With the advent of 2015, there’s hope the Obama administration will follow through on its ambitious trade agenda. Leaders on both sides of the Atlantic agree a more open trade partnership makes sense.

It’s time the European Union puts politics aside and eliminates non-scientific barriers to trade. Any successful trade agreement must open restricted markets and encourage fair competition for all.

During calendar year 2013, the total value of U.S. farm exports totaled more than $144 billion. Farm exports accounted for nearly 31 percent of the U.S. gross income.

With more than 95 percent of the world’s population living outside the United States, pursuing those markets is essential.

What developing nations want most are cereals, meat, milk and eggs.

While U.S. meat consumption has leveled off the last few years, populations and the meat diets of Japan, China and other countries has been on the upswing.

The United States has the climate, cropland and know-how to supply agricultural products to feed the nations of the hungry world. Our country has the world’s best infrastructure. We have the best-trained farmers. Our competitive edge is larger and more permanent than in any manufacturing industry.

Our government must commit to becoming the best we can be in international trade. If we conducted trade the same way we produced food, we wouldn’t have trouble moving agricultural products to people who need them overseas.

It’s time for the leadership of this country to view American agriculture as one of the premier growth opportunities. We must become more aggressive in conducting trade agreements. We must have a secretary of agriculture who makes international trade a top priority. Without strong trade agreements that give us free access to the world marketplace, we cannot prosper in agriculture or any other business that depends so much on exports.

If the world’s farm trade barriers were removed, this country could increase agricultural commodity sales. That’s a given.

This country must eliminate unilateral trade sanctions on nations that don’t live up to our expectations of how they should conduct their internal affairs.

Sanctions do not work – they only hurt our nation’s ability to trade. Each time we impose new sanctions, we surrender yet another market to competitors who are only too willing to sell in our absence.

U.S. farmers could also supply the raw materials for an estimated $40 billion per year in exports of high-valued processed foods from new plants located primarily in rural areas.

If our country doesn’t gear up its value-added production, the Japanese and some of our other competitors will. Some countries including China and Japan are adding value to agricultural commodities they import from us.

The United States must assume a leadership position in trade talks throughout the world. Potential trading partners cannot wait for us to take our place at the negotiating table. We cannot improve our position in world trade if we cannot find time to meet with them.

Unless American farmers and agribusinesses convince our government to advance global trading, this country will be sealed in a declining domestic market. The future of U.S. agriculture is tied to our competitiveness in world trade. Our country must become more aggressive and assume its leadership role in trade negotiations.

John Schlageck, a Hoxie native, is a leading commentator on agriculture and rural Kansas.

I’m not a big believer in New Year’s resolutions. I can’t remember ever having made a distinct resolution in my entire life. However, in 2014 I did make a general resolution to “not go crazy.” Mission accomplished. Since my goal last year was to avoid craziness, this year I thought I might invite some crazy into my life…professionally at least. In 2015 I’m looking to start some new projects, bring about a few changes to the Kansas Room and create some original programming.

Don’t panic when I mention changes to the Kansas Room — they’ll be for the better! For instance, I’ve added a small collection of DVDs to the Kansas Room. Some of these are documentary style films, but many are movies that are set in or feature Kansas in a prominent way. These titles should be available later this month or early in February. Titles include “The Plainsman,” John Wayne’s “Red River” and several silent films including “Tumbleweeds.”

There has been some local interest in starting a genealogy group. This group would be open to anyone who had an interest in genealogy or family history. Everyone from the novice to the expert would be invited to attend the meetings. The meetings would be informal, monthly or semi-monthly and consist of members sharing their stories, tips and tricks of the trade. There would also be occasional guest speakers. I have not yet set a date for the first meeting, but please let me know if you are interested in participating or if you have ideas for possible guest-presenters or meeting topics. You can reach me by calling 625-9014 or emailing [email protected].

Since I’m a little late in getting my article written this month, I only have two programs left to announce for January. Bingo will be held at the library this Saturday, Jan. 17th at 11 AM. Prizes will be awarded to the winners and all ages are encouraged to come out and play!

With January comes Kansas Day and with Kansas Day comes the 3nd Annual KS Day Photo Contest! It’s not too late to participate. No matter your age or your skill level, the KS Day Photo Contest is open to anyone who’s ever taken a photo in this great state. Please stop by the library for a copy of the contest rules and entrance forms or download the forms at hayspublib.org (look under the Kansas Room tab). Photo entries are due on January 21st and will be judged by a panel of local artists. The reception and awards ceremony for the photo contest will take place on Kansas Day, Jan. 29 at 6 PM in the Kansas Room. All participants and photography enthusiasts are invited to attend.

The Kansas Room is located in the basement of the Hays Public Library and is open from 9 AM to 4 PM Tuesday through Saturday, and by request.

