Page 2/The Battalion/Friday, March 14, 1986
Opinion
Testing teachers won’t solve education’s problem'we
Too many tests
this week? Defi
nitely — 210,000
too many. And to
teachers, no less.
T he Texas Exami
nation of Current
Administrators
and Teachers
(TECAT) literally
“dogged” teachers
Monday into lap
ping the state government’s feet to hold
on to their jobs. Collared into taking this
literacy test to measure their reading
and writing skills, Texas teachers are
breathing no easier now while they wait
for the results of an impersonal exam
that wasted their time and our money.
In the midst of Gov. White’s ballooning
education reform dreams, teachers
themselves may lose that dogged will to
keep pushing students up — too busy
looking over their shoulder for fear the
state will pull them down.
Oh come now, it’s just one test, the
Texas Education Agency says. Why all
the irritating prattle about a few mul
tiple choice questions and a 150-word
essay, a test that’s supposedly so simple
only 5 percent of our teachers should
fail? As test-benumbed college students,
we could easily scratch our heads at all
this ruckus stirred by an exam testing
such skills as grade school grammar and
spelling. But think back to that *!#!•*
SAT that pried open for us the impos
ing doors of ivory towers across Amer
ica. Maybe you were an “A” student and
bombed The Test. You made it to col
lege all right, but you’d swear on the Bi
ble that test was no mirror of your
smarts, your savvy and your will to sur
vive the system.
Likewise, too much is riding on this
exam for teachers, who already endure
an obstacle course of testing to win their
certification in the first place. The
Texas Education Agency (TEA) stip
ulates that teachers pass both the Pre-
Professional Skills Test, a literary test
similar to TECAT, and the EXCET
Exam before they can even look at their
license to teach. At Texas A&M, future
teachers must also sail past an English
Proficiency Exam and three graduated
checking points that make sure students
are qualified first for Teacher Educa
tion classes, second for student teaching
and finally for that degree and certifica
tion to teach.
So now state legislators are spoon
feeding teachers and Texas taxpayers
into accepting just one more test, one
more miracle worker from House Bill
72. Readily admitting TECAT does not
measure teacher competency, the TEA
also has in the works a yearly set of four
classroom appraisals of teachers, two
per semester by local school administra
tors. With these on-the-spot critiques
regularly taking place at each public
school, there’s simply no need for the
state to get back in the act of evaluating
teachers with one more test that’s te
dious, expensive and solves nothing.
“We may be entering into an era of
over-testing,” said Dr. William Peters,
head of the Educational Curriculum
and Instruction Department at A&M.
And like a magnet, the threat of TE
CAT failure has attracted a swamp of
preparatory classes which Texas teach
ers have been rushing too throughout
the past year, resulting in the devalua
tion of the ultimate evaluation. For
these courses build confidence more
than anything, but budding
quizmanship is no sign of a good tea
cher.
Entangling confusion with costs, the
school districts are paying for all these
preparatory courses to assuage teachers’
testing fears. Add to that the $4.7 mil
lion spent by our state government
Monday just to administer this test to
thousands of teachers. Add to that the
costs incurred in legal fees when Texas
teachers tried to get the TECAT ruled
unconstitutional. And more lawsuits are
likely to follow.
A common concern abounds that
black and Hispanic teachers will fare the
worst on this exam. The Dallas Inde
pendent School District has been ad
ministering a preemployment test like
TECAT' for the past five years. “Despite
higher failure rate, minority teachers
were hired because the district is under
court order to boost the number of
black and Hispanic teachers,” The
Houston Chronicle reported, adding
that the district must also hire low-scor-
... so what’s the point of tests
So many Texas
teachers were suf
ficiently upset
about having to
take the Texas Ex
amination of Cur
rent Administra
tors and Teachers
(TECAT) Monday
that I’ve begun to
think there might
be something to
their complaints.
Michelle
Rowe
Why should a teacher who already
has earned his or her teaching certifi
cate have to take another test in order to
keep that certificate? Why should a tea
cher have to be tested on his knowledge
at all? Having to take an exam which
may dictate your future is unnerving, to
say the least. And in this trying world we
live in who needs the extra pressure?
