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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 20, 1981)
Viewpoint The Battalion Friday i Texas A&M University February 20, 1981 The Slouch By Jim Earle EAK Ll The strangest thing just happened to me! By the time I finished writing my cheat notes, I realized that I had learned what I was supposed to know. ” Other subjects aren t being taught ‘write’ By PATRICIA McCORMACK United Press International “All children can learn,’’ the Council on Basic Education’s A. Graham Down told the U.S. Department of Education transi tion team a little while back. And then Down, executive director of CBE, a non-profit group of educators and others-which advocates improvement in basic education, stressed the Council’s main theme: “Public schooling has been too much centered on special groups, not all children; on rights, not learning; on management, not knowledge; the relevant, not the en during.” Here’s what Down said the Reagan admi nistration should aim for in order to put education back on track: — Make leadership more important than maintaining highly regulated programs that disburse federal dollars to states and school districts. Dismantle or at least reduce the incentives for becoming dependent on fed eral largesse. — Establish incentives for improving teaching and learning. — Relate federal activities to school effectiveness. The marks of effective schools include instructional leadership by the principal, emphasis on academic achievement, assessment of student prog ress and academic programs expectation that all will learn, a climate conducive to learning, and community support. — Support school effectiveness by pro viding resources that local districts ordi narily lack — information, consulting ser vices and technical assistance, research and development leading to classroom applica- tioon. Down gave the following as examples of options for federal assistance to local dis tricts: 1. Support programs (like the National Writing Project) that improve teachers’ and students’ writing across all subjects. 2. Support programs for academically talented students. 3. Support summer institutes to streng then teachers’ general education and their preparation in the subjects they teach. 4. Give special attention to support for foreign languages, science and mathema tics. 5. Concentrate programs for low-income youth on mastery of basic learning skills as preparation for more education. The Council’s current booklet “Basic Education” defines “writing across the cur riculum” and gives an example of how it relates to a biology class. “Writing across the curriculum is prob ably the widest and most unyielding front in the struggle for literacy,” the report says. “Sentences, paragraphs, and composi tions are the stuff of which English is made, and teachers of other subjects presume or protest that (writing is ‘not my depart- ment’i.i,.' “A high school teacher of history we en countered last year is representative. At one time, he told us, he was concerned about his students’ writing but he had long since left ‘grammar and all that’ to the English teachers. “It is heartening, therefore, to turn up teachers of subjects other than English who recognize that writing is not just ‘grammar and all that’ but a means of learning the subjects they teach — the means by which a student can (literally) compose fragments of knowledge and understand them. “Such teachers cannot devote much of their time to grammar, spelling and the mechanics of writing, but they can insist that their students demonstrate under standing in prose that is at least intelli gible.” The report tells about Vincent Moragues, biology teacher at Westbrook Junior High in Omaha, Neb. Tests he gives seventh- graders include multiple-choice and match ing questions — plus three or four ques tions that can be answered only in prose statements of a paragraph or more. The booklet “Television Intelligence” published by CBE includes this one: The 1981 catalogue of the Agency for Television Instruction lists a series of 15 programs under the title, “The Write Chan nel.” Says the catalogue, “Although the programs show students a variety of syntac tic devices, they never mention intimidat ing terms like ‘prepositional phrase’ or ‘coordinating conjunction’.” CBE comments: “Actually, the program descriptions are quite sensible. Program 12 may not men tion the intimidating term, but it teaches the use of the subordinating conjunctions.” Another television note: A survey of530,000 California sixth grad ers and high school seniors showed that television watching affected test scores across all social, economic and racial lines — for the worse. The survey showed that only 27 percent of the sixth-graders and only 29 percent of the seniors watched less than one hour of television daily. Between two and four hours was the daily TV dose for most. Warped Hiding behind the law’s letter proced ployees A&M B month, Univer: System “It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. ” — Henry David Thoreau It’s not the letter of the law but the spirit that counts: We should remind the Student Government Finance Committee of that. Finance Committee Chairman Tracy Cox, representing no one but his self- important committee, has decided to close Saturday’s hearing at which next year’s stu dent service fee recommendations will be made. Technically, the law is on his side. For all practical purposes, it shouldn’t be. The Texas Open Meetings Act doesn’t apply to advisory groups — the Finance Committee is technically a panel advising the adminis tration on student service fee allocation. Practically, the Finance Committee does allocate the student service fee. Though the student senate, vice