UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN editorials
Unsigned editorials represent the opinion of the Kansan editorial staff. Signed columns represent the views of only the writers.
NOVEMBER 13, 1978
Inflation effort crucial
Chancellor Archie R. Dykes showed the spirit of President Carter's inflation fighting program when he reduced a residence hall increase to meet the president's anti-inflation guidelines.
This action, coupled with a reduction in faculty salary increases from 7.5 to 7 percent for fiscal 1980, shows how the University is trying to help curb inflation.
Although the Chancellor's rate reduction was only $5 less than the proposed increase, the rates now fall within the president's guidelines for prices not to exceed a 6.5 increase in one year.
The faculty salary increase, which is now being weighed by the Kansas Board of Regents, will bring the University salaries into the bounds of the 7 percent guidelines set for wage increases.
Inflation is a tough problem. It will take much more than volunteer guidelines like the president's to curb the inflation spiral.
But the guidelines are the initial step on the long road to beating inflation.
or the king's adviser. The president's volunteer guidelines, whatever their faults, need cooperation from every aspect of the American economy before they have a glimmer of a chance of working.
Sacrifices such as reducing a needed faculty salary increase by 5 percent are not easy to take. But, if the sacrifices are spread through every area of the economy, the benefits of the anti-inflation guidelines—such as the rollback in the residence hall price increases—will become commonplace as inflation eases. Then, it is hoped, smaller increases in salary will be required to offset inflation.
It is heartening to see that the University's compliance with the president's guidelines means more than smaller salary increases. The decrease in residence hall rates, however slight, is welcome, and is as much a part of the overall answer to inflation as reduced salary increases.
When the ballots were counted, the pre-election prognosticators said, the election of 1787 would document the public's disaffection with incumbents, who would be defeated in the spirit of California's Proposition 13, for their profligacy.
The pundits promised a referendum on the role of government. Neopolitian conservatives, they said, would bounce advocates of Big Government from office, leaving a new generation of chastened politicians at the helm.
Predicted voter rancor fizzles out
Incumbents were to be targets for insurrectionist voters.
Incumbents were to be targets for insurrectionist voters. The anger, however, never materialized. There were, to be sure, states where voters thumped tradition, Minnesota, where the Democrats' farmer-labor coalition disintegrated and Republicans captured two previously Democratic seats and the governorship, registered the greatest shock.
Six incumbent senators joined Anderson in defeat. Tax protest measures restricting either taxes or expenditures won in 12 states. The Republicans, the opposition party, supported both proposals in the House of Representatives and six governorships.
AND IN KANSAX, Gov. Robert Bennett, a Republican incumbent, failed in a close contest with Democrat John Carlin, who presented himself as a fiscal conservative. Rep. Kim Burke, lost her seat to Reaganite Rep. Jim Jeffries.
Those predicting revolution by ballast will assemble such results and marvel at their own cluovrity. But overall the evidence is less convincing.
the election of 1978 went to the incumbents.
That, of course, is nothing new. Incumbency remains a powerful tool in election. But this year was supposed to be the anti-incumbent election and some analysts persist in reading it that way.
Here's what really happened:
Seven incumbent senators were defeated Tuesday, but 13 women won re-election, including Baker of Tennessee. Percy of Illinois, Town of Texas, Numer of Georgia, Hudson of North Carolina, Harrison of South Carolina and Hein of Northern Carolina.
IF 20 NEW members give the Senate a new look in
Rick Alm
January, it will be because of deaths and retirements that took away such stalwarts as Allen and Sparkman of Alabama and Eastland of Mississippi. Voters returned the Senate establishment virtually intact.
At least four of the incumbents were defeated for reasons other than an upset electorate. Liberal Republican Sen, Edward Brooks of Massachusetts lost because he led about his finances in his messy divorce case.
Anderson's loss in Minnesota can be attributed to resentment over the deal that made him senator. He resigned as governor in 1976; then his successor appointed him to replace Vice President Walter Mondale—a maneuver tried eight times before. Only one of the eight senators won the next election.
Sen. Robert Griffin, a second-term Republican, lost votes by waffling on his retirement plans. Maine Sen. William D. Hathaway, a Democrat, was beaten by a more attractive William F. William S. Colen, a star from the Watergate hearings.
But dismiss these factors, if you will, and the primary defenses of Sen. Clifford Case, R-N.J., and Paul Haffield, D-Mont to the list. It still does not add up to a massive rejection of the existing government.
Nine senators were swept out, the same number as in 1976.
**VOTING FOR THE House resulted in a rousing affirmation of incumbency. Only 19 incumbents were defeated; 358 of the 435 members were returned to office. There were 38 with no incumbent. In 1976, 98 incumbents won reelection.**
Voters overlooked feet of day. Eight incumbents tainted with misdeeds run for re-election; five of them won, including Rep. Charles C. Diggs, D-Mich., who was convicted last month of using $60,000 in staff salaries for paying
personal and office expenses. Four of the five re-elected
erred in their official duties.
