Vice president will speak at Fairchild

Vice President Dick Cheney will address a rally of military personnel at Fairchild Air Force Base on Monday afternoon before making a campaign stop for Republican Senate candidate Mike McGavick.

Cheney is scheduled to fly into Fairchild after a campaign luncheon for a GOP congressional candidate in Everett, his office said Thursday. He’ll talk to the troops at a rally in a Fairchild hangar shortly after landing, then travel into Spokane for the McGavick campaign event at the Davenport Hotel.

He’ll speak at a roundtable discussion and pose for pictures with a small group of key donors who contribute $2,100, then address a larger crowd at the reception, where the tickets are $500.

Democrats and activists opposed to the war in Iraq and immigration law changes have announced plans to demonstrate outside the hotel.

– Jim Camden

Olympia

State dropping survey from WASL

A controversial student survey will not be included with this year’s WASL test, state officials announced this week. The Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction canceled the voluntary survey amid statewide protests from parents.

The survey, used for educational research, was attached to the end of the Washington Assessment of Student Learning exams, administered to students in grades three through eight, and grade 10. The testing begins Monday and ends May 5.

Parents with the statewide Mothers Against the WASL and Parent Empowerment Network said the questions violated students’ privacy and broke federal laws on research involving human subjects.

“We are thrilled,” said Shelley Anderson, the Spokane organizer for Mothers Against the WASL. “It just goes to show the arrogance of the state, that they thought they could get away with this and deny students and parents their rights.”

The voluntary surveys will still be attached to some portions of the test next week, but students will not be required to answer them.

The surveys were meant to help the district understand the relation between scores and factors such as mobility, time spent on homework, and attitude toward school, state officials said.

– Sara Leaming

Cheney

EWU seeks input through Web survey

With its new president in town for less than two weeks, Eastern Washington University is launching a survey regarding the school’s image to help inform the new leader and focus future efforts on enrollment and marketing.

Rodolfo Arevalo, the new EWU president, took over April 1 and has been busy meeting people on campus and all over the state. Arevalo, the first Latino president at a public four-year school in Washington, came from the University of Texas-Pan American, where he was provost.

The new Web survey will be open to everyone with Internet access in the Spokane region, not just those affiliated with EWU, the school said in an announcement Thursday. The results will be combined with meetings held last year to create a new marketing campaign and establish ways of measuring those efforts.

To participate in the survey, which takes roughly seven minutes, go to www.ewu.edu/groups/urmgr/ survey/front.php.

– Shawn Vestal