Herald and News (Klamath Falls, OR)
April 17, 2011
HEADLINE: Striking a balance: Core subjects and co-curriculars

By Ryan Pfeil

As funding for school districts declines, state standards in core subjects continue to rise.

In the 2010-11 school year, 70 percent of Oregon school districts' students must meet benchmarks for math and reading under the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act, formerly the No Child Left Behind Act.

By 2014, 100 percent of Oregon students must meet the standards.

"(Core classes) will always have to be on the higher end of the stick simply because we have to teach them," said Bill Jennings, vice chairman of the Klamath Falls City Schools board of directors. "As we're making cuts right now, a lot of the state mandates are what's driving a lot of our decisions."

Mixed feelings

Jennings has mixed feelings about the core subject benchmarks.

"What is our goal here?" he asked rhetorically. "To produce a better high school student."

But, he said, with co-curricular activities, students will miss learning skills that will make them better job candidates later in life.

He referred to a poster in his office listing top job skills sought by employers. Several, he said, cannot be learned in a classroom alone.

"(Co-curricular activities) offer the balance," he said. "They offer the area of interest." County district curriculum director Doug Smith agreed.

" T here's room for both," he said. "Yeah, we put more emphasis on reading, writing and math, but there's still room for those things.

"I think when the crunch comes, it's funding."

Either-or

Funding for both, educators say, is key.

If the choice is between offering music and metal shop or math and reading, the core classes need to win, said Andrea Armantrout, a journalism and English teacher at Mazama High School. She called core classes the bare necessities of education.

"That's going to be the choice I (would) make," she said. "Not because I choose to, because I have to."

County district school board member Jill O'Donnell agreed, but she doesn't think all co-curriculars need to be eliminated.

"I don't think it's going to be an either-or," O'Donnell said. "I don't think there's anything that's going to be sacred."

Some who teach or advise co-curricular classes said they would find a way to keep them going following cuts.

" My ow n response as a teacher would be if they have to cut funding, I'm going to try and find a way to fund it from other means," Armantrout said. "That's why we're teachers. We are passionate about helping kids get what they need."