OPINION
7A
MONDAY MARCH 10 2008
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
>> FROM THE DRAWING BOARD
Max Rinkel
COMMENTARY
Before expelling standardized tests, arguments need to be bubbled in
It seems that after decades of predicating students' futures upon performance and aptitude testing, public school teachers may get their turn.
Brewing in Congress is a measure to amend No Child Left Behind to include performance testing to ascertain whether teachers should receive increases in pay. To help myself wade through this delicacy of an issue, I bought a recent issue of Time that explains this subject
with finesse.
This issue is worthy of debate for high school and college aged students. First, the underlying idea that students have to jump through educational hoops from the ages of 12 through 18 to be deemed "valuable" is made clear. In other words, states constantly evaluate and test pupils with standardized weights, measures and formulas to determine if one is superior, normal or inferior in conjunction with government benchmarks.
These tests ignore what many critics cite as pivotal to student success in high school: Teachers are often omitted as contributing factors to students' successes or lack thereof. Often, teachers en masse like to lay blame on lackluster parents, socioeconomics, senseless bureaucracy and student apathy as reasons for high dropout rates or low college
acceptance rates.
I agree with those parameters as catalysts for failure as well. However, when did it become acceptable for a special interest (read: teachers' unions) to dictate the debate by completely removing any accountability from themselves?
I realize that the entire presuposition of special interest is to argue for the betterment and protection of itself, but I smell something disgenuous here.
Maybe performance testing or measuring would not lead to Armageddon, as some outraged union members would like Congress to believe. Consider this fine institution, the University of Kansas for example. I don't know all the intricate details, but professors, GTAs and TAs undergo a process where feedback is at least possible. Comments can be made regarding the effectiveness of a professor's tests or a course coordinator's tact in arranging a coherent class. Furthermore, if the University were to notice that the Humanities and Western Civilization department and its professors were going way off track, it would act quickly to help correct that situation.
By now, I've come to the conclusion that the secondary public school system remains worlds apart from the post-secondary public school. Yet, I feel I should carry caution with so potent a pronouncement. I support teachers.
After all, it was they who taught me the difference between who and whom, what defines a noble gas and how to prove an equation. In concert with my loving mother, a good majority of my public school teachers and aides inspired me and probably helped mold me into the
college student that I am today.
There remains an idea that still vexes me.
Should I consider my good fortune simply as luck? What about myriad students not so blessed by Lady Fortune to pass by competent and caring teachers?
Therein lies the danger of this debate. It appears rather impossible to overhaul a system that is wrought with so many variables (disproportionate class size, poor salary, student behavior) that lend to teacher attrition.
As for the college kids, the problematic testing days are over, save for the LSAT, GRE and MCAT.
Well, wait a minute, maybe the educational hoops just become so big that they no longer can be seen.
Williams is a Coffeyville Junior in English and pre-law.
COMMENTARY
Party does not recognize Republican principles
BRANDONT. MINSTER
The Republican nomination for president was decided last Tuesday, too early to be swayed by Fridays Wall Street Journal opinion page. A former presidential candidate wrote an opinion piece that rang of individualism and freedom, which made a clear call for trusting average Americans with their own liberty. The article was more conservative than many campaign pronouncements from this year's Republican candidates. In the fight for the mantle of Ronald Reagan, the winner
was definitely the writer of Friday's article. George McGovern.
Yes, the George McGovern who back in 1968 was too crazy of a liberal for most of the Democratic Party, who managed to win the party's nomination in 1972 and lead them to a beating so vicious even rented mules couldn't watch without cringing. He probably won the vote of every one of today's aging hippie KU professors and virtually no votes beyond that. It turns out he is a more principled conservative than any member of the Republican congressional leadership. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.
McGovern wrote last week of "economic paternalism," specifically in terms of proposed subprime mortgage legislation, health insurance requirements and payday lending restrictions. All of these proposals have support from various Republicans. McGovern, meanwhile, seems to have seen the light. "I've come to realize that protecting freedom of choice in our everyday lives is essential to maintaining a healthy civil society." Wher George McGovern is on your political right, you've got to start worrying about falling off the left-hand edge of the world.
The truth is that Republicans don't worry about the size of government anymore. In 1998 when Trent Lott gave the Republican response to Bill Clinton's State of the Union address, he said Clinton's proposed $1.7 trillion budget was evidence that government had become too fat. Eight years later in defense of a pro-
How could the man who was categorized as being for "amnesty, abortion and legalization of pot" by his own vice-presidential nominee out-Reagan the Party of Reagan?
possed $2.8 trillion budget, Lott said there was no more fat left to cut.
The trend has accelerated. Faced with devastating hordes of retiring old people, President Bush has made no change to Social Security and has created a massive prescription drug entitlement. Faced with freespeaking and bribe-offering citizens, John McCain spearheaded campaign speech restrictions to the envy of third world dictators everywhere.
Republicans used to think government should allow citizens to be responsible for themselves. And that might be fine for a theoretical government, but when you've got to get votes, the highways and community centers you brought to your district win more votes than the highways and community centers you turned down.
government is giving out vouchers for television converter boxes, voters are going to make sure they get ten vouchers each.
Voters may pay lip service to personal responsibility, but when the
Now it's fallen to George McGovern to call Republicans to their senses? Pundits wonder if the Republican base will abandon John McCain in November, but the fact is the Republican Party has already abandoned its base. Left with nowhere to go for principled conservatism, Republicans are finding McCain to be the less-palatable of the remaining options. The plotting moderatism of Hillary Clinton, or even the principled liberalism of Barack Obama, is easier to stomach than the plate of dog crap the Republican Party is offering under the billing "Your Favorite Meal."
Minster is a Lawrence senior in economics.
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