May 9
The Riverside Press-Enterprise on school start times:
Mandates to local school districts from on high - whether that’s Sacramento or Washington, D.C. - don’t always work out for the best for students and parents.
They can backfire - see No Child Left Behind standards from the George W. Bush era - or inspire some extremely creative accounting on the part of districts in order to reach those goals.
That is currently the case in the efforts of school districts to increase their high school graduation rate under goals set by President Barack Obama. There’s nothing wrong with shooting for more graduates. But as we have noted in this space, districts are cutting standards in order to increase their graduation rate, including calling a D a passing grade and allowing students to take watered-down online classes to make up for classes they failed the first time.
Even those of us not inclined to busybody interference in the decisions made by local California school boards can agree that the best state and federal standards are often ones that deal with students’ physical and mental health. On the vaccination front, for instance, it makes no sense for the common good if individual districts have their own policies allowing parents to opt out - that increases the medical dangers to everyone.
A new bill requiring later secondary school start times in California by state Sen. Anthony Portantino, D-Pasadena, might seem at first blush to be a case of Sacramento overreach. But Portantino - who during his time in the Assembly made creative bills on health care a hallmark of his terms, including one establishing an umbilical blood cord collection program key to future medical advances - comes at this from a strictly biological position.
Research unequivocally shows what every parent (and teen) knows - adolescents are different from the rest of us. They have a different brain chemistry than do younger children and adults, and they require more sleep. You might say that in that case they should simply go to bed earlier in order to rise at 5:30 a.m. to make it to class by 7:30 a.m. or so. But they don’t - in middle and high school they have more homework, more social life, more extracurricular activities, and they go to bed late and get up early.
The movement to start secondary classes no earlier than 8:30 a.m. is making inroads across the country, with Seattle the largest district to implement it district-wide. In a meeting with our editorial board, Portantino said the positive results are clear in such districts: “Grades and test scores go up, and car accidents and drug use go down. So do sports injuries - down 68 percent.”
Portantino knows that some parents argue that the later start time could play havoc with their own commuting needs if they must be at work early - and that frustrates him. “All the arguments against this sensible approach are adult-based,” he says. “And the start times have to be statewide, as otherwise it creates issues with kids in different schools with different extracurricular activities.”
The American Academy of Pediatrics has issued a policy statement advising school districts to begin middle and high school classes no earlier than 8:30 a.m. The medically based arguments for Senate Bill 328 in the name of better adolescent health are hard to refute, and we think it deserves support in the Legislature.
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May 9
The Victorville Daily Press on Meals on Wheels:
Despite talk about Meals on Wheels funding being stripped from the federal budget, it survived the recent budget compromise between Republicans and Democrats.
That’s a good thing. Unfortunately, that doesn’t change the dire straits of Barstow Senior Nutrition, which runs the High Desert’s Meals on Wheels program.
Recently, Barstow Senior Nutrition Program Manager Maurice Lessard wrote a letter to the editor explaining that Meals on Wheels’ days in the High Desert were numbered unless funding picked up. Specifically, Lessard said the program would run out of cash in June unless individuals and businesses stepped up to donate.
So far, not enough have come forward to keep this valuable program going. According to Barstow Senior Nutrition officials, since the Daily Press did a front-page story on the program’s plight, only about 14 or 15 donors have come forward.
The program will accept donations of any amount, but really hopes to line up donors willing to commit to $45-$60 per month, which would pay for a month of meals for one person. According to Joyce Brady, administrative assistant for the Barstow Senior Center, $45 pays for about 20 meals per month. Since Meals on Wheels serves about 650 seniors in the High Desert, it basically needs close to $40,000 per month just to pay for the food. A group of donors willing to shoulder that responsibility would make it much easier for Lessard and his program to do their good work.
The High Desert has numerous nonprofit groups serving deserving constituencies. Unfortunately, many of these groups pull their funding from the same few big donors.
