4A
Monday, September 16, 1996
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VIEWPOINT
Budget cuts in Congress should spare education
Congress doled out nearly $299 million to college campuses for research in 1996. That number is down from the $600 million earmarked for education last fiscal year, $561 million in 1994,and $763 million in 1993, according to the Associated Press.
These educational programs cut to reduce the deficit include some questionable programs, such as the $1.5 million used by five universities for the research of diseases in oysters. However, many programs, the values of which are educationally priceless, were cut as well.
Congress is making a powerful but positive statement by taking steps to lower the national debt, which now hovers around $5.2 trillion. However, cutting educational opportunities for our nation's youth is not an appropriate answer to this still-growing problem.
If Congress wants so desperately to slim the budget deficit while maintaining a high level of national employment, how about building one less stealth bomber? That small slice from the military would make much needed room for growth in educational support.
The members of Congress, the vast majority being beneficiaries of higher education, should not deny our nation's youth the same opportunities.
Reducing money available to colleges by half in the course of one fiscal year robs higher education of needed support. It does give Congress, however, material for election-year politics.
The national debt will not erase itself. Budget cuts must be made for the country to remain economically viable.
Because the budget demands such immediate attention of the members of the federal government, surely it is worthwhile to find a better place to trim the fat than from the minds of our future leaders.
ROBERT FLYNN FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Phony scholarship services deceive students and parents
The price of a high-quality college education levies a heavy burden of debt on many students. Students are looking for ways to pay for tuition and fees, and the Internet is a useful tool that provides leads to financial benefits.
However, recent allegations reveal that the Internet may be used to foster the trickery of greedy scholarship search services to pick students' pockets while promising false results.
In an interview published in the Lawrence JournalWorld, Mark Kantrowitz,a financial aid expert, estimated that nearly 300,000 students and parents have succumbed to the illusion of financial aid grandeur offered by hundreds of phony scholarship services.
These services charge as much as $50 for an empty guarantee that students will find scholarships or financial aid. Last month, the Federal Trade Commission filed charges against five companies accused of swindling $10 million from students and their families.
The commission also has alerted students to beware of scholarship search services on the Internet that charge a fee and then guarantee money. Kantrowitz said, "If you have to pay money to get money, it might be a scam."
a scam. If students have fallen victim to a scam, the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators fields complaints and relays them to the trade commission, which can take legal action.
Scholarship scam services may have succeeded in the past, but students can help themselves by getting information about scholarship search companies before investing.
For further financial aid information, students can access the Internet Financial Aid Information Page at http://www.finaid.org
NICK ZALLER FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
KANSAN STAFF
AMANDA TRAUGHBER
Editor
CRAIG LANG
Managing editor
MATT HOOD
Associate managing editor for design
KIMBERLY CRABTREE
CHARITY JEFFRIES
News editors
DARCI L. McLAIN
SARA ROSE
Public relations directors
campus ... Suannaa Llof
... Jason Stratt
... Amy MeVey
Editorial ... John Collar
Features ... Nicole Kennedy
sports ... Adam Ward
sport ... Bill Petulla
Academic sports ... Carlyn Foster
On-line on-line ... David L. Teaska
Photo ... Rich Devinell
Graphics ... Rich Maucer
Andy Rohrbach
Special sections ... Amy MeVey
Debbie Staline
KAREN GERSCH
Business manager
HEALY SMART
Retail sales manager
TOM EBLEN
General manager, news adviser
JAY STEINER
Sales and marketing adviser
JUSTIN KNUPP
Technology coordinator
Business Staff
Campus mgr ... Mark Ozmek
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Jeff MacNelly/ CHICAGO TRIBUNE
Parents, not the village should raise our children
I live in Amini Scholarship Hall, which means that I walk out the front door every morning listening to the children of the Hilltop Child Development Center playing on the playground across the street. And more than once, I've heard that sound and daydreamed about some day when maybe I'll have a few rugrats of my own, careening around the front yard, laughing and shouting.
Perhaps I'm suffering from premature old age, but the idea sounds kind of nice — to settle down with that warm, caring someone who has seen fewer than three episodes of Friends and will be proud of our future Jayhawks. Yes, parenthood must be great.
But recently, I've become less certain of the possibility of that dream. It seems the majority of educators, politicians, bureaucrats and psychologists want to raise my children for me. Hillary Clinton's much-debated book, It Takes A Village, sends the message, "Parents, it's nothing personal, but you just can't raise your children. Why don't you let those of us with power, experience and social science degrees handle it? Just make sure Susie and Jimmy get their diapers changed, and get them off to school. We can handle the rest; after all, we're the government."
This prospect calls to mind the words of the Biblical prophet Jeremiah — something about sacrificing our children to shameful gods — quite an accurate depiction of America today, where we lay our sons and daughters on the altar of modern culture and say, "We are not worthy." Voluntarily giving the government control of our children is like
STAFF COLUMNIST
trusting a fox to guard the henhouse.
The scenario is scary because we've read about it. Remember high school English and George Orwell's 1984? Or maybe modern European history and a man by the name of Adolf Hitler? Totalitarian control of a nation is possible!
As for me, I plan to be involved deeply in my children's upbringing. I'm not going to let the social scientists tell me how to raise them. I'm not going to let them become wards of the state. I am going to make sure they learn about what is important in life, which doesn't include "values clarification" or "tolerance education." To Hillary and the rest of the educators who want to raise my children, I have one unequivocal response: You can keep your village. I'm keeping my children.
only when the children are removed from the influence of their parents. Why do you think the Hitler Youth movement was started? J.F. Baldwin's ian more vividly illustrates the end product of Clinton's "village" mentality — children forbidden to see their parents, their upbringing conducted by government-trained daycare/education authorities. That is not the kind of world in which I would want to live.
