daily RcbrcJcan
merely, September 20, 1970
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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
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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
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M
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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
