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Alex Knepper
Not content with angering senior citizens, President Barack Obama has turned his guns on the nation’s kids, proposing that American schools should add time to the school day to “stay competitive” with other countries.
Our school system’s calendar, Education Secretary Arne Duncan explains, is “based upon the agrarian economy, and not too many of our kids are working the fields today.”
Okay, great. Except that what the calendar was based upon is irrelevant if it isn’t the cause of our present educational discontents. It’s rather as if our labor secretary were to argue that professional cashiers are poor because there aren’t enough hours in the work day. Making the school year longer will only mean our kids are getting sub-par education for a longer time.
The problem, simply put, isn’t the calendar, but what the calendar is being filled with.
It’s true that American students are lagging badly behind other countries, both Western and Eastern, on standardized tests on a range of topics from mathematics to literacy. And it is indisputably correct that our education system direly needs reform.
While nothing can replace the foundational effect of a stable household and nurturing parents, there are certain actions schools can take in order to better prepare students to meet life’s challenges, both modern and ones that have existed since time immemorial.
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By Iyah Romm, guest columnist and medical student at Boston University
Two years ago I had an accident – I fell down a flight of stairs, landed on my head and as a result, am now legally blind. Why is this relevant? As a medical student, I had access to world-class care unlike most others.
That wasn’t the case for Paul, a young man with diabetes I met shortly after my accident. He too lost his vision because — like at least 46.3 million other Americans and 14,000 more each day — he was uninsured and couldn’t afford the insulin he so desperately needed.
And yet, as sad as this is to say, Paul may be relative fortunate. A recent study in the American Journal of Public Health estimates that 45,000 Americans die each year simply because they lack health insurance.
We need reform. Desperately.
But in the two years since my accident, despite denying claims left and right, the insurance industry spent $16 million drawn from premiums on Congressional campaign contributions to fight health care reform legislation. This summer, they’ve spent $1.4 million daily on opposing reform through insidious and deceptive advertising and lobbying campaigns.
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By Will Ramsey, guest columnist and medical student at Virginia College of Osteopathic Medicine
As a medical student, following the health care reform bill wind its way through Congress feels like watching the future of my career teeter between two substantially different paths: one of freedom and the other of government-mandated security.
As a Christian, I desire for my life to be a testimony to the glory of God. I hope my convictions about the bill honor God, but, I want to be careful not to present these judgments as biblical. The bible does not talk about H.R. 3200 and so spiritual discernment in this case is difficult.
However, as I ponder how best to serve my God, my neighbors and my country, I find myself in opposition to this bill. I am concerned that it will inevitably worsen the current health care dilemma facing America.
The root of the concern is the incredible amount of control this bill will eventually give the government in making health care choices. In fact, sections of the bill seem to explicitly prepare for the eventual movement towards a single payer system.
So what does this mean for patients? A single payer system will remove my patients from being my boss and allow the government to take their place.
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By Giles Howard, guest columnist and student at University of Pittsburgh
Anarchists and the student groups affiliated with them vocally promised to take “direct action” against local businesses in countless online and print publications over the last few weeks. Thursday night, Pittsburgh witnessed what “direct action” meant when hundreds of protesters and students smashed shop windows, lit dumpsters on fire and rioted in the streets.
Their behavior was predictable and, while the police took their threats seriously, other individuals in positions of power did not. The University of Pittsburgh allowed student groups to organize on campus with what I see as the goal of causing mayhem in the streets of Pittsburgh.
If the school doesn’t immediately take action against two specific student groups who took an active role in planning and promoting the G-20 protests, which turned violent, Americans should be outraged — tax money shouldn’t go to institutions that seemingly support and protect perpetrators of violence and civil unrest.
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Chris Burks
America took a small step away from big government last week, but you wouldn’t know it judging from the comments of the rabble rousers now looked to as the leaders of the conservative rump that remains in Washington.
The House of Representatives voted to remove banks as middle men in the student loan business and to make direct loans to students, saving $87 billion for the U.S. according to the initial CBO estimation.
Some conservatives claim that the government was taking over part of the economy and crowding out private business by, get this, eliminating subsidies for the banks that were used for these loans.
Instead of the government takeover that some conservatives warned of, the reality is that government is the economically efficient actor in the student loan marketplace both because of the scale of investment and the sound administration of the direct loan program that is already in place.
Under the current system, a student can get Stafford Loan or PLUS Loan through either the Direct Loan program, where a student receives the loan directly from the government, or through the Federal Family Education Loan Program, where a student goes through a bank to secure a loan, which is guaranteed and subsidized by the government. Overall, the FFEL costs the government billions of dollars a year in subsidies.
At best, risk-free hand outs to profit-seeking third parties is politics as usual; at worst, a big money scheme that fleeces those who we should be investing in the most — students in need.
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By Travis Korson and Joe Naron, guest columnists, students at George Washington University and members of the school’s Young America’s Foundation group
First lady Michelle Obama pledged that if George Washington University students completed 100,000 hours of community service she would speak at the school’s commencement. Not that we’re against community service, but Mrs. Obama’s offer should be declined.
Mrs. Obama’s “service for speech” pledge earlier this month works counter to the notion of community service. By encouraging students to volunteer for the stated purpose of booking a high-profile commencement speaker, the meaning of service is reduced to a measure of hours spent working for a political objective, and volunteering no longer is an act carried out for its own sake.
Volunteering should be conducted as a selfless act whose only motive is a desire to see beneficial change in the community, lest doubt is cast on intentions of those serving. Shifting the focus of community service away from the community and towards some other goal, as Mrs. Obama has done with her pledge, has created an atmosphere of false volunteerism.
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Matt Cavedon
This summer, Fatah, Palestine’s largest and oldest political party, had its first conference in several decades in order to try to chart its future. With President Barack Obama’s recent trips to Africa and, in particular, Egypt now completed, America also has some thinking to do about the future of our involvement in the Islamic regions of the world.
Since the September 11th attacks, America has been embroiled in what President Bush declared to be a “Global War on Terror,” now known as an “Overseas Contingency Operation.” In particular, the Bush Administration took a strong stance against the “Axis of Evil”: Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. These three states were perceived to be state sponsors of terrorism against the United States.
Although North Korea tends to act alone, Iran and other militant Islamist movements have been seen as presenting a united front against America. Palestine’s Hamas, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Saudi Arabia’s al-Qaeda, Somalia’s al-Shabaab, Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, Iraq’s Mahdi Army and Iran’s government have all been seen as different incarnations of a global Islamo-fascist world movement by a number of prominent neoconservatives and other foreign policy pundits.
This approach is problematic for a number of reasons.
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“In his/her words” is a periodic feature where a student newsmaker writes a guest column about his or her notable experience. To nominate a student newsmaker, e-mail Steve@uwire.com
Ashleigh Kenny created a booming business out of putting “RIP The U.S. Constitution” on a T-shirt — including speaking on various news outlets and handing her product to Rep. Jack Kingston. This is her story in her own words.
Ashleigh Kenny and Rep. Kingston
By Ashleigh Kenny, guest columnist from Valdosta State University.
I am fed up. Anyone can look around and realize that other Americans feel similarly as me. A TEA party was just around the corner, and I wanted express my frustration. I thought a T-shirt would be the perfect way to stand out.
As I went through ideas for the design, so many quotes from notable leaders stood out to me. However, the words of President Ronald Reagan just seemed so applicable to today’s situation: “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” Despite delivering those words in 1964, they have never been more true.
Today, our government smothers us. Our Tenth Amendment spells out how powers are to be distributed: Those not granted to the federal or state governments are reserved to be the right of the people. That doesn’t happen today.
And a system of checks and balances? Balance is one thing our government lacks. The executive and legislative branches are under the control of liberals, who seek to impose health care and environmental reforms on us without input from conservatives or independents. They seemingly don’t care about any negative impact these bills will have on jobs or our back-breaking deficit.
Despite all of this, the uppity attitude our representatives showed to concerned citizens during town hall events this August proves our leaders are completely out-of-touch. The people are now accountable to the government — that’s not the way it should be.
“R.I.P. the U.S. Constitution.”
That phrase summed up my frustration with government. The document that made this nation great has seemingly been discarded into a trash can behind Nancy Pelosi’s desk. I decided to use this phrase for a T-shirt and wear it to my local TEA party.
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Pres. Barack Obama speaks at the University of Maryland on Sept. 17.
By