But it isn't only the first lady propagating such a system. Education authorities — often called "educators" — insist every year on more personal programs in public schools. Sex education was the first step. Now abortion counseling, emotional evaluation and social-skills training fall under the umbrella of a well-rounded education. Parents are losing territory at an alarming rate.
To make sure no children escape, educates do all they can to make sure more attend public schools. By harshly regulating home schooling and, in many cases, even private schooling, politicians attempt to
funnel more fresh product into U.S. schools. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer has made it clear that he does not support a parent's right to play a part in her child's education.
Andy Rohrback is an Andover sophomore in Journalism.
Some of the brightest, friendliest and hardest-working people I know are the products of home schooling. Ask their supervisors at work — they will tell you that these people are dependable and positive. They help to settle disputes between co-workers and provide leadership. Rumors that home-schooled children have no social skills are at best extreme examples.
Public school is a fine idea when kept in its place; after all, I attended 12 years of public school and still can think freely. But when the public school becomes a center for psychological testing and indoctrination, something is wrong. And the idea that government-trained and certified teachers are the only people qualified to educate children is nothing more than a gigantic play for power, one that even Joseph Stalin would find impressive.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Health center handout may harm self-esteem
I am writing to the Kansan to draw attention to what I see as a potentially harmful oversight during this year's Watkins Health Fair. For the most part, I was pleased with the knowledge that I received at the fair and I am thankful to the Watkins staff for answering my questions.
chart our progress toward fitness because it is a more accurate way to measure weight loss than a bathroom scale (not all weight lost is healthily lost). So having this tool of measurement available to students is very helpful, especially during this time of harmful fad diets and diseases such as anorexia and bulimia.
My concern stems from the worksheet that I received when I participated in the Body Fat Percentage workshop. Knowing your body fat percentage also can be helpful for those of us trying to
My problem with the workshop is the worksheet that was distributed to the participants explaining their body fat percentage. Under the heading of Image characteristics were listed as follows: skinny, trim, normal, plump, fat.
All of these labels have stigmas attributed to them. All except
normal, and who of us can say what normal is? Are those persons who are not normal considered abnormal? I feel that this oversight could be potentially harmful to the self-image and self-esteem of any number of KU's population.
James A. Para-Cremer Fort Walton Beach, Fla., junior
KUpopulation
Perhaps these words could be exchanged for more medically accurate terms, and in doing so, be more sensitive to the self-image of participants next year. It is important to remember that we are all beautiful in our diverse ways.
Move to city jolts student from security of academia
It's a different life when you're in between. You're not really a graduate or a student, and you don't really have a job, but you're not unemployed. You don't live in Lawrence, but you're not far away.
You might be in between someday, if you're not already. You might struggle to fill out the "occupation" blank on questionnaires.
I couldn't find the strength to
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COLUMNIST
unhand the velvety feel of academe altogether. So I'm letting it go in a gradual, step-down way — one semester of 12 hours, then one of six, then three. I moved from west Lawrence to midtown Kansas City, Mo., effectively demoting school from the main to the other.
But that's probably a good thing.
Metro Kansas City, like a boot camp sergeant, has its own agenda for you, a curriculum, if you will, designed to make you efficient and able to do more with less. It demands time.
I but I routinely watch the rest of the broadcasts and read the other pages.
My feeling of belonging has been galvanized by the Kansas City news media. To KU students, Kansas City television and newspaper reports usually are relevant only to sports
when they report the capture of an alleged rapist, I can say to myself, "They found him just down the street." When a man is gunned down at an ATM, I can say to myself, "I get money there all the time." I sometimes open to the police blotter to see whether those loud noises I heard last night were gun shots.
It's a rare thing when irony so strongly announces itself. And I found this different from the irony I had known at KU, which sprang mainly from the pages of notable authors. But this was my initiation, I suppose, into the cadre of midtowners and, secretly, into that of inbetweens.
This week's unit was irony. My mid-town apartment building has a secure entrance, kind of like Seinfeld's, and an underground parking garage. Secure, off-street parking was important to me because I didn't want my car subjected to the oily menace of street thieves. Monday morning, I walked down to my nice, secure parking spot and found my driver's-side rear window smashed and the interior of my car looted.
The city has wrestled out some of the physical softness I acquired from the natural ambling of college life. The locomotive huff and puff of fire engines and the shrill tones of police cars have taught me to sleep less. My running program has been made fuller by dodging lunges from bums and occasionally high-fiving some of their gregarious peers.
Social skills that were forged by addressing men and women who looked more or less like me are undergoing similar change. Now, when a haggard man asks me, in clipped syllables, where the library is, I can respond with reasonable grace, "I'd like to know that myself."
I'm telling you, it isn't easy to be in between.
These skills the city has taught me don't really translate to KU. So the six to 10 hours a week that I'm on campus have an oddly comfortable feel. The cadence of the city has me a little shaky; and I've been dreaming of those days when I allotted myself 12 hours a semester.
Just yesterday I caught myself stroking a current timetable. I mean, I wasn't doing much, just flipping through the pages.
Scott Worthington is a Kansas City, Mo,
graduate student in Journalism.
HUBIE
By Greg Hardin