president for student services, the president and the Board of Regents must approve the disbursement, the recommendation rarely changes once it leaves the committee; any changes are usually made in the senate, after which the approval is rubber-stamp. Take last year as an example: The Fi nance Committee recommended $2,123 million in student service fees. The senate concurred; the recommendation was The Sidebars By Dillard Stone approved without objection all the way up the chain. It’s not an isolated instance: Each year’s recommendation receives the same treat- any other student) was in our meetint would stifle our openness on eachuse-; $ff ect * ( that we wouldn’t be as cautious." he^ vanc | e i! They also want to exercise the Mela | m P 0 ^' muscle they have, boost their egos fHl” we’ve got some power: let’s use it!)J: Non remind the student body of the commitif those p members’ sense of self-importance. The idea that students she see how their money is being spentpii ably never entered their minds. Him tenure, llerks a Clyd chancel the fact ment. Even Cox admits the committee in effect makes the allocation: “In a closed hearing we can be more free to discuss the actual allocation of this money,” he said. “Actual allocation”: That’s the key phrase. The com mittee has the allocation power, for the administration has delegated that responsi bility. No one will make that delegation official, though, for the technicality is an effective screen behind which to cloak the secrecy of the proceedings. There are two rationales for closing the meeting: Committee members want to pre serve their rapport with administrators by not having their derogatory remarks about those officials reported. Again, Cox is the best source: “If a reporter (or, presumably. i commit R hind the open meetings technicality^ wor k cC j the committee to be ignorant of the rigk: (j n j V ers the students it’s supposed to represent tee pre Cox’s action violates the spirit, albei the letter, of the open meetings law. However rooted in respect for the h action may be, it does nothing to cultivati respect among committee memben what is right. If the students aren’t to be in on process of how their monies areallocatet word of warning is in order: Make decisions wisely, committee membersi aware of what services will suffer when;] make cuts, of how many students wi affected. You won’t keep our interests paramo by holding an open session; are you up the challenge of protecting those inters behind closed doors? It’s your turn pi B Resi< taembe their n MSC receptive to non-voting input Editor: As a voting member of the MSC Council, I would like to respond to your recent com ments concerning non-voting members and their participation in council meetings. The non-voting positions on the council were established to enable representatives of the other major student organizations at Texas A&M to provide input to the council and also to insure that they know about the major administrative decisions made by the largest programming body on campus. While in some organizations where non voting positions exist there may be an “air of inferiority,” the Council has always been sincerely receptive to the input of our non voting members. It is obvious that those who are not actually involved in the day to day operations of the council and directo rate may not always be fully informed of the details of every item under consideration. However, adequate background informa tion concerning the proposals we consider is usually given. It is the policy of the coun cil to deliver agendas and meeting informa tion on the Friday before the Monday coun cil meetings. The Corps of Cadets, RHA, OCA, Gra duate Student Council, class councils, and, yes, even The Battalion, are provided seats on the Council. It is the perrogative of these representatives to decide whether or not they will utilize this seat and provide input into our discussions. I deeply regret the fact that you feel that it is a waste of your time to attend. Paul Fisher Director of Operations MSC Council and Directorate the game and I at the conduct of the crowd. Despite this, we, as two legal adults should have never allowed such a petty argument to get so out of hand. I do accept his apolo gy, but the incident should have never hap pened. Laura Furr Should r literati i lienee 1 [ The RHA I said, is iteratu alls. ity. I would like to close with the seoil! The line of that excellent song Mr. Wacrmtsubmitt keenly quoted in his Feb. 18 editoifjN 5 ^ “True to each other as Aggies can be. tnst Sandie ™ President, Alpha Phi Soroit Apology appreciated Editor: I would like to express my sincere admir ation for Mr. Mache’s public apology con cerning our ‘incident. ’ Not only the fact that he publicly apologized, but also included his name. However, I would like to point out, not only to him, but to the student body as a whole, that in the future we mustn’t allow ourselves to get worked up into such a fer vor at athletic events that we vent our frus trations on one another. I only suffered a busted lip, but what if I had fallen down? I could have easily hit my head on the con crete steps or gotten a tooth knocked out. In that case, what started out as an insignifi cant argument would have turned into a serious accident. I am just as much to blame as he and offer my apologies. Evidently we were both already angry, he possibly at the outcome of Greeks stereotyped Editor: Greeks — the word seems to evoke mis conceptions of competition, elitism, and rivalry. Doesn’t A&M challenge us all to be intelligent thinkers? How then can some body fall back on outdated stereotypes of Greeks? It appalls me that a student, such as John Wagner in his Feb. 18 editorial, can so