To put an end to all this unnecesary
emotional strain I propose that tests be
abolished — all tests.
No more sweaty palms or upset stom
achs that come with worrying about fail
ing. No one will fail because no one will
be tested. High school students won’t
have to take the SATs to get into col
lege. Why should they have to take a test
to prove what they have learned from
certificate-wielding teachers? A high
school diploma will be all the clout any
kid needs to get into the college of his
choice, or to get the job of his choice.
No more nerve-wreaking job inter
views or employment exams. Why
should anyone have to prove what he
knows or what he is capable of? This is
the land of opportunity. Everyone
ought to be able to dp anything he wants
for a living.
You want to be an airline pilot? Sure!
Can you start Monday? An air traffic
controller? Great! We can never have
too many air traffic controllers.
People won’t have to take tests to get
into law school or medical school. They
won’t have to take tests while they’re in
school. For that matter, why should they
have to have a certificate from such
schools to practice law or medicine. You
want to be doctor? Can you play golf?
No more tests for drivers’ licenses.
Anyone who can get their hands on a
motor vehicle can drive it.
No more try-outs for sports teams.
Too much pressure is put on athletes
anxious to make the cuts. Just let every
one play.
No more entrance requirements for
the military academies or the armed
services. Let everyone join.
Let’s abolish all qualification restric
tions for any job. What purpose do they
serve? You want to run for president of
the United States, but you’re afraid the
fact that you’re only 14 years old might
be a hindrance? Nonsense! Have some
self-confidence. What possible differ
ence could a few years make?
Why should people be discriminated
against and prevented from getting cer
tain jobs just because they aren’t qual
ified? That’s not very nice.
Wouldn’t the world be a much hap
pier place if everyone got to do what he
or she wanted to do? No more pres
sures, no more hurt feelings. After all, it
shouldn’t matter if a person is qualified
for the job. All that should matter is that
everyone get his own way.
Michelle Powe is a senior journalism
major and the editor for The Battalion.
Ignorance no excuse for Holocaust
Among the
causes to which
Kurt Waldheim
has devoted his
life, ignorance is
surely one. Asked
to account for his
years as a Nazi sol
dier, he said he
never knew about Richard
the atrocities be- Cohen
ing committed —
around him. Asked how he could not,
he answers that he still does not know.
For .almost 45 years, the former U.N.
secretary general has pursued igno
rance as if it were truth. He thinks it will
set him free.
The charges against Waldheim are
several. The first is that he was an early
Nazi recruit. Not true Waldheim says.
The second charge is that Waldheim
served both in Yugoslavia and Greece
under Gen. Alexander Lohr, who was
later executed as a war criminal. In Yu
goslavia, Lohr’s forces committed atro
cities. In Greece they were responsible
for, among other things, the deporta
tion of 42,000 Jews from the city of Sa
lonika to extermination camps in Po
land.
To the last charge, Waldheim says not
guilty. He was merely a staff officer to
Lohr, an occasional translator, and not
only did he have nothing to do with the
expulsion of the Jews, but he did not
even know about it. Confronted by the
New York Times, Waldheim confessed
not just innocence, but ignorance as
well.
“I regret these things deeply,” he
said, referring to the deportation of the
Salonika Jews while he was there. “But I
have -to repeat that it is really the first
time I hear that such things have hap
pened. I never heard or learned any
thing of this while I was there. I hear for
the first time that there were deporta
tions of Jews from there.”
It could be that Kurt Waldheim
worked for the very Nazi general who
organized the expulsion of the Jews of
Salonika and never heard a thing to
make him suspicious. It could be that al
most half of Salonika’s residents van
ished — much of the merchant class —
and Waldheim did not notice. It could
be that the butcher went, the shoe
maker, too, the lawyer in his office, the
doctor in his clinic, the haberdasher in
his store — and still Wldheim took no
notice. The children were gone off the
street, the old men from the park and
the wind banged the shutters of empty
homes, but Kurt Waldheim walked by,
noticing nothing. It could be. But it
could not be.
