Page 2/The Battalion/Tuesday, August 12, 1986
A cow most sacred
Shouting his battle cry that no cow is more sacred than cre
ating no new taxes, Texas House Speaker Gib Lewis brought his
ever-cutting budget axe down on the Permanent University
Fund and the Permanent School Fund — the lifeblood of educa
tion in Texas. While Lewis’ slash-now, think-later approach to fi
nancial matters may temporarily solve deficit woes, it could
cause future problems that outweigh monetary shortages — ed
ucational shortages.
Lewis is urging that the House Appropriations Committee
take a total of $ 1.1 billion profit from the two funds’ securities
transactions of the past five years and channel it into funds for
other state programs.
But the purpose of the funds is to create a money-generat
ing investment as a source of revenue for Texas A&M, the Uni
versity of Texas and public schools. By depleting these funds,
Lewis is advocating a threat to education over increasing taxes.
In his determination that there should be no scared cows when
the budget hacking begins, Lewis has overlooked the greatest sa
cred cow of all — his stubborn opposition to the inevitable tax
hike.
More dangerous than the actual loss to Texas education is
the precedent the measure sets. The capital in the permanent
funds was designed to be untouchable. Texas cannot afford to
dip into these vital holdings any time it is faced with a financial
crisis. Without money to preserve the quality of Texas educa
tion, future budgetary havoc can only increase.
Lewis claims that opponents of the plan are “so paranoid
they don’t want anything to happen.” We are not opposed to ac
tion, but taking a hefty slice out of education funding merely to
avoid a sales tax increase is not a rational solution.
The Lewis plan, when coupled with the committee’s recom
mendation to cut $220 million from 1987 spending for universi
ties, poses a serious threat to the financial stability of Texas edu
cation.
Texas has been striving for greater quality in education. Pro
gress has been made, but much remains to be done. Cutting
funding now only can impair educational integrity later.
Lewis should realize that fighting a tax increase at the ex
pense of education is not worth it. The Permanent University
Fund and the Permanent School Fund were established to pre
serve this vital financing — that’s why they’re called permanent
funds.
No one relishes the idea of a tax hike, but the future of qual
ity education is worth paying for.
The Battalion Editorial Board
Saving public schools
one student at a time
William F.
Buckley Jr.
We interrupt
the national
search to establish
what, if anything,
Associate Justice
William Rehnquist
said to citizens ap
proaching a poll
ing booth in Ari-
zona 10 years
before he became
a member of the
Supreme Court 15
years ago to report an enterprise that
gives one of those Fourth of July tingles
that occasionally remind us that: a) the
United States is a pretty special place; b)
it could be a lot better.
The story begins with a highly suc
cessful New York businessman, Gene
Lang, who was asked to address the
eighth grade graduating ceremonies in
the high school he had attended. He
prepared one of those petty speeches,
what one might call Horatio Alger Boi
lerplate, about how glorious was the fu
ture of the young American graduating
from junior high. But on the way to the
ceremony he surveyed the figures. Of
100 children who enrolled in New York
City high schools, 25 will graduate. And
only one-half of them will qualify to go
to a city unversity.
Lang threw away his speech and said
to the students: Here are the statistics
you face. Now if you bring yourself to
overcome the odds, I will pay your col
lege tuition. He is now financing the col
lege tuition of the overwhelming major-
ity-
Peter Flanigan, a cosmopolitan
banker associated with the firm of Dil
lon, Read and sometime assistant to for
mer President Nixon, pondered the
story and came upon an extraordinary
anomaly. Whereas 75 percent of public-
school children don’t graduate, 96 per
cent of those that attend the Catholic-
run schools do graduate, and three-
quarters of them go on to college. Is this
accomplished by expelling all backward
or unruly children? It turns out that the
parochial schools expel a smaller per
centage of students than the public
schools send to correctional institutes.
Well then, surely there is a line 10
miles long of applicants for admission to
parochial schools? Negative. There are
hundreds of empty seats: The parents
— or rather the parent in most cases —
don’t have the money.
An organization called Student/Spon
sor Partnership was born. Individual
New Yorkers are invited to sponsor a
student selected by the administrators
of Cardinal Hayes High School (for
boys), or Cathedral High School (for
girls). Requirements: The selected stu
dent must not be a genius (they can take
care of themselves) or an imbecile (waste
of any school’s time). They must come
from a single-parent home, the parent
on welfare. The sponsor contracts a) to
put up $1,500 per year for the student;
b) to make himself (or herself) accessible
to encourage the student and to keep an
eye on the student’s progress; and c) to
consult periodically with a special coun
selor whom the schools bring in to mon
itor the student’s progress, get him out
of bed if he is playing hookey, advise
him on his work and make provisions
for extra work as required.
Now the ethnic mix in the schools we
speak of is indistinguishable as between
the Catholic schools and the high
schools. Roughly, it is a 55 percent
black, 45 percent Hispanic. One-third
of the students attending the two Catho
lic high schools are non-Catholic. The
program, which will be tax-deductible,
is non-sectarian. It is a brand-new idea,
but already the Student/Sponsor organi
zation has lined up sponsors for 20 boys
and 12 girls beginning next September.
The program is being administered by
Cynthia Haueter, 333 E. 68th St., Apt.
5E, New York, N.Y. 10021. Some spon
sors who cannot afford the $1,500 put
up a part of it, the balance coming from
someone else, the question of who will
act as the personal sponsor left open for
solomonic dispensation.
