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Opinion
The Battalion
*
Page 9 • Tuesday, February 4, 2003
Bush denying children
President to cut $7 billion from No Child Left Behind Act, which he introduced
I t is undeniable in today’s
world that education is the
silver bullet. Receiving a col
lege degree has become the
means for maintaining a good
job, whereas only decades ago, a
high school diploma was the
standard. Yet children in our
country are not receiving an
appropriate secondary-level or
even primary-level education.
This problem calls for attention and aid
from the federal government, but
President George W. Bush and his
administration are not answering the call.
According to The Daily Mississippian,
the budget that will be presented today by
the Bush administration for 2003 includes
a$7 billion cut from the No Child Left
Behind Act, a plan proposed by President
Bush this past year to counter low read
ing proficiency rates of elementary-age
children. If Bush truly believes that no
child should be left behind and
fall short of achieving an accept
able education, he must follow
his words with action. The feder
al government must collaborate
with states, many of which are
scouring to find financial stabili
ty and in turn cutting from edu
cation along the way, as well as
communities to provide adequate
education for our children. The
states obviously cannot handle the task of
educating the youth of our country single-
handedly.
Bush told Congress and the American
people in his Jan. 28-State of the Union
address that “We must work together to
fund only our most important priorities.”
According to The Las Vegas Review
Journal, the president is expected to pro
pose shifting the Head Start program to
the U.S. Department of Education. Head
Start was founded in the early 1970s to
serve the child development needs of pre
school children and their low-income
families. If the program is moved, it is
bound to lose funding and many of its
strong points, including nutrition, vacci
nations, and most importantly,
parent training. Apparently
Bush doesn’t consider these fac
tors priorities. According to the
Head Start Web site, parents of
children involved in the Head Start
program reported positive changes in
their lives concerning their children, an
increase in knowledge of available social
services, and a decrease in negative atti
tudes toward public schools.
Reaching parents is the key to reach
ing the children of America who are not
receiving the education and resources
they need. By giving parents the tools to
raise their children in a well-informed,
nourishing manner, children receive a full
upbringing in which their most important
resource remains their parents. Parents
should not lose their voice in their chil
dren’s early education, but at the same
JOHN DAVID
BLAKLEY
time, parents should have the proper tools
to provide their children with a solid edu
cation. Head Start provides parents with
these tools, but only as long as it is fund
ed by our national government.
According to the Democratic National
Committee Web site. Bush is also propos
ing to freeze federal funding for the
essential program Healthy Start. Healthy
Start works to reduce low birth weight,
inadequate prenatal care, and other fac
tors contributing to infant mortality.
Despite his proposal to discontinue fund
ing of this program, Bush clearly stated
in his State of the Union address his
desire for Congress to pass a resolution to
end what he calls “partial-birth” abor
tions, more properly termed late-term
abortions. These abortions are performed
in the unfortunate circumstances of a
severe brain retardation, brain deforma
tion, or death of the fetus, or when child
birth poses a high risk to the life of the
mother. Bush has made it apparent that
his agenda includes the end of the
woman’s right to choose in general. If an
administration is willing to tell a woman
she does not have the right to decide
whether to have a child, how can that
administration justify cutting a pro
gram such as Healthy Start? Bush’s
administration cannot remain adamant
about restricting a woman’s right to
choose and still be taken seriously unless
it is willing to implement programs that
give mothers the means to provide prena
tal care for their children.
According to the Las Vegas Review
Journal, the cost of Bush’s controversial
stock dividend tax cut alone, a cut which
is inarguably partial to the wealthiest
Americans, could provide comprehen
sive health coverage for all 9.2 million
uninsured American children, and
could provide Head Start for all
unserved eligible pre-schoolers in
need of the services. Clearly, under
Bush’s tax cut proposal, children
will lose the most.
A year ago. President Bush vowed
that no child would be left behind. So
far, his actions and decisions concern
ing the welfare of America’s chil
dren have proven his words
empty and false.
John David Blakley is a freshman
political science major.
Sharpton not fit
to be president
Political disasters define career
A l Sharpton, a man
who has marched
alongside picketers
as they shouted anti-Semitic
epithets, according to Jewish
World Review, has officially
declared he is seeking the
Democratic Nomination for
President in 2004. “Al
who?” some might be ask
ing, but Sharpton is a well-
recognized figure from New York
City whose only agenda is to further
his political influence while paying
lip service to the disenfranchised.
It’s a sad joke that he is aspiring
to hold the same
noble office as
Lincoln, Roosevelt
and Reagan.
The Rev. Al
Sharpton thrust him
self upon America’s
political scene in the
late 1980s with the
case of Tawana
Brawley. Brawley,
according to USA
Today, falsely
claimed to have been kidnapped and
raped by several white assailants as
a teenager. Sharpton was the high
profile adviser to the Brawley fami
ly who even accused prosecutor
Steven Pagones of taking part in the
rape. Pagones successfully sued
Sharpton for defamation, receiving
$65,000 in damages.