Or it could be that he did notice. But
what could he do? He was a mere cog in
a huge killing machine — a soldier in
the army, not a race-hater in the SS, not
a sadist for the Gestapo torture cham
bers. Europe was a vast charnel house
and everywhere the innocent were be
ing murdered. To admit casual complic
ity for what happened during the war is
almost to earn moral immunity now.
What could one person do? What would
you have done?
But the measure of the man can be
taken in his proclamation of ignorance.
Here is the self-confessed dumbbell in
all his glory — a person who boasts no
knowledge of history as if that frees him
from its consequences. In Waldheim’s
case, a great crime took place under his
nose and he smelled nothing. He was,
he insists, the three monkeys rolled into
one. Stop picking on him.
Even in the awful annals of the Holo
caust, the saga of the Jews of Greece is a
special horror. It was a very long way
from Salonika to the killing camps of
Poland. The Jews of Salonika — men
and women, children and the aged, the
pious and the cynical, the jaded and the
romantic were put into trains and
shipped across Europe. The journey
took days and all this time the Jews of
Salonika went without water or food,
without toilets or baths — in some cases
without air to breathe. By the times the
trains reached the camps, many of the
Jews were already dead. They suffered
terribly and the Jewish community, 500
years old and renowned throughout Eu
rope, was no more.
After the war, Kurt Waldheim be
came a world leader. He is now running
for the president of Austria. It is barely
acceptable for him to say he was oblivi
ous to mass murder when he was a ju
nior officer; it is not acceptable for him
to say he spent a life that way. As a man
and as a political leader, it was his obli
gation to find out what happened dur
ing the war, to see what, in his modest
way, he made possible — to know and,
in the telling phrase of Arthur Koestler,
“to be haunted by his knowledge.”
But Waldheim says nothing haunted
him. He proclaims his innocence by con
fessing ignorance. But what it really
comes down to is indifference — an in
advertent confession pf guilt. It is what
made the Holocaust possible.
Richard Cohen is a columnist for the
Washington Post Writers Group.
ing white applicants to avoid charges of
reverse discrimination. If test results on
a statewide scale heel after this trend, we
may see law suits and prejudice charges
galore. It’s becoming a never-ending cy
cle — one minute the state draws an un
bending line and the next minute it
must make excuses for failure.
;or
But hold everything, Gov. White sa\s
this illustrious literacy exam is the be
ginning of a “new economy” in Texas as
the state moves away from dependence
on oil and gas. Our teachers will help
build this economy “with greater pride
because they passed that test," White
says. Now, how he expects a test that is
costing so much and doing so little to in
augurate the solving of Texas’ economic
woes is beyond comprehension — pure
political rhetoric at its finest.
of scores of dubious adminisn
While mam parts of Texas artfe
dering on a teac her shortage, tl
absurdh hands administrators atH
wanted exc use to cull their toBy
t anks. We aren't giving out school* S,J
cipals the credit lot evaluating the® A&M ,
>gnmngpooi|. ewed
■iters at th
Once again, we’re allowing p® Fair in i
mem to step in .is the greatniam
out students' slipping perfortrJ ers displ
The problems begin in the home.B es< *‘ 1 '' ‘ m<
evet. when parents neglect both phn Kane, t
coinage and to discipline theird iter, said th
No wondet 1>.i<! and Mntn areeat®' 1, 1 *
cart kids off to school to knock® ale 111-1
, fers and sc
school stalls and i
chers.
ith tite teacher lor / hours a tb
As if dishing up more doubt to covet
White’s piece of cake, Peters cited the
testing policy of the Education Testing
Service (ETS) in Princeton, N.J., which
gives similar literacy exams. But there's
one hitch. These exams can’t be used to
exclude teachers from their profession.
With all its research and experimenta
tion, ETS does not deem its tests reliable
or valid enough to cost a teacher his or
her job — which exactly contradicts
what the state of Texas is attempting
with TECAT.
