Opinion
Monday, April 6,1992
The Battalion
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The Battalion Editorial Board
DOUGLAS PILS, Editor-in-Chief
The
Battalion
BRIDGET HARROW, Managing Editor
BRIAN BONEV, Opinion Editor
JASON MORRIS, Night News Editor
MORGAN JUDAY, Night News Editor
MACK HARRISON, City Editor
KARL STOLLEIS, Photo Editor
SCOTT WUDEL, Sports Editor
ROB NEWBERRY. Lifestyles Editor
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Time trials
Has the extra 20 minutes between classes
helped students out?
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PRO
Ah, the
'tranquility of it
all.
A full 20
minutes to get
from one class to
another is one of
the best things
this University
CON
could have started this semester.
No longer must students literally
run across the huge expanse we know
as the Texas A&M campus to make it
to their classes. They can adhere to a
CREATION; E more leisurely pace, gingerly strolling
iforswimne to their next lecture or lab without
:kleballdotiilt fearing they will be late. They can
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stop for a minute or two to chat with a
friend or classmate. They can pause
briefly to notice the beauty of the
campus. They actually have time to
use the bathroom.
Yet, some students hate the new 20-
minute break. They say it screws up
their schedules. They say the meeting
times, 10:20 a.m. for example, confuse
them. They want to go back to the old,
hurried system of 10 minutes between
classes. They don't like having to sit
for 20 minutes if they have two classes
in the same building.
First of all, as college students, we
should be able to figure out a time
schedule even though the classes may
not all start at the top of the hour.
Secondly, some of your fellow
students really need the time.
Think of all the students who have
physical educatior^lasses. With only
a 10-minute break, they sometimes
had to skip showers or sprint to make
their next class. They had to sit
through class sweaty, sticky and
smelly. Those who had the misfortune
of sitting next to them had to sit
through class with them being sweaty,
sticky and smelly.
Also, some faculty just don't get it.
They think a SOfminute class means
they can keep their students
anywhere from 30 minutes to a full
hour. They have no concept that their
students must attend a second class
immediately following the first. They
have no concept that students are
taking classes other than the one that
faculty member teaches.
If I didn't have 20 minutes to make
it to one of my classes. I'd be tardy
everyday because the professor in the
previous class continually keeps us
three or four minutes late.
And on a personal note, I enjoy
having time to spend talking to my
friends. It's rather rude to converse
during class, but with 20 minutes, I
can talk about school, life and
romance without feeling a huge
burden to dash to my next class.
Think of the increase in tardies we
would have if we went back to the 10-
minute-break system. There are far
too many as it is. They disrupt class,
break everyone's concentration and
interrupt the teacher. We certainly
don't need more of them.
Give everyone a break — a 20-
minute break. Life doesn't go by so
fast that we need to speed to class.
Boney is a senior
education major
I remember
way back in junior
high school, when
I had a quaint
little three
minutes to pass
from class to class.
Students balked at
the administration
because we thought we didn't have
time to make it to class at a comfortable
pace.
Granted, most of us were just
walking from room 102 to room 103
right across the hall. What we were
really complaining about was the fact
that we didn't have time to lolly gag in
the hall and hold meaningless junior
high conversations with our friends
about the guy or girl we liked.
Reluctantly, the administration
granted us whiny kids the luxury of a
full five minutes to get from class to
class.
With the addition of two minutes to
our time between classes came an
addition of approximately 30 minutes
added to the end of our school day.
Needless to say, the students balked
once more.
The administration just laughed
and told us to deal with it.
Now, we're in college and we've
gotten what we asked for, 20 minutes
to pass from class to class.
Most of the students feel that this
was one of the most ingenious things
that the administration could have
employed.
But, others of us balk at this waste of
valuable time.
Sure, it allows us to get to class at a
time that is prescribed to us in the
schedules, but if you notice, there are a
great many of us that still seem to run
late.
Those of you that consistently run
late to class, even with 20 minutes to
get there, it might be smart of you to
consider attending a more compact
university.
I think a number of questions can be
raised about the need of 20 minutes to
get to class, not to mention questions
about the disadvantages of a full 20
minutes.
Have you ever wondered how many
classes were destroyed just so that we
could have 20 minutes to arrive to our
class and sit?
The budget has already cut the
number of sections available. Why
can't we get our lazy tail ends to
moving and get to class in 10 minutes?
Not only did they probably cut
classes, they probably extended
evening classes which is really a pain. I
can say this because I have one.
For those of you that have a physical
education class, you have the
opportunity to plan your schedule
before registering, allowing extra time
afterwards for showering and
changing clothes. If you can't help but
schedule a class after athletics, let the
person next to you in class deal with
the sweat; you're not in class to snag a
husband or wife anyway, right?
Deal with it!
Williams is a sophomore
journalism major
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JERRY M
BROWN! ii.T
When more becomes less...
Generous politicians fail to address America's education crisis
Count on a politician . . . when you
care enough to spend the very best.
My cute little statement, though of
questionable grammatical accuracy,
serves two very important purposes.
First, it shamelessly mimics the slogan
of a national greeting card company.
Secondly, it summarizes in a few
words the perception in the halls of
our various
legislatures that
one must be
busily throwing
money at a
problem in order
to prove one's
concern about it.
