Cheers: Children’s Center, a Vancouver nonprofit agency that provides mental-health care for uninsured and underinsured children, has broken ground on a new building in east Vancouver. Currently squeezed into downtown office space, the organization annually sees more than 1,600 children, and the need continues to grow. The new facility, which is expected to be completed in May 2015, will be more accessible for those requiring service.
Improved mental-health care often is mentioned as a key to dealing with this country’s societal ills, ranging from homelessness to mass shootings. Rather than shun the mentally ill, we should recognize that such illnesses often can be treated and that those who suffer often can become productive members of society. Children’s Center is working to be part of that solution. As executive director Pat Beckett said of the new facility, “This will be a feel-good location for much healing and much love.”
Jeers: The Legislature’s stubborn stance regarding education once again has been snubbed by the federal government. Last year, lawmakers declined to approve a change in state law that would have required — rather than simply recommending — the use of students’ standardized test scores in teacher evaluations. That led the U.S. Department of Education to rescind Washington’s waiver from some facets of the No Child Left Behind law, and this week the feds rejected another request from the state to restore the waiver.
The result? Washington schools not making adequate progress in educating students must send out letters to parents informing them that the school is performing inadequately, and that students may transfer and the school must offer outside tutoring. Under the strict language of the law, most schools will fall under that category. It all could have been avoided if the Legislature had been willing to alter one sentence in the state law.