monday, January 15, 1978
daily nebraskan
page 15
Simmons' school criticisms challenged
By B rend a Muskovits
The NU Board of Regents Saturday heard a task force
report supporting the university system's open admissions
policy, but not without comment by Regent Robert
Simmons regarding the American College testing scores of
incoming UNO freshmen.
The Scottsbluff regent criticized the four Omaha area
school districts last week for grade inflation and for
allegedly graduating unqualified students to avoid discrim
ination charges.
Simmons cited the report's table of incoming freshmen
ACT scores at UNO and UNL. It showed that test scores
from UNL enrollees are "below not only the state average
but the national average," he said.
Simmons' accusations were challenged at the meeting
by Task Force Co-chairman Donald Stroh. superintendent
of the Millard school district, one of the four named by
Simmons. Also criticized were the Omaha School District,
District 66 and the Ralston School District.
In a heated discussion that was halted by newly-elected
board chairman Robert Koefoot of Grand Island. Stroh
told Simmons that "a city school like the University of
Nebraska at Omaha serves a different community than
Lincoln."
For instance, Stroh said, someone who takes nine years
to complete a degree by going to school at night "has got
some motivational skills that ACT scores do not bear
out."
ACT scores are "pretty narrow and do not in any way
reflect the quality of education in Nebraska schools,"
Stroh said.
Not all go to college
Simmons asked Stroh whether the Millard schools have
graduated students who were unprepared for college.
Stroh answered that "all of our students don't pass
with the preparation to go to college and they should not.
"Do all students who get a law degree pass the bar
exam?" he countered.
- Simmons, a lawyer, responded, "I wouldn't be bragging
if I knew those scores."
Commission gives
symposium grant
The Old West Regional Commission has approved a
SZO.iOO grant to UNL in support of the university's 1979
Great Plains Symposium .
Merlin Lawson. UNL professor of geography and
program chairman for the symposium, said the sympos
ium will be held March 2-3 at the Nebraska Center for
Continuing Education.
Co-sponsored by the Institute of Agriculture and Nat
ural Resources in cooperation with the Energy Research
and Development Center at UNL, the symposium will
feature more than 30 Great Plains scholars who will pre
sent papers encompassing the past, present and future of
the Great Plains.
Special addresses at the symposium will be given by
Marion Clawson, former president of Resources for the
Future, and Charles Roberts, chief meteorologist of the
U.S. Department of Agriculture.
During the symposium, participants will identify re
sources available in the Great Plains, discuss future
conditions and identify information which will help
policy makers and presidents adapt to future prospects.
Among the topics to be explained will be lessons of the
Dust Bowl, soil and watershed problems, climatic influ
ences, agricultural issues and prospects, water manage
ment issues, energy and environmental problems, demo
graphic characterization of the Great Plains and responses
to social -economic realities.
The symposium will be the third in a series presented
annually under the auspices of the Center for Great Plains
Studies in the UNL College of Arts and Sciences.
The Name in Running for 2400 Years
Welcome Back Students
Lower Level. Atrium 475-7891
Q .cfofrirts?
KIN ICO?
330 N. 13th
Half Block From
Love Library
Phone 475-C0PY
The regents voted in November not to release the
names of those Omaha area high schools whose students
needed remedial help at UNO.
Simmons consistently has opposed any remedial
courses at the university, while maintaining the univer
sity's open admissions policy.
"I hope this board doesn't adopt Mr. Stroh 's attitude
that the University of Nebraska at Omaha is a kind of
garbage bag," Simmons later said. "I hope we don't
assume the Omaha campus is a different quality institut
ion." Simmons asked UNO officials to respond to his accusa
tions later in the meeting.
UNO Chancellor Del Weber said UNO students are
older and have lower incomes than UNL students.
"There is a correlation between age and ACT scores.
The re is also a correlation between income and ACT
scores," Weber said, noting that the test's developers
scknowledge those differences.
Different kinds of students
UNO's students tend to be more vocationally oriented,
Weber said.
"I'm not suggesting our students are inferior. They're
less intellectual. They're a different kind of student,"
Weber said.
Simmons attack of grading and graduation policies was
contradicted in the press last week by representatives of
the four school districts named.
The task force report also recommended against the
use of mandatory minimum competency tests in Nebra
ska. The 41 -member Task Force on Student Progress was
jointly formed by NU President Ronald Roskens and
State Commissioner of Education Anne Campbell and
consisted of a variety of administrators, teachers, coun
selors, and students on the elementary, high school, and
college levels.
Chairwoman Martha Fricke, second vice president of
the Nebraska School Board told the regents that better
communication would help school systems better prepare
students for college.
She also said in-service training for Nebraska teachers
is inconsistent and would be helped by better
communication.
Roskens told the board it needs to formally reaffirm
the open admissions policy before the task force recom
mendations could be used.
No action was taken at Saturday's meeting.
-Hi5;
Photo by Bob Pearson
Regent Robert Simmons
Experiment canceled
Unforeseen technical problems have caused the Great
Plains National Instructional Television Library to cancel
a planned national Public Television Satellite previewing
experiment scheduled for late January and early
February.
Great Plains National's Director Paul H. Schupbach
explained that "some of the video tape recordings which
were to be used in transmission of the previews did not
meet the blanking width standards of the Federal Com
munications Commission."
GPN, a service agency of the University of Nebraska
Lincoln, had planned the satellite experiment to test the
cost -effectiveness of instaneous previewing as opposed to
the present method of previewing that is, the physical
shipment of video tapes and films to their point of use.
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