Sharpton never retracted the
charges or apologized for his
actions. Al Sharpton, even today,
will not admit that he was wrong
and that his thoughts of being a glo
rious civil rights crusader clouded
his judgment.
The reverend has been an FBI
informant against mobsters, several
black politicians and the
boxing promoter Don King,
according to Newsday. He
was also jailed for 90 days
after trespassing on federal
property during protests of
the U.S. Navy bomb tests on
the Puerto Rican Island of
Vieques. He protested with a
hunger strike, which suppos
edly showed support for the
people of Puerto Rico, but it was
just another headline grabbing
sideshow.
According to the Washington
Post, Sharpton has never held any
public office and is
the first black to seek
the Democratic nomi
nation since Jesse
Jackson in 1984. The
only positive thing
that can be said of
Sharpton running for
president is that he is
a minority face
among a sea of rich
white men.
Africana.com cor
rectly suggests that
Sharpton’s true reason for running for
president is to gain an advantage
within the Democratic Party and to
even displace Jesse Jackson as the top
black power broker.
Compared to great civil rights
activists of the past such as the Rev.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and
Sojourner Truth, Sharpton is a shal
low racial opportunist. The
Democratic Party will have to do
better if it hopes to overcome Bush
in 2004.
Matt Cheshier is a senior
economics major.
MATT
CHESHIER
Ifs a sad joke that
(Al Sharpton) is
aspiring to hold the
same noble offce as
Lincoln, Roosevelt
f f
and Reagan.
MAIL CALL
Battalion coverage
needs work
I find it interesting that the
editors of The Battalion
could not completely put
two articles about a national
tragedy into the paper, yet
they were able to fit a full
article about the Olsen twins
not coming to Texas A&M on
the front page.
If there's a more credible
source of news in Texas, I
haven't found it.
Matt Norman
Class of 2002
Half of The Battalion's front
page articles continue on
page NOWHERE.
Believe it or not, today
(and everyday) is an impor
tant newsday, and this type
of mistake happens fre
quently.
At least once a week, I can
not find the continuation of
at least one article.
It was silly of me to think I
could rely on a daily news
paper to cover this week
end's national tragedy. If
The Battalion is going to
publish a paper, it must do
it correctly.
This isn't a time to put
forth "C" effort on what
should be an "A" paper. I
know you may not get paid
or treated like professionals,
but you never will provided
this is the caliber of product
you deliver.
Aleisha Penrod
Class of 2003
What do a University
President, a Texas Senator
and all the Class Council
Presidents have in common?
They have all had to defend
themselves against a student
publication in the past three
weeks.
I am glad they have written
in, because when I have
turned to the back page in
The Battalion, I have seen
that I am not the only one on
this campus who thinks the
Battalion reports the news
with an inordinate amount
of spin.
Most stories read just fine
without the sensationalism
that is regularly added by
The Battalion's writers.
Please stop publishing a
tabloid and writing it off as a
newspaper.
John Boehm
Class of 2005
First Amendment
also for celebrities
I find irony in reading a col
umn that tells adults simply
because they are famous,
that they should not be pro
tected by the First
Amendment and should just
shut up. The irony is not in
the blatant disregard for our
fundamental rights, but for
the fact that it is coming from
a college student.
The article blasts various
artists for taking a stance
against war with Iraq from
someone who is pandering
to George W. Bush and the
other chicken-hawks in his
administration.
People must stand up for
the rights that were given to
us by the founders of our
country and stop nonsense
like this. From the U.S.A.
Patriot Act to the Total
Information Awareness pro
gram, our civil liberties are
being trampled at the feder
al level, and now we have to
read an article condoning
such egregious injustics.
McCarthyism in The
Battalion, laughable yes, but
obviously this article goes
down that road.
Justin Hill
Class of 2004
Forum nothing
but rhetoric
The TAMU Christian Faculty
Network claims that the pur
pose of their Veritas Forum is
"the pursuit of truth." I attend
ed Dr. Fritz Schaefer's Forum
talk, "The Big Bang, Stephen
Hawking and God," on
Monday night. The talk gave
no evidence of any pursuit of
truth, as least not of any sci
entific truth.
Rather, we were given a
high school-level description
of the Big Bang based on 20
to 50 year old documents
and then treated to quotes
from a half dozen well-
known scientists and a few
lame jokes.
The quotes were taken out
of context so as to suggest
that the quoted scientists
believe in the Christian God,
and it was strongly suggested
that most scientists do. Some
probably do, but not most,
and not Stephen Hawking.
Most scientists believe that
scientific laws work at all
times and in all places. They
don't believe in miracles.
Toward the end of the talk,
Dr. Schaefer got to his real ;
message, the necessity of ;
worshiping God through
Jesus Christ. The selling of the
Jesus message is appropriate
in a Christian church but it is
not appropriate in a public
university lecture. Especially
when it is disguised as a sci
entific talk in the pursuit of
truth.
Bob Presley,
Professor of Oceanography