Lucia Bain is Kansas Room Librarian at the Hays Public Library.

Life in the Land of Oz is about to get real interesting over the next few weeks as Gov. “Don’t Blame Me” Brownback and the “Who Could Have Seen This Coming” Legislature try to figure how much of a shell game they can play with tax dollars in order to cover up for their own ineptitude.

Not that anyone with a degree in “Real Life 101” should be surprised.

There isn’t a business or household in Kansas who can cut their income flow and tell their employees or family members, “Don’t worry. Nothing will change.”

Sorry, Sam, the state is no different.

Tax cuts were made with the promise that new businesses would locate in Kansas and spur the economy. Apparently those businesses and the jobs they bring are getting sidetracked in our neighboring states.

Missouri has been the only state trailing Kansas in job growth in recent years, but that changed during 2014. During the first six months of the year, Missouri had a 1.4 percent increase in jobs while Kansas’ growth was a near-comatose 6/10 of one percent.

Kansas hasn’t beaten Nebraska’s job growth since 2007.

Colorado was hit harder by the recession than Kansas, but has bounced back much quicker, beating the state in job creation every year since 2010. Likewise, Oklahoma was also hit harder by the recession and is recovering much quicker with job growth of 2.3 percent.

Here are a couple of additional facts about jobs in Kansas.

•Since the 2008 Great Recession, the largest increase in job growth came during 2011 – the year before Brownback’s Great Tax Cut.

•The only year since the recession in which job growth in Kansas beat the national rate was in 2010. That just happened to be when Gov. Mark Parkinson was in office.

So what does this tell us? That cutting taxes isn’t the grand solution that ultra-conservative lawmakers like to believe it is. Carried to its current extreme, it can create a disaster which Kansas is now experiencing.

Keep in mind that when the governor was completely blindsided (yes, completely) by the budget disaster just days after being re-elected the plan he offered was designed to fill a $294 million shortfall. That was before state revenue fell another $15 million below expectations in December, increasing the budget gap to about $310 million by June 30.

Notice a trend here?

Oh, but it gets even better.

Now the governor and legislature have a school funding decision hanging over their heads which could require the state to come up with another $548 million per year, according to some projections.

The legislature won’t have to come up with the money this year. The governor and the ultra-conservative wing of his party will hope that the Supreme Court somehow bails them out of that dilemma.

Or maybe another tax cut is the answer.

In the meantime, lawmakers are raiding various funds – including KPERS and KDOT – in order to find enough cash to get through the end of the fiscal year. That’s like raiding your child’s college fund and digging around in the backyard for cans of buried cash. It might get us through the short term, but it’s not a long-term solution. It doesn’t address a state cash shortfall that’s projected to reach $663 million by June 30, 2016.

The big question facing the governor and the legislature is whether they’re interested in a long-term solution or whether they insist on believing that their tax policy will eventually work if given enough time.

It won’t be easy selling the legislature on the idea of postponing tax cuts that have yet to take effect and increasing taxes. After all, Kansas was supposed to be the “real live experiment” that would prove trickle-down economics does work. To back off now would be an admission of failure.

It would mean going up against the Kansas Chamber of Commerce, Americans for Prosperity and the Koch brothers who are heavily invested in a tax cut policy. And it would mean that the man who didn’t get elected governor was right about tax cuts and the man who was elected governor was wrong.

Imagine that.

Brownback and his supporters are running out of excuses as to why their tax cut philosophy is a failure. More importantly, they’re running out of time.

The stakes are huge. To steal from existing cash reserves is putting the retirement fund for tens of thousands of Kansans at risk, it impedes our ability to main the state’s infrastructure – including highways that businesses coming to Kansas rely on – it will affect our ability to provide a quality education and to care for children in need of state assistance, as well as our poor and our senior citizens.

In other words, it affects every aspect of our lives which are important when people consider whether Kansas is a place they want to move to or a place where they want to continue living.

The curtain has been pulled back on tax cuts and we’ve seen the result.

Do we have the courage to do the right thing to fix the mess we’ve created? We’ll see.

Rod Haxton is editor/owner of the Scott County Record and can be reached at [email protected].

The New Year begins much like the old year ended with bitter, emotional clashes between proponents of LGBT rights and religious objectors to same-sex marriage.

When same-sex weddings commenced in Florida on January 6, several county clerks immediately announced that although required by law to issue marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples, they will no longer perform marriages for anyone — gay or straight — to avoid participating in same-sex ceremonies.

On the same day, the mayor of Atlanta, Georgia fired the chief of the city’s Fire Rescue Department, Kelvin Cochran, for distributing to fellow workers a religious book Cochran wrote that includes harsh language condemning homosexuality.