The more money,
the more
Jason
toughman
concern; no more
money, no
concern at all. In
the lingo of these
odd people, the
question "How much have you spent
on [the environment, the homeless,
AIDS, etc.]" means the same thing as
"What have you done for [the
environment, the homeless, AIDS,
etc.]." This is an expensive fallacy. It is
also especially true in the area of
education.
It is a well-known fact that the
education of America's youth has
been in steady decline. Hordes of
researchers have done countless
studies for endless numbers of
commissions which all lend
substantive support to this idea.
Today's American students have not
mastered the skills that their parents
learned, and they cannot compete
with students from other
industrialized nations such as Japan
and Germany.
Naturally, the conventional
wisdom holds that our problem lies in
funding for our nation's schools —
namely that we are not spending
enough. It is quite popular for
politicians to lament the lack of
money allocated to our institutions of
learning and to assure their
constituents that they will reverse the
downward trend in student
achievement by spending more. In
fact, this would amount to gross
mismanagement of our tax dollars.
This spending has already
increased greatly. According to Ralph
Scott, author of a 1984 article on the
education system, public funding for
education increased 800 percent from
1957 to 1977. In the eighties, despite
the Reagan reputation for crippling
our domestic programs. Department
of Education spending increased 12
percent in inflation-adjusted dollars
between 1980 and 1989. Here in Texas,
education budget increases amounted
to 89 percent between 1970 and 1980,
and 33 percent between 1980 and
1985, after adjustments for inflation.
The logic behind throwingTTiis
money around is utterly defied by the
facts. The additional money failed to
achieve the desired improvements. In
Bill Norris' "School System Failing to
Provide 'Bang for Bucks'", he assesses
comments of the National Council on
Competitiveness. "Its report says
bluntly that despite record spending,
America is getting a diminishing
return on its investment in
education..."
A frequently cited measure of the
performance of our schools is the use
of average Scholastic Aptitude Test
scores obtained by high school
students each year. A look over these
figures proves sobering. They show
rapid and substantial drops in the
early 1970's followed by a long period
of further declines or near-stagnation.
It would not be unreasonable to ask
where our money has gone and to
what ends it has been spent. It has
been spent on bureaucracy. It has
been spent on refurbishing offices for
administration and for counselors and
for those who do not teach. It has been
spent on AstroTurf and on new
football stadiums. It has been spent on
textbooks with shiny new covers and
little else that is new in between them.
It has even been stolen.
A Houston paper last Thursday
reported that "investigators have
uncovered 'a long pattern of misuse of
public funds'" in the Houston
Independent School District,
according to superintendent Frank
Petruzielo. It seems that employees of
HISD have been engaged in
widespread abuses, including
falsifying time sheets,
misappropriating funds and stealing
materials. The district was unable to
maintain any oversight over its own
resources. It is probable, however,
that they will have little problem
telling district residents of the need
for a property tax increase sometime
in the near future.
Just as important as what the
money has been spent on is what the
money has not been spent on. It has
not been spent on hiring enough
teachers to make meaningful
improvements in teacher-pupil ratios.
It has not been spent for the kind of
teacher pay raises that will attract the
best and the brightest to the
profession and keep them there.
If there is anyone reading this that
now expects to see written on this
page the comprehensive prescription
for our ailing public schools, some
quick solution, look no further. It isn't
here.
The problem likely involves a
complex set of factors which others
can more successfully pretend to
understand. If, however, those in
power can be made to realize that it is
not for lack of a few dollars that the
system suffers, perhaps those factors
can be addressed. In the meantime,
though, it would be the height of folly
to measure our commitment to the
cause by our property tax rates, and
because of our delusions, unwittingly
rob our students of the educations
they deserve.
Loughman is a senior
journalism major
Rape victim
recalls pain
My sincerest thanks to Brian Boney
for his exceptionally sensitive article
"For Cindy," which accurately touches
on the effects of rape on a woman's life.
I know because I was raped just before
spring break by an unknown assailant.
Indeed, we do "throw the word 'rape'
around casually"; we are all aware of
what it is, but not necessarily what it
means to a rape survivor and those in
her community. Long after the outward
"understanding" of others wears off,
the crime lingers, as it will to an extent
for a lifetime. I cannot adequately
describe how a rape can shatter one's
world — living with the fear of
someone I never even saw but who is
free to strike again; never feeling safe
even in groups; disgust, anger, and
humiliation at being violated; and, yes,
utter disbelief at society's indifference.
As Boney points out, the rapist takes
something away from his "victim" that
can never be regained and leaves in its
place indescribable pain.
We all know it happens. But take it
from me — rape doesn't happen only
to those who 'ask for it," it is not
exclusive to women whose dates have
had a little too much to drink, or to
those who roam dark alleys alone in the
middle of the night — RAPE DOES
NOT DISCRIMINATE. (I was raped at
6 a.m. inside a church building in
which I felt perfectly safe.) Admittedly,
one can never fully relate to rape
without actually experiencing it.
However, one can acknowledge that its
effects are devastating and try to
respond with sensitivity toward the
survivor, not to mention outrage at the
rapist. The fact that it happens all too
frequently does not justify a blase
attitude. Furthermore, the rapist should
be persecuted, not the "victim." Rape
happens not just to the "victim" but to
all of us, and it should not be tolerated!
L.S.(name withheld at writer's request)
Class of'92
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