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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 20, 1976)
daily RcbrcJcan merely, September 20, 1970 tmmmmMmmmmmmmmmmmmmmMm v T: i js mm mm w w , j UNO regent guilty of bad judgment The University of Nebraska st Omaha (UNO) Appeals Ecard is expected to annennce today whether UNO's student government president and regent should remain cn the disciplinary proha ticn vice chancellor Deer imposed upon him last month. The charge is that Steve Shovers seriously vio lated policies pertaining to the privacy of personal records. In the process. Beer claims, Shovers de fied instructions of a UNO secretary. There is no question that Shovers looked into at least one file in the Secondary Education Dept. office. Shovers admits to looking at his G3e If, indeed, all he looked at was his tie, Shovers is within his rights legally. The Buckley Amend ment gave students the right to look at their own records. Shovers' unwillingness to wait unto someone authorized the file-opening was the first of several errors in his judgment Now we wouldn't go so far as seme Omaha stu dents and compare the incident to Watergate. However, the aftermath of the episode reminds us of another ill-handled scandal a few months ago. Wayne Hays escaladed his problems by lying when accused. Shovers' credibility (and thus his arguments in the case) are weakened because he lied when first asked by the Daily Nebraskan on Sept. 8 about his probation. Shovers denied knowing anything about it He went so far as to say "This is the first Fve heard about it," and went on to imply that Beer had lied when he told the Daily Nebraskan Shovers was on probation. Shovers" reason for lying? He told the Daily Nebraskan two days later he wanted time to form a complete public statement about the incident" If he was not prepared to comment, why not I : 7 - v4i, i K " . .s- f rmwr m h a M t 1 mim v .T 94 I -V f f. .1 say so in the first place? As it is, a student regent lied to students through the student newspaper. Or maybe he is not concerned with what students on this campus think of UNO's representative? i Ve are in no position to say whether Shovers violated any UNO rules by looking at whatever files he did. But we could be more sympathetic about any mistake he may have made if he had told the truth instead of acting as if there is some thing to hide. Co SB education v irf 'uoliy mytl By Nicholas Von Hoflman Eackto-schocl time again. In some places the mer chants 2re offering appropriate specMs in steel helmets and earplugs. Kansas Sen. Robert Ucla is contributing to the clatter by calling his vice presidential opponent Mr. Easing, and everyone aspiring to elective office is calling for a return to local control of the schools. Better to call for it than to discuss it and run the danger of explaining to the voters that their local school boards lost effective control over educational policy long before the judges got it in their heads that a kid learns to read faster on a mov ing bus than in a stationary classroom. Their unpopularity aside, the reason the UJS. Department of Health, Edu cation and Velfare (HEW) guidelines on sexual and racial discrimination have come to symbolize outsMe interfer ence is that they are visible while the ordinary mechanics cf outside, centralized control aren't policy control of the school than the means by which the pspHs are carried to their places of inructian. School beards have the power to iachds cr exchsde sex eda-. catkin from the curriculum but thsy have no say-so over the core subjects. From Maine to California the same subjects are taught the ssms wzy Standardization of cuirict&za fallows aomatisa!!y rrcm the introductisn of standardized testiag. AsccHsgss : and other users of high school gradasits have insisted on basing their judnents of peopla on test scores school systems have had to adjust their course content to he!? ; their pupils score high on the tsss.Thus tests, which were : ence thought of as a way to verify whether a student had mastered wnat r-;3 scnoci nopesi to tsacn t, cssf nata ths rusctbn of irssrrirg catfensl uaifbrrity. ,- . Any school fccara taat elects to try a Cuisrent way wculi Mad its piHi wouH be barred frcsn cs&s, frcn tha unionized crafts and from a rauada cf csrtifkaiad technical occupations. When the right mix of outside forces come together our independent school systems change with such speed and identical precision they might as well be run by a Minister of Education. That's what happened in the late '50s with the introduction of the New Math. Within five years the entire program of instruction was developed, tested and slammed into school systems across the country. Ythatever the pedagogical result, it was an achievement in centralization to write and publish the text books and guides as well as train the teachers in such a short length of time. The money for this endeavor came from the fed eral government but percolated through institutions such as the National Science Foundation so that it didn't &s though Yashtagton were dictating. Washington seldom dictates. It prefers moneyed per suasion. Thus s generation of math teachers were taught to gwe up what they knew and to try an entirely different kind of sySa'rja by paying them to attend saamer ssmiaars in plsassnt places to kara how to teach the new la.fc . .... The do-ix-er-chs methods used to get compliance on racM ; matters isnt ths usnal style employed by the pofaty-haadad bureaa-clsa In IIETi's OHlce of Edaaatlan. Ths csw math wasnH fcrced, it was said as a way of cstchss lip with ths Russians who were suiraasfid fe K r fsns aasan of us m space with thai vocations, and for those who didn't there was the Select ive Service and two wasted years on guard duty. The catch was that the calculus was wrong; the Russssns weren't ahead of us and, worse, the need for people pushed into a number of these occupations was grossly overstated. It is these excess teachers and engineers who have had to take pay cuts and demotions in this recessionary period. You might say they are might say they are the unintended victims of centralized school planning that went a cropper. Even if they hadnt been pushed and lured into super fluous occupations they might be out of work anyway. Eat if they hadnt been conscripted into the Cold War battalions, they could at least tell themselves it was they who picked the wrong careers, not the manpower planners slcfevfss Cf S5!tRi That whole ccrisd saw school smtsrss evnnr?:n i Arasrica vchsntear to fJit the Ccli War by prodadag teachers, sdaatis, engineers and other personnel who were to be ths indpensatls front-line troops in ths strep's. " mi i it m it im'mmim mm T h m an rrnl - ataxia to youths who sad up far catksnal dsfaaas odon ' rr" gcyr -tz?j ' " j-22! - I V f. 2j l I nT'TT j rack's M r i and the disrinnahed' but fcansfhls members of ths hii lsrel ccmnnaslons and cossnlttees that rns the policy reccanmendaUons on saah matters."- : Since 1972 and our economic" problems, nsilosl edu cational pc&y has bean moving in very different direct ians. No mere hysterical cries for mere engineers and physkists. Now ths money and ths parsaaainn is going into vocational edacatfcn, into guMlag young people into service, craft and bw-kvd tachskal occir?atians far which, we're now tcld, there wO bs an abking need, people are runnir arcssd gMr ta2a syiag cc!!ra fcnt what it's cracked cp to be, and that, contrary toTerary thiag xsaricans have been, told for gtnerations, a Hi daeant guarantee its possessor a better job and a har macme. .. . Agam, within a rshlhtly short space cf time, wehava acaw natbnal edaaatbnal pclky. Sines wsVe no mors ta to predict ths labor maet in 1976 than ws wars in 19S5 whan we wars proiacieg unneaaasry cs-lnaars, ths sicy is a hiy qaass-bls ens. Its q-h and wiis atance, however, sanas to aha haw Dtb ra!icy control Icaal sahod boaa ccntiraa to hire. Thair tab is to front far daaisoas cads c&whart to try to sriaaas ct more ravanas, and t!ao to coasiaaee the taxpayers tal : thoss Abates ataa ths cclars cf the hi scol cana naiianna ars what is rnaant by ccsnrsadccn tra.ad edaaatn. . 4 i