Adele Ferguson: Grade change, Obama staffer, ferry funding

ITEM - Letter grades have disappeared from many elementary schools and they may soon fade from middle and high schools as well. Students are getting report cards with ones, twos and threes instead of A’s, B’s and C’s. It’s called standards-based grading, focusing on which skills a student has mastered, rather than how hard he or she worked to attend class or turn in homework. Grading consultant Ken O’Connor said “instead of providing a single grade for a student, you get a profile of student performance.”

COMMENT - No wonder the poor kids can’t get into college without remedial work. Teachers should concentrate on teaching instead of figuring out how to slide the kids through 12 classes without any failures by adjusting the grade system from A for best, B for almost best but at least better than C, which is average. I believe they already got rid of F for failure because no kid is allowed to fail. Hurts his feelings.

ITEM - President Obama’s chief of staff Bill Daley threw in the towel, saying he wants to go back to Chicago to spend more time with his family.

COMMENT - Just once, I wish an early departing political hireling told the truth about why he’s leaving the job, which usually is (1) I was fired but we want to make it look like it was my idea to leave, (2) I don’t think he is going to be reelected and I need to start looking for a new job (3) I smell a rat and I want to get out of town ahead of the sheriff. Whatever it is, the former boss always expresses extreme regret at the loss in hopes the departing one takes it easy on him when he writes a book.

ITEM - Washington State Ferries might eliminate five routes if legislators can’t provide more funding. Transportation Secretary Paula Hammond said only the three top- performing routes - Seattle-Bainbridge, Edmonds-Kingston and Mukilteo-Clinton—-would be spared. That puts in jeopardy Seattle-Bremerton, Southworth-Vashon, Southworth-Fauntleroy, Port Townsend-Coupeville, Tahlequah-Point Defiance and Anacortes-Sidney. The $1.3 billion deficit in the budget means there is no money to operate boats and terminal, she said.

COMMENT - Knock it off, Madame Secretary. As long as there is revenue for highways, there is revenue for ferries since the Supreme Court ruled years ago that ferries are part of the highway system. They are our marine highways and entitled to whatever it takes to run them. Want to raise some money? Put tolls on all the mountain passes or shut down all except Snoqualmie but with a hefty toll there.

ITEM - Momentum for a statewide ban on plastic bags appeared to be mounting three weeks after Seattle’s City Council unanimously banned single use plastic bags from groceries and other retail stores. Proponents of the ban cited finding of plastic bags in the carcass of a dead whale retrieved from Puget Sound, saying they are a danger to wildlife.

COMMENT - C’mon, One whale? And will you quit calling them single use bags? They see multiple uses. I put paper bags inside of plastic to collect garbage. I donate surplus bags to St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Center where they are used to sack purchases for customers. Dog owners use them as pooper scoopers. Just because Seattle wants to suck up to the greenies, leave the rest of us alone.

ITEM - Washington politicians have abdicated their leadership role in higher education, according to a study by the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education, forcing employers to go out of state to find skilled workers.

COMMENT - They’re too busy with important stuff like legalizing gay marriages and making marijuana legal. They don’t call this the Left Coast for nothing.

(Adele Ferguson can be reached at P.O. Box 69, Hansville, Wa., 98340.)