's and grandfather's trade, that is to say, the handling of boats and the navigation of canals; they are able in an emergency to steer a boat into a lock, to open or close a lock-gate, to make bowlines and reef-knots, clove hitches and fisherman's bends, and to do many other useful and difficult things which the members of this Court, we admit, are unable to do.  Mr. and Mrs. Bloggs are instructing them slowly in reading and writing, and even, with reluctance, it seems, in arithmetic.  It is not contended that in these subjects they are so far advanced as children of the same age who attend the public elementary schools; on the other hand, the evidence is that those children are quire unable to make a bowline-on-a-bight, to distinguish between the port and starboard sides of a vessel, or to steer the smallest boat into the largest lock without disaster.

As to what the Bloggs children cannot do, the court says:

They are unable, it is true, to read fluently the accounts of murder trials in the Sunday newspapers; they cannot write their names upon the walls of lavatories and public monuments; they do not understand the calculation of odds or the fluctuations of stocks and shares.  But these acquirements may come in time. * * * As for writing, there is too much writing in our country as it is; and it is a satisfaction to contemplate three children who in all probability will never become novelists nor write for the papers.