rapidly write off dedicated, viable organi zations that pose no more threat to the A&M campus and community than Sbisa’s scrambled eggs. I am sure (or I hope) you are simply mis informed and unaware of the many services the Greeks on our campus do for you as students as well as for the community. Ev ery sorority and fraternity has a philan thropy. Alpha Phi’s, for example, happens to be cardiac-aid and last year we donated hundreds of dollars to the A&M Medical School for heart research. Also last year the Greeks combined their efforts to raise thousands of dollars for the United Way program. Can you honestly say we would have been better off without these services? In addition, scholastic programs and incen tives have encouraged the nine sororities here to achieve a higher overall CPA than that of the independent women’s average. We are leaders in student senate, the MSC Directorate, numerous honorary societies, and many more campus clubs. We are not merely social organizations, there is much more to us than that. We are asking for no “special” treatment in our efforts to become recognized, simply “fair” treatment. How detrimental can the right to put posters up on campus boards be to this university? If that is so threatening, I shiver to think of A&M as one “Big Frater nity” as Mr. Wagner suggests, for it will never survive. Let us now in the fraternal spirit of Aggie traditions open our eyes and recognize this dynamic potential of continued service and dedication to the university and commun- To the thief: Why? Editor: It took a few minutes for the shocl wear off, and when it did, all I could do cry in disbelief. The only question in mind was WHY? Why would someonef into my backpack, take out my wallet remove all of my jewelry and cash?C were my most cherished possession^ By I The i laircut: r pun orps r “Wc first ring that my father had given me,ait that my mother and stepfather had i it at j on signed for my high school graduation^ drythin my Aggie ring. My Aggie ring — the||rogres that symbolized to me the spirit and nr Loc which make our school so unique, lit Duncar proud of that ring because wherever 1^ o I was able to show that I was an Aggie, IB 35 * 5 ^ now and always will be an Aggie, wh a.m. KOI you are who: We d 0I “courageously” stole my jewelry (and al'we’re ( my $4 in cash) while I was playing racq* not to c ball within 10 feet of you, you mustlu But, needed the money more than I do. I reiH m the feel sorry for you because you will net 8°" car know what it’s like to be a true Texas Ag — if you were an Aggie you could Dies , " have lowered yourself to pull suchagu! £ ast - ) stunt no matter how badly you neededi ment ^ money. I won’t sling any more words^out, R e cause they won’t bring my rings back, 1)1 The < will ask one question — what’s happen during to the Aggies I ’ve come to know and love" te r, but A&M going to lose its most cherishedK ^id sa: tion — camaraderie? If acts such as ii continue we can say goodbye to the “ft ol Ag” spirit at Texas A&M. Jan Rainey 1 Correction A story in Thursday’s Battalion incorrr ly reported that a backup polling site: spring elections would be at the bus i outside Bizzell Hall. If there are enosl election workers, the polling station mi* at the bus stop south of Rudder Tower The Battalion regrets the error. By Scott McCullar The Battalion MEMBER ISPS Texas Press Association Southwest Journalism Congress Editor Dillard Stone Managing Editor Angel Copeland Asst. Managing Editor Todd Woodard City Editor Debbie Nelson Asst. City Editor Marcy Boyce News Editors Venita McCellon, Scot K. Meyer Sports Editor Richard Oliver Focus Editor Cathy Saathoff Asst. Focus Editor Susan Hopkins Staff Writers Carolyn Barnes, Jane G. Brust, Terry Duran, Bemie Fette, Cindy Gee, Jon Heidtke, Glenn Krampota, Kathleen McElroy,Belinda McCoy, Marjorie McLaughlin, Kathy O’Connell, Ritchie Priddy, Rick Stolle Cartoonist Scott McCullar Photo Editor Greg Gammon Photographers Chuck Chapman Brian Tate EDITORIAL POUCY The Battalion is a non-profit, self-supporting newspaper operated as a community service to Texas A&M University and Bryan-College Station. Opinions expressed in The Bat talion are those of the editor or the author, and do not necessarily represent the opinions ofTexas A&M Universi ty administrators or faculty members, or of the Board of Regents. 045 560 The Battalion also serves as a laboratory newspaper N students in reporting, editing and photography (W | within the Department of Communications. Questions or comments concerning any editorial m# I should be directed to the editor. LETTERS POUCY Letters to the Editor should not exceed 350wordi4 length, and are subject to being cut if they are longer.foi editorial staff reserves the right to edit letters for style J length, but will make every effort to maintain the aniWs intent. Each letter must also be signed, show the adds 5 1 and phone number of the writer. Columns and guest editorials are also welcome, andq not subject to the same length constraints as lettt 15 1 Address all inquiries and correspondence to: Editor, ft |; Battalion, 216 Reed McDonald, Texas A&M Univerr 5 College Station, TX 77843. The Battalion is published daily during Texas A&M and spring semesters, except for holiday and exam mao’ 1 , periods. Mail subscriptions are $16.75 per semester, 1 per school year and $35 per full year. Advertising r* | furnished on request. Our address: The Battalion, 216 Reed McDonald BaJr ing, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77W> United Press International is entitled exclusively to use for reproduction of all news dispatches credited to' Rights of reproduction of all other matter herein resent Second class postage paid at College Station, TXW