So there we are. There is the ugly res
idue left in one’s thinking on this mat
ter, namely why on earth are the high
schools doing such a lousy job, given the
identical raw material? But the invita
tion is not to unfair comparison, rather
to the satisfaction of knowing how, by
relatively small exertions, individual liv
es can be changed. The difference be
tween graduating from high school and
going on to college, and dropping out at
age 15 or 16, can mean the difference
between a lifetime spoiled and a lifetime
consummated. Flanigan recalls that
many affluent New' Yorkers drive right
by the Bronx every day. They have it
within their power to pull an individual
human being aw'ay from the ghetto.
And the problems of New York are,
in this respect, not different from the
problems of other great municipal cen
ters in America.
Copyright 1986, Universal Press Syndicate
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Liberals not
of free speech on campus
Les Csorba III,
executive director
of Accuracy in
Academia, in the
Aug. 9 Human
Events claims that
radical liberals
have overrun col
lege campuses and
are suppressing
speakers’ right to
free speech.
Csorba quotes
Loren Steffy
Dr. Sidney Hook of the Hoover Institu
tion, who says that there is no free
speech on many campuses for anyone
who expresses views contrary to the “mi
litant minority.” He also refers to Secre
tary of Education William J. Bennett’s
warning that “Instead of promoting tol
erance, freedom of inquiry and the ac-
quistion of knowledge, campus radicals
nowadays tend to see the university as a
kind of fortress at war with society . . . .”
These statements are not the startling
revelation Csorba makes them out to be.
Nor are such actions limited to militant
minorities.
Texas A&M proves a good example
in refuting the AIA director’s assertion.
In Spring semester 1985, Battalion pho
tographer Tony Casper was physically
assisted by cadets in leaving the Quad
for taking pictures of the Bloody Cross
exercises.
Earlier in the same semester, Stu
dents Working Against Morons in
Power (previously Students Working
Against Many Problems) threatened to
sit on the Memorial Student Center
grass. Thousands of dedicated Aggies
prevented these “radical leftists” from
commiting such an atrocity, but in the
rally that followed, SWAMP essentially
was prevented from voicing its opinions.
When SWAMP members had the mike,
the “audience” was hissing and holler
ing and generally keeping the noise
level above 120 decibels. Hearing what
was being said was impossible.
The only break in the perpetual
droning was when Rep. Joe Barton took
the stand. But Barton, the epitome of
knee-jerk Reaganism, only expressed
the views of the crowd, condemning
SWAMP for its attempted actions. I he
resulting roar of approval only served to
drown out SWAMP’s attempted rebut
tal.
Regardless of political views, these
scenarios are not something A&M
should be proud of, just as Jeane Kirk-
patick and Caspar Weinberger being
harassed at Berkeley and Harvard are
not something those schools should
brag about. If Northwestern University
supports professors who rush the stage
and dump blood on Contra leaders who
have been asked to speak, then it de
serves all the condemnation Bennett,
Hook and Csorba can muster.
But Csorba’s attempt to typecast po
litically active students on campus as
leftist radicals “who erect illegal shan
ties, threaten college administrators, or
ganize pledges of resistance, punch
campus security officers, harass patri
otic student journals and, most notably,
shout down conservative guest lec
turers” is an insult to the integrity of all
college students — liberal or conserva
tive.
To say that the primary college “poli
ticos” are leftist is simply inaccurate.
Numerous studies have found, as would
be expected in Reagan’s America, that a
majority of right-wing conservatives
dominate campus political activity. To
be conservative is not to be inactive.
A&M, known for its ultra-conservatism,
had the highest voter turnout of any col
lege in the nation during the last presi
dential election. Hardly the proper be
havior for a campus that, by Csorba’s
definition, should be a wasteland of po
litical concern.
But suppression of free speech is not
a liberal or conservative atrocity — it is
an act of immature intolerance. It’s
Csorba’s job to blame liberals for all the
wrongdoings on college campuses, but
these incidents can’t be limited to one
political affiliation. Nor can it be said
the suppressors are all “militant” and
radical. Certainly this wasn’t the case at
A&M.
Instead the problem stems from peo
ple who can’t stand to hear speakers
voice contrary opinions on matterstlii
feel strongly about. College shouldk
place for inquiry and acquistion
knowledge, but this can’t happenifon!iR|- a n C h
liberal or only conservative speakersiBhleuter
allowed to air their opinions. Baring <
It takes a balanced dichotomv Institutioi
Batsii
and branc
from stai
Monday I
had quest:
■ “What i
do if som<
Bross th<
opinions for true acquistion of knov
edge to occur. To maintain thisdelicaif
balance, listeners must realize thaitt
eryone has the same right to free sped | X1V ,
be they liberal, conservative orapoi
ical.
Csorba has hit on an important
lem on college campuses, but he
pin this one just on liberals. If speech
going to be free on campuses, stuctaJ
Rep.
Bked, “W
■ill come
■her sta
I The o
public he;
[resentec
Clebur
lexas ir
holding c
Gibson
and professors are going to have toh B-one on
velop greater tolerance for opposing two on b
viewpoints
got be br
te vote i
Loren Steffy is a senior journalism 01* White op
jor and the Opinion Page editor for banking!
The Battalion.
The Battalion
(USPS 045 360)
Member of
l exas Press Association
Southwest Journalism Conference
The Battalion Editorial Board
Michelle Powe, Editor
Loren Steffy, Opinion Page Editor
Scott Sutherland, City Editor
Sue Krenek, News Editor
Ken Sury, Sports Editor
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