“I don’t know any teachers we have
on our staff that 1 hope fail so we can
get rid of them,” says Navasota Superin
tendent John Webb, echoing the views
this, te;
at hers suf fer low pay, lowrt
lion tit
id potential low esteem. B
years 1
atei when the strains oil
and G
ircumstance” greet the e
gradual
ites and their parents,there
sihilits
is thrust solidly hack in the
ly’s hat
Alth
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ers, tii
ue responsibility remains;
front <
doorstep throughout these
trovers
home t
iial educating years, never It
intil the 18-year-old does !
tion c;
mnot be vastly improved
parent
s evaluate, or rather test.
selves.
their children and theirs
— insu
ead of depending on goveti
and tet
tellers to do the dirty work.
Cynthi
ra Gay is a junior journalis
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Beware of thieves
i tour to pi
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■Exportin
EDITOR:
To the thief who stole my backpack f rom Sbisa on Monday, 1 wouldfi^‘ire impc
you to consider just what you got out of breaking the law. You stole an
lete, six-year-old Radio Shack computer, a check book which vou cannotm
a Management 21 1 text, a TAMU paycheck, some notes and some compui
program listings. All of this will provide you with maybe S15 if youselliB iTYr
text and possibly a few minutes of enjoyment from tinkering withapodfl
computer I doubt you have the mentality to use. You risked being thrown*
of the University for that?
Now what did 1 lose? I lost the notes and the tei
for a test I would take in two days, programs 1 ne
class I would have in two hours, time and mom
checks, a pocket computer which I had become fai
worth much and a ragged but functional backpack.
To the people who eat at Sbisa. Don’t make the
manager at Sbisa told me that a backpack is stolen
inconvenience to carry your pack with you when th<
is not nearly as inconvenient as having it stolen bv a
15 bucks.
p.
y stc
niliar
■tits Mat
>k I needed tostti®Hi repor
t<> tut it in durinj®£ et tf
pping payment m
wou
same mistake 1 did
almost every day. Its
lockers are full, butt
student wanting to mall
Joseph Gish
Guns can be fun
. “Basement arsen;
1 he battalion.
EDITOR:
This letter is in response to Michelle Powe’s article
don’t defend traditional values,” in tite Mar. 7 edition of
I have an AR-15 which is the semi-automatit version of the M-16, and
sawed-off 12-gauge shotgun, which 1 carry in my pick-up. With theset' 1
weapons I pay for my way through college. During breaks in the schoolveat
I am traveling to Angola, Afghanistan and other countries in needofhitf
guns. All that I require is the right price. Yep, 1 can make enough money
pay all my college expenses and have plenty left over.
But seriously, folks.
I do actually own an AR-15 and a sawed-off shotgun. The shotgun islej
as hell, so don’t get anymore ideas about people overstepping the law. Iguei-
you have never shot an automatic or semi-automatic gun. They happentolx
some of the most accurate rifles around. They are also light and very durable
This would make the semi-automatic gun an excellent rifle for hunters
have hunted deer for 12 years, and my father for many more. We have us
semi-automatic rifles for a number of years and are extremely pleased.
reason you have never known anyone to hunt with an automatic is that in'
illegal as hell to hunt with one.
You say that people kill people. I agree totally. But doing away withgun*
will not stop the killing. The only purpose of automatic weapons is not to^
people. They are good investments and fun to shoot at targets.
One more question. How many people do you know have a tank parked
at their house for protection?
Chuck Klein
egents.
'erry Etc;
t of Tina
ash baht
hich cast
out o
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Frestd
this is
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The Battalion
(USPS 045 360)
Member of
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Southwest Journalism Conference
The Battalion Editorial Board
Editor
Managing Editor
Opinion Page Editor
City Editor
News Editor
Sports Editor
Michelle Po* (
Kay Malk*
Loren Sied 1
Jerry 0#
.Cathie AndeD 0 * 1
Travis TinjX
community
cc to Tt
ns A&M and Hrvan-CM
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