That’s why Lessard’s plea for individual donors makes sense. With about 450,000 residents here in the High Desert, one would hope 650 to 1,000 would step forward to pledge $45 to $60 per month to keep this program solvent and helping these needy seniors.
If you can help keep Meals on Wheels rolling, we urge you to send your checks - payable to Barstow Senior Nutrition - MOW - to Barstow Senior Nutrition, 555 Melissa Ave., Barstow, CA 92311. And remember, your monthly donation is the key to keeping this program alive.
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May 9
Los Angeles Times on jaywalking tickets:
Believe it or not, you can get a $250 jaywalking ticket for crossing the street even if you were in the crosswalk and the traffic light was green - if you started after the crosswalk clock began ticking down.
In recent years the Los Angeles Police Department has conducted stings downtown, handing out tickets to unlucky pedestrians who get caught doing what many thought was perfectly legal - that is, starting across during the countdown. Turns out, it’s not legal. California law says you’re not allowed to set foot in the street once the “Don’t Walk” or red hand signal begins flashing, even if there is still plenty of time on the countdown.
In other words, the point of the countdown isn’t to help you decide whether you have enough time to cross, even though that would make sense. It’s to tell the pedestrians already in the crosswalk how much time they have to get to the other side.
Now, two lawmakers from L.A. and San Francisco have introduced a bill - sponsored by the city of Los Angeles - to change that law, allowing pedestrians to proceed “if there is sufficient time left on the countdown to reasonably complete the crossing safely.” This is a common-sense fix that should end pedestrian confusion and put a stop to bogus jaywalking tickets.
Assembly Bill 390 by Assembly members Miguel Santiago, D-Los Angeles, and Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, is a much-needed modernization of the current state law, which was written before the advent of countdown crosswalks.
The intersection timers were first tried in San Francisco in 2001 as a way to let walkers know how much time they had to cross the street. The pilot program was hugely successful, reducing pedestrian injury collisions by more than 50 percent, according to a study published by the Institute of Transportation Engineers. There was also a noticeable reduction in the number of pedestrians still in the crosswalk when the signal turned red. Additional studies have also found that countdown timers reduce the number of pedestrians hit by cars. But - not surprisingly - researchers have also found that pedestrians are more likely to step into the street after a countdown timer starts than after an old-school red hand signals begins flashing.
This makes sense. Countdown timers give pedestrians useful information so they can decide whether to cross the street or wait. “Fifteen seconds? I can make it if I walk fast.” ’’Five seconds? I’ll wait until the next cycle.”
Within a few years of San Francisco’s pilot project, state regulators decided to require countdown timers at all crosswalks where the walk sign - the so-called pedestrian change interval - lasts longer than seven seconds. But while countdown crosswalks have become ubiquitous in California cities, most walkers are clueless that state law still forbids crossing after the countdown starts until they get a very expensive jaywalking ticket.
The proposed tweak to state law would still leave room for police officers to ticket people who behave recklessly or actually impede the flow of traffic. Pedestrians who enter late in the countdown and fail to make it across the street in time would - and should - still be candidates for a jaywalking ticket.
AB 390 should be viewed as part of broader campaign to encourage and protect pedestrians. Through its Vision Zero initiative to eliminate traffic fatalities, Los Angeles and other cities are experimenting with engineering changes designed to make walking safer. Those include building curb extensions at intersections to reduce the walking distance, and giving pedestrians the “walk” signal a few seconds before cars get the green light. This head start means walkers are more visible to drivers making a turn.
For better health, fewer greenhouse gases and less traffic, California laws should encourage, not penalize, pedestrians. It’s time to modernize state law to match the state’s goals.
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May 8
San Francisco Chronicle on John Flynn:
Despite being dismissed as President Barack Obama’s defense intelligence director, paid by Vladimir Putin’s propaganda shop, and seen dining with the Russian strongman, Michael Flynn became President Trump’s top national security aide. While Flynn’s Russian entanglements are troubling enough, they’re made more so by the outrage that Trump and company have reserved not for Flynn, but for those who exposed him.