Inroads by the virulently anti-spending New Right were modest. Seven of the 38 House members and three of five senators they targeted for defeat lost, including Keys. but survivors included Sens. Walter Huddleton, D-Ky., and Jenkins Ramlholt, D-Wa, and Reps. Udall of Arizona, and Colorado, Aspin of Wisconsin and MIKA of Illinois.
And the 12 tax protest referendaers that passed were offset, partially at least, by four states in which such measures failed. Oregon defeated two anti-spend campaigns and supported three taxes; taxes, and spending cellulitis in Colorado and Nebraska.
THEN the naitwoody voter rebellion ends as flat as the victory champagne drunk by most incumbents last week. The government will have a familiar look after January oaths of office.
Although most of the faces will be the same, the philosophy behind them figures to emerge more conservative, reflecting what politicians regard as a new national mood.
The swing toward conservatism was established in jockeying before the election, when even the Democrats repudiated what they have stood for since the New Deal and became more liberal, and limits on spending, traditionally Republican issues.
Everywhere incumbents proclaimed a new faith
California's gov. Jerry Brown, a presidential possibility after a landslide victory, typified the Democrats' new thrust by reversing on Proposition 13 and campaigning for lean, autoregulation government.
By stealing the anti-government issue, Democrats, in effect, ran the Republicans' campaign—and whitted Republican gains. The GOP showing was one of the poorest for a party out of power in the modern history of mid-term
With peculiar perseverance, then, incumbents of both parties ran against themselves. And they won. But it remains to be seen whether they return to office chastened and changed men.
Public schools need guidance and control
By JOHN C. SAWHILL N.V.Times Features
NEW YORK—Our public schools have failed to achieve what we have asked of them.
In the 1950s, we expected our schools to achieve racial harmony. In the 1960s, we insisted that they restore social order.
And now in the 1970s, we ask them to help the ch. search for self and distract him from attempts to reduce his school to rubble.
The results of this prolonged effort to effect social change through our schools are clear: illiteracy, drug abuse, crime, teenage pregnancy and an appalling ignorance among our young. In short, failure.
What we most want from our schools is education. If we are to rehabilitate them, we must recognize some basic truths that suggest how our schools get to be the way they are, and how we can begin to change them.
With the possible exception of one-to-one teaching, virtually all of our theories about productive instruction have not held up.
Schools are asked to do too much. Hacial, economic and sexual inequalities, malnutrition, unemployment, crime and postbusing are all problems of pressing concern.
But they are tangential to the learning process. While education can enhance the individual's ability to cope with, and even to change, the conditions of life around him, it cannot, in and of itself, make them better.
What is good for the teacher is not always good for the pupil. By the teachers' own standards, they never are paid or supported than they are today.
The professional-to-student ratio of 1- to 30 in 1955 had dropped to 1- to 20 by 1976.
Class size, school size, teachers' experience, teachers' salaries, teachers' races, per student expenditures—all have been scrutinized closely and none correlates consistently with student achievement on standardized tests.
There had been a substantial increase in time spent by teachers outside the classroom for course preparation and professional development, students can perform dismally.
Students cannot learn what they are not taught. Many of our children cannot read, write or do arithmetic, much less use the sciences, the arts and philosophy.
The implementation of minimum competency standards—requiring a specific level of achievement in certain areas—has contributed to the decline in student performance. In states with poor academic conditions, schools often set these standards so low as to be meaningless.
The growth of electives in our high schools has also diminished performance.
The way we finance public education is discriminatory and contributes to the chase in the schools.
The financing of public schools in most localities has been linked to the taxable value of private property.
Property-poor localities thus must tax themselves at a higher rate than their property-rich neighbors to generate the same number of tax dollars. Another example is the funding on a formula basis for supplemental, compensatory services to schools with high concentrations of low-income children. Since 1965 our government has spent more than the amount for this partnership in the results we see, our money has been wasted.
someone must be in charge. It is in the schools that the real business of education takes place.
Yet the responsibility for making decisions, controlling resources and implementing programs has been taken away from principals and teachers and dispersed throughout the educational system to a school system all the way to Washington.
Acceptance of these six realities of our public school system suggests some directions to pursue.
We must determine which are truly the schools' concerns and which lie more properly elsewhere.
We must discard wrong notions about what makes an effective learning experience.
We must strengthen basic academic curricula.
Our schools have a profound impact on the quality of all of our lives. We need to take control of them, watch over them and nurture them if they are to be set
We must determine how our resources should be spent to get the best teaching.
We must revise the way our schools are funded.
John C. Sawhill is president of New York University.
And we must return the management of schools to those most directly involved.
--you, many scientific articles claim that floride reduces tooth decay.
To the editor:
Scientific facts point to danger of fluoridation
Re: the new book "Fluoridation: The Ghost Dilatermma," by George L. Waldhoff.