Meanwhile, lawmakers in many states are gearing up to introduce legislation carving out accommodations for religious objectors to gay marriage. That’s because more than 70% of Americans now live in places where gay marriage is legal. And with a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage on the near horizon, that number could soon be 100%.

In many red statehouses, gay marriage opponents have the votes to pass religious accommodations — everything from conscience clauses for government workers to exemptions for religiously affiliated charities and for-profit wedding vendors.

And in many blue states, gay marriage proponents have the votes to deny any religious accommodations beyond exemptions for clergy (who are already protected by the First Amendment).

Now is the time — perhaps the last real opportunity — to seek common ground. Rather than a patchwork of state laws — some that go too far and some that don’t go far enough — it would better serve the common good to agree on reasonable, targeted religious accommodations that strive to uphold religious freedom while simultaneously protecting LGBT rights.

A good starting point would be for advocates on all sides to acknowledge that both liberty of conscience and equality are core American values deserving the highest possible level of protection.

Protecting both values should mean, at the very least, ensuring that religious individuals and groups are fully protected to define religious marriage rites according to the doctrines of their faith. And it should also mean that LGBT people are fully protected from discrimination in the public square of America, including when same-sex couples seek legal protections that come with civil marriage.

Within these guiding principles, it may be possible to find areas of agreement that strike a balance between religious freedom and non-discrimination in order to resolve conflicts and, as far as possible, protect both values on questions such as the following:

As part of their effort to end discrimination against LGBT students, a growing number of college and university campuses deny recognition to student religious groups with faith-based criteria for selecting their leaders. Should student religious groups be allowed to elect leaders based on eligibility requirements consistent with their beliefs, as long as their meetings are open to all?
In recent years, a number of wedding vendors have refused to serve same-sex weddings on religious grounds. Would it be possible to craft a narrowly tailored law that would provide accommodation for the religious convictions of small business owners with fewer than 15 employees — a law that would have the support of both sides?
Some religiously affiliated charities that receive government funds are ceasing to offer adoption services because they cannot in good conscience endorse same-sex marriage. Can we explore ways to accommodate these charities, at least in places where other service providers are readily available to same-sex couples?
In states without civil rights laws covering sexual orientation, can agreement be reached to enact legislation protecting LGBT people from discrimination while simultaneously passing limited accommodations for religious objectors to gay marriage?
These are difficult questions that will require patient, thoughtful and, above all, civil dialogue by people of goodwill. Finding common ground won’t be easy — and may not be possible. But for the sake of both upholding religious freedom and expanding equality, it’s worth a try.

After all, gay marriage is here to stay. Opponents of same-sex marriage — still over a third of the population — aren’t going anywhere and neither are LGBT people. Beyond our differences, we are bound together as citizens of one nation committed to liberty and equality for all.

Charles C. Haynes is director of the Religious Freedom Center of the Washington-based Newseum Institute. [email protected]

By RON WILSON
Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development

Let’s hit the trail. It’s not a biking trail or a hiking trail, this is a wine trail. Now it is possible to hit this wine trail by trolley.

During the past two weeks, we learned about the growing wine business in Miami County, Kansas. One element of that growth was the creation of the Somerset Wine Trail. A new trolley service is now available for wine trail travelers and others.

Brian and Michelle Roberts are owners of Miami County Trolley. Brian, a Kansas native, worked in sales and marketing in Iowa for 17 years before coming back to Kansas near where his wife’s parents live in Miami County. “My wife and I were looking to start some business of our own,” Brian said.

In 2010, he and Michelle visited the town of Hermann in the heart of Missouri wine country.  They noticed a trolley service which provided transportation to the local wineries. It was an appealing idea, considering the growing winery industry developing back home in Miami County, but Brian wasn’t sure there were enough wineries to support it.

“We had three wineries in the county,” Brian said. “In 2012, a fourth winery opened, and we decided to go for it.”

Brian and Michelle met with Janet McRae, the economic development director for Miami County. “Janet was huge for us,” Brian said. She helped with business planning and more. They consulted with each of the wineries.

In order to fully learn the business, Brian and Michelle went back to Hermann, Missouri, to the guy who owned the trolley service there. “We spent six months with the guy in Hermann and learned the business inside and out,” Brian said. “He sold us our first trolley.”

Brian and Michelle established Miami County Trolley. One of the wineries, Somerset Ridge, had taken the lead in establishing a highway route called the Somerset Wine Trail which linked the wineries in the county.

Miami County Trolley is available for weddings, corporate events and parties, but the primary business is the wine trail. Every Saturday and Sunday, the trolley is available to transport people along the route of the wine trail.