Former acting Attorney General Sally Yates told a Senate subcommittee Monday that she repeatedly advised the White House’s top lawyer that Flynn had apparently misled Vice President Pence about his discussions with Russia’s ambassador during the campaign. The deception meant that “the national security adviser essentially could be blackmailed by the Russians.”
“You don’t want your national security adviser compromised with the Russians,” Yates added. “This was a matter of some urgency.” Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who also testified to the Senate Judiciary crime and terrorism subcommittee, said Flynn was “certainly a potential vulnerability. There’s no question about it.”
And yet Trump was far quicker to fire Yates than to get rid of Flynn. The national security adviser served 18 more days before the Washington Post revealed the attorney general’s warning, leading the administration to grudgingly dismiss him for lying to Pence. Still, Republican senators, following Trump’s lead on Twitter, expressed less concern about Yates’ warning than about how it became public and why she refused to defend Trump’s attempted Muslim ban, the proximate cause of her swift dismissal.
Meanwhile, responding to reports that Obama had also warned Trump about Flynn two days after the election, White House spokesman Sean Spicer on Monday dwelt on the renewal of Flynn’s security clearance during the prior administration - as if that bureaucratic matter outweighed the fact that Obama had fired Flynn and that Trump, despite such warnings, had hired him.
It’s no wonder that Trump has grasped at distractions. The Flynn affair serves as a damning reminder that even as his campaign stoked irrational fears of foreign enemies within, it enjoyed the avid support of a hostile foreign power.
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May 7
Chico Enterprise-Record on national forest vandalism:
In the wake of the vandalism of a campground off Deer Creek in the Lassen National Forest, we hope someone will have a strong enough conscience to step forward.
The damage was extensive, enough that dozens of people had to be involved. And yet an icy quiet often follows these kinds of outrages, as a perverse code of silence is pushed by the ringleaders.
How denying responsibility can be promoted as noble is beyond us, but then again the act itself is beyond us as well.
The damaged site wasn’t one of the three developed campgrounds along Highway 32. Potato Patch, Alder Creek and Elam are all fine, and open for the summer.
Instead the target was a meadow and a copse of trees a bit off the highway. It’s a place known only to locals, and favored by those who find the developed campgrounds a little too urban and crowded. It’s a place where you can get a little closer to nature, just you and your fire and the stars, with the creek gurgling by and wildlife wandering through. Well, more likely cows wandering through, but anyway.
You can say it’s a little less civilized than the established campgrounds, and that’s clearly what attracted the group that trashed it. There was nothing civilized about their behavior. Trees were hacked down and trash was left scattered about. There are no toilet facilities at the location, so just let your imagination run with that.
A Chico State University fraternity has been accused of the damage, and has denied it has a role. Just the accusation has been enough to prompt some people to threaten to burn down the frat house and commit other outrages worse than what was done to the forest.
We’d encourage people to stem their viciousness, and to be patient. The university, the Forest Service and presumably the Tehama County Sheriff’s Office are investigating, and we’d hope one of them will get to the bottom of this.
But what we’d really hope for, is that those who are responsible for the damage, do what is responsible in its aftermath and fess up to it. This was a mistake; a big mistake that should be learned from. Any legal penalties pale in comparison to the long-term damage someone does to themselves by being part of a large-scale deception.
The vandalized campground will revive, but it will never be the same for those who knew it as a sanctuary from the madness of modern life. It became a sanctuary for the madness of modern life. And that will be hard to forget. There’ll always be the thought that a few dozen idiots might show up and ruin it again.
And worse, there’s the thought the authorities will gate off the bridge in and take the location away from those who appreciate it and respect it. It’s happened before. Anyone who’s lived here for long can tell you of a campground or a swimming hole, or a trail, or just a special place in the woods that you can’t get to anymore because a few people abused it.
That’s the real damage the vandals caused, and there’s only one way to make it right.
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