*The New York Times*
The difficulties of reporting an interview accurately are evident in the article by Ron Bain in the Nov. 9. Kansan. Although major points in the article describing symptoms of the chronic fluoride toxicity syndrome are accurate—fatigue, headaches, excessive thirst and urination, and gastrointestinal irritation, these symptoms can be distinguished and aches and pains in joints and muscles—one statement attributed to me is inaccurate.
As the proponents of fluoridation will tell
In our book, however, we question that "evidence" with extensive scientific research documentation. The point is that the arguments for lasting benefits to teeth are highly suspect, even if proponent literature means anything.
For example, based on official data the
homologated (fluoridated) = King
(pandulithag) and King (pandulithag)
actually showed that after nine years of fluoridating, the fluoridated city had 22 percent more dental defects than the non-fluoridated city, which is still not fluoridated. Mottling also affords many children in fluoridated cities.
Jack Burris' comment that he didn't know who would drink 10 liters of water in a day reveals that he is not aware of the scientific reasons behind it. A typical environment in the South during the summer. However, an "average" amount of water consumed would be about 2 liters, depending on temperature. That is at least four times more than the foundation hypothesis is based.
Whether or not the Lawrence water
supply can be overdosed at the point. (Other water supplies have been.) Even if the fluoride concentration is one part per million, that concentration in artificially-fluoridated communities does cause illness. Scores of articles have been published about fluoride poisoning. Ignorance of these articles is hardly an excuse for denying their existence.
Health officials have persistently denied the grave dangers of the swine flu vaccination program. Indeed, the list of official injuries in the past year is numerous. Many of these errors are detailed in our new book. The truth about fluoridation is that it is dangerous to humans and always helps our book does not stress the importance of scientific facts.
H. Lewis McKinney
Amin's latest notion is a real knockout
Amin, president of Uganda, is always in the news, but sometimes his stunts outdo themselves. Among minor stunts recently was the fact that Amin decided to name his newest child Kagera River, in honor of the current ruler of Tanzania. Little Kagera is the 34th child officially formed by Amin, who probably ran out of names long ago.
Professor of history of science
But that baby's name doesn't even compare with the solution Amin has proposed to end the war between Russia and Iran.
AMIN SAYS, "I am keeping fit so that I can challenge President Nyerere in the boxing ring and fight it there rather than the soldiers lose their lives on the field of battle."
On a slow news day, you can always depend on Idi
Amin for a little excitement.
Armin says the way to settle the war would be for him to take on Julius K. Nyerre, president of Tanzania, in the boxing ring. It doesn't really matter that Nyerre is 56 and Armin 53. For Armin, it's a logical solution to the
Sure, it's a childish way to solve problems, but it makes more sense than some other ways that have been tried. It works well with a lot of them.
spect. He wants heavyweight champ Muhammad Ali as a referee and is willing to give Nyerere a sporting chance by fighting with one arm tied behind his back and his legs shackled with weights.
Nyerere probably won't accept, and that's too bad. This world-class fight could be a trend-setter. The fight undoubtedly would be broadcast on ABC, unless it took place on a Tuesday night, and both countries could end up making a lot of money. How much did Ali make in his last fight with Leon Spinks?
AFTER A WHILE, there would be no need for long.
Ainis has come up with a novel idea. And the possibilities are endless. If diplomatic boxing caught on, Secretary of State Cyrus Cayre could stay in office. But he was expected to turn in his briefcase for a referee's whistle.
drawn out peace talks in the Middle East. A 15-round bet between Israel Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat would gain worldwide attention and settle all the problems, in addition to saving travel expenses for the State Department if she was over, the problem would be over too. Simple enough.
military bases on any military bases left. Why would they be necessary? It's not worth the money of billions that no longer exist in the present era.
HORDES OF soldiers will sit, amid pretzels and beer, around television screens in the military bases, to win victory.
Even the team could cash in on this long awarded problem-solver. Picture Jimmy Carter in one corner wearing red and blue boxing trunks with little white stars. In the opposite corner could be Soviet President Leonid Breznev, wearing red trunks emblazoned with a hammer and sickle.
As a warmup match, maybe Vice President Walter Mondale could fight Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko. Or even a match between People's Republic of China Premier Hu Kuoqiang and Republic of China President Xi Jinping.
would be necessary. The federal government could dk away with the department and create a separate, more cheaply run Department of Boxing. At least all the proposals in California's tax-cutting Proposition 15 be happy.
while every one that a team of referees could be hired from the United Nations. But the United Nations probably wouldn't be around any more if it didn't have wars to contend with.
And what would happen if there was disagreement among the judging team? A boxing match among the referees? No, nobody would pay to see them fight, and a small crowd would take all the sparkle out of the idea.
Idi, your problem has some bugs in it. We're interested, but not unless you give us all the answers. We've got confidence in you, though. You can come up with another intriguing one.
The only problem would be in finding the right referees. All couldn't be expected to officiate all the bouts. And Vance probably wouldn't be acceptable to all fighters, a new ref would have to be trained every election.
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