“If they stay in Miami County, we can pick them up and return them right to their lodging,” Brian said. Miami County has the Paola Inn and Suites plus several bed and breakfasts. The trolley can go to each place and shuttle people to the wineries.

The business has grown to the point that Brian purchased a second trolley in September 2014. “It’s become a full-time job for me.” he said. He has even hired four other drivers.

The trolleys themselves are the classic vehicles, fully enclosed with heat and wood interior seats.  There is even a bell for the driver to ring. One trolley is diesel powered and the other has a gas engine. One can hold 20 passengers and the other can hold 30.

“We can shuttle up to a 100 people in a day,” Brian said. It is such a convenient and worry-free way to travel, and especially to enjoy the wine trail. Seats on the trolley are booked by reservation. “We generally fill up,” Brian said. He also has a 14-passenger van which can pick up other passengers and bring them to the trolley. During the holidays, the trolley offers Christmas lights tours. The trolley is available during the week for minimum groups of ten.

“I like meeting new people,” Brian said. “It’s a lot of work but it doesn’t feel like work. We’re continuing to grow the business.” Miami County Trolley is based in the rural community of Paola, population 5,033. Now, that’s rural.

Brian especially enjoys the camaraderie among the guests. “They will come in groups of four or five, but by the end of the trip, everybody is hugging each other,” he said. For more information, go to www.miamicountytrolley.com.

Let’s hit the trail – not a bike trail or hiking trail, but the Somerset Wine Trail on the Miami County Trolley. We salute Brian and Michelle Roberts for making a difference by providing this ingenious transportation service. Now let’s roll.

No one has suggested we let people practice medicine just for taking the medical board test. And no one suggests you can be a lawyer if you have been a policeman for five years. So why do folks have so little respect for teaching and allow these end runs for teacher licensure? Most evidence for the decline in respect for teacher professionalism points to the utter failures of our Schools of Education.

Education lacks a central body of knowledge that is productive and can be built upon. We call this a “paradigm.” The paradigm of medicine is anatomy and physiology. Understanding how the body works is the basis for practicing medicine. That knowledge grows at the edges but the core knowledge does not flip-flop, change dramatically, or start over.

Unfortunately, education has no paradigm. We see that in education fads that change every three to five years. Behavioral objectives and diagnostic teaching were followed by open classrooms and phase electives that caused a backlash to back-to-basics, followed by Madeline Hunter 7-step lessons and eventually QPA (Quality Performance Accreditation), an idea stolen from Total Quality Management in Business Schools. When standardizing educational objectives at the local level did not improve education, uniform state standards were declared the solution. Failure of standardization at the local and state levels became the reason to extend standardization to the national level.

It is important not to confuse the current tools-of-the-trade for a paradigm. How to use a scalpel in surgery is not part of the paradigm of medicine; it is merely a tool of the day—an important tool—but not the paradigm. That is the case of tests and measurements, an important skill for teachers, but not a paradigm.  It is important for teachers to learn the mathematical significance and limitations of test scores. Unfortunately, Schools of Education not only lack any paradigm but also minimized or eliminated courses on “tests and measurements” for their student teachers.

This directly resulted in this generation of teachers, administrators and decision makers who are unaware of the limitations of testing. As a result, assessment has become the definition of educational achievement. Few realize that an evaluation is not an education. If Education Schools had continued to teach the limitations of testing, perhaps today’s test-obsession would have been avoided.

Some educationists still agree with Vanderbilt Chancellor William H. Payne who stated in 1887 that psychology “stands in the same relation to teaching that anatomy does to medicine.” And his claim that psychology is the paradigm for teaching lives on today in “brain-based learning” scams.

But it was Harvard’s psychologist William James who countered with “You make a great, a very great mistake, if you think that psychology, being the science of the mind’s laws, is something from which you can deduce definite programmes and schemes and methods of instruction for immediate schoolroom use…. Psychology is a science and teaching is an art.”

If teaching has a paradigm, it is communication. Every teacher must be a competent communicator of knowledge. And communication is a complex art that depends on perception, personality, and mastery of content. Some student teachers bring these skills to college. Others do not, and training can rarely give them those complex abilities or change personalities.

Skipping from education fad to fad, education schools also failed in “gate keeping.” Everyone seems to remember a bad teacher and this provided the rationale for removing tenure which in turn now makes it difficult to recruit good students into teaching.

And teachers with masters degrees in education fads do not improve student outcomes. But teachers with masters degrees in science or math do raise their student scores and send them into STEM fields.

No other time period in modern history has been as depressing for classroom teachers as the No Child Left Behind era that began under the last President Bush and continues today. A record number of veteran teachers are either telling me how glad they were to get out, or how they want to retire early.

But for the sake of our children, we can’t give up. But it is time to give up on the School of Education model and move teacher training into the content departments. Paradigms matter.

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