Commentary
Oregon Daily Emerald
Thesday, May 10, 2005
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■ In my opinion
Voting and voicing reform
After winning the ASUO Executive
elections in “a fucking landslide” last
month, president-elect Adam Walsh
and vice president-elect Kyla Coy went
immediately about the business of
leadership and reform.
They began soliciting feedback from
student groups and the student body at
large. I just hope they remember they
got their most important feedback on
election night from the voters who put
them in office. The message was, put
simply: “Student government sucks.
Fix it.”
This election was all about ac
countability and responsibility.
Though there were a number of tick
ets in the primary election, one could
break it down into the Ashley Rees
and Jael Anker-Lagos ticket against
everybody else.
Rees-Anker-Lagos had both served
with the ASUO before and cast them
selves as insiders — the ones who
know how to get things done. They
promised their knowledge of and expe
rience with the ASUO would make
them the most effective executives.
All the other tickets campaigned as
outsiders, wearing their lack of ASUO
association as a badge of honor.
In a year when some student lead
ers fancied themselves as “cocky,
smooth, motherfuckers” who could
drink alcohol and smoke marijuana at
an incidental fee-funded trip that was
supposed to be dry, casting oneself as
an ASUO insider may not have been
the smartest political move.
In a year when student leaders
vowed to take “group responsibility”
for the Sunriver incident and then
failed to meet even the meager
GABE BRADLEY
THE WRITING ON THE WALL
requirements of their self-imposed
punishments, voters reasonably ques
tioned whether ASUO insiders can
actually get anything done.
And in a year when the budget
process seized the Constitution and
ran it through a shredder of political
correctness and cheap politicking, the
last thing voters wanted to do was
send student leaders back into office.
The voters clearly called for reform
of student government in this election.
In the primaries, Rees-Anker
Lagos got more votes 'han any other
ticket. But all the other tickets,
which ran on platforms centered
around ASUO reform, comprised a
majority of the votes. It seemed that
those who wanted reform outnum
bered those who wanted the status
quo. They just hadn’t all agreed on
which reformer they wanted.
Walsh-Coy advanced to the gener
al election with Rees-Anker-Lagos. All
the eliminated candidates except one
announced support for Walsh-Coy.
They gave speeches and sent out
Facebook messages on behalf of the
ticket. Those candidates who had
campaigned so hard against each oth
er just days before were now united in
trying to bring about the election of
Walsh-Coy and to defeat business as
usual in the ASUO.
This shows just how seriously these
candidates regarded their reform
agendas. They were willing to invest
their resources and energy even
though they had nothing personally to
gain. Rather than be sore losers, they
put differences aside to advance the
cause of ASUO reform.
The voters had called for reform
and candidates were responding.
Come the general election, with the
support of his former rivals, Walsh
pulled in nearly two-and-a-half times
more votes than he had in the pri
mary, while Rees-Anker-Lagos pulled
in 6 percent fewer.
The self-styled underdogs had de
feated an opponent that had spent
more than twice as much money. It
wasn’t slick campaigning or popularity
that pulled in a victory for Walsh-Coy.
The voters liked the message.
I didn’t get a chance to drop a note
in Adam Walsh’s suggestion box. If I
did, though, it would say, “Remember
how you got here. ” The work of reform
is slow, and Walsh’s term will be over
in one short year.
He needs to hit the ground running
and take seriously the charge that vot
ers have given him. He needs to crack
down on the unprofessional, unstruc
tured and sometimes illegal behavior
of the student government.
And while a well-run student gov
ernment that respects the very laws
it’s elected to administer will probably
provide me with fewer topics for
juicy, angry, scandalous columns, it’s
a sacrifice I’m willing to make.
gabebradley@dailyemerald.com
INBOX
Oregon Opportunity Grant
should be fully funded
Every eligible student should be
guaranteed the right to an education.
It is the principle of democracy and
the beginning of a more prosperous
country and economy.
One available means of an afford
able education in Oregon is the Ore
gon Opportunity Grant, which gives
low-income students access to post
secondary education. It gives students
the money they need to be able to af
ford some aspects of college, includ
ing tuition, food and school books.
Today, thousands of students
statewide do not receive the grant
due to the lack of money funding it.
In addition, the grant only covers 11
percent of the cost of education. It is
time for this to change. We have the
ability to tell our state legislators to
fully fund the Oregon Opportunity
Grant and make it available to all eli
gible students.
This grant can make a difference in
whether a student goes to college or
gets a dead-end job after graduating
(or not graduating) from high school.
As students continually experience
budget cuts, declining services and
higher-than-ever tuition, the Oregon
Opportunity Grant becomes the dif
ference between staying in school and
dropping out. Therefore, Oregon
needs to prioritize access to a higher
education with a simple start: fully
fund the Oregon Opportunity Grant.
Jared Axelrod
Freshman
FOX was not the only
network to turn off Bush
Jennifer McBride’s column last
week (“A plea for pure water,” ODE,
May 4) makes numerous references to
FOX’s decision to cut away from a
primetime speech by President Bush
in favor of airing “The Simple Life.”
While asserting that this “invulnera
ble television channel... (had) made
an excellent comment on the state of
our society,” McBride implies that
FOX was alone in deciding to leave
Bush’s speech early. In fact, contrary
to what McBride strongly suggests,
FOX was not the only network to cut
Bush off mid-sentence. According to
the Drudge Report, CBS and NBC also
abruptly left Bush’s speech to move
onto their regular primetime program
ming (NBC aired “The Apprentice”
while CBS aired “Survivor: Palau”).
Regardless of whether this omission
was a product of poor fact-checking or
political bias, McBride neglected her
responsibility as a journalist when she
went on at length about the signifi
cance of FOX’s broadcast, while failing
to mention even in passing that two of
the other major broadcast networks
had done the same thing.
Miles Church Kane
Eugene
Tuition freeze opens door
to college education
There is talk in Salem of a tuition
freeze, and I am all for it.
Tliition costs are continually
shooting up each year. I come from
a big family in which all the chil
dren’s ages are close together. It is
expensive to raise four kids before
college, and when they hit college it
is nearly impossible.
Increasing tuition is closing the
door of access for many to higher
education. It is pricing students out
of college.
A tuition freeze would be beneficial
to many people, and if we are the fu
ture, our efforts at furthering our edu
cation shouldn’t be hindered by fi
nancial issues.
Molly Dawn Cathcart
Freshman
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■ Editorial
CIM places
a needless
burden on
education
Last week The Emerald reported on an ongo
ing argument over the Certificate of Initial Mas
tery (“High school CIM program faces rejec
tion,” ODE, May 4). Since 1991, the CIM has
served as a way to certify that high school stu
dents meet state requirements in different sub
jects. Passing the CIM is not a state requirement
for graduation.
Both the Oregon Board of Education and the
Oregon House of Representatives find them
selves at what could be a critical turning point
for the CIM. Advocates of the program believe
the CIM provides a good set of standards for
measuring education and that CIM scores
should be widely considered in college admis
sion processes, as well as be mandatory for
high school graduation.
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and parents find little value in the CIM and that
precious money should not be wasted on
educating and administering the tests.
Although creating and meeting standards of
education is important in any school system,
the CIM doesn’t seem to be the best way to
meet educational goals.
CIM curriculum is often far removed from
teachers’ lesson plans. This means when CIM
time rolls around, classrooms must take a break
from carefully crafted lesson plans and instead
concentrate on general facts or skills. Studying
for the CIM becomes a game of memorizing
what may be on the test, rather than a useful,
interactive education. As soon as the test has
been taken, students and teachers go back to a
previous curriculum that is usually unrelated to
any specific CIM standard.
Like Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act, the
CIM represents a drain rather than an improve
ment on the education system. Standardized
testing and goals don’t always make sense for
individual schools and classrooms. For in
stance, a school targeted toward talented and
gifted students could waste time and money re
freshing students’ memory of certain math
equations when normal curriculum concerns
material of a much higher level.
Likewise, students from economically poor
areas often fall behind state standards as a re
sult of a lack in school funding. Tfying to
teach these students CIM material is a waste
of time if their previous education is inade
quate to understand the CIM. Furthermore,
withholding funds from schools that don’t
meet standards (as occurs with the No Child
Left Behind Act) will only perpetuate the cycle
of underprivileged students receiving a
sub-par education and missing out on future
educational opportunities.
Students should not be treated like trained
monkeys, forced to perform particular tasks
when prompted by the state. It doesn’t make
sense for graduation from high school or ad
mission to college to hinge on a one-time per
formance. Surely there are other ways to
measure the success of students, such as GPA
and individual assessments.
Oregon legislators should provide state
schools with the incentive to give students a
well-rounded education, rather than lauding
those institutions that meet a standardized and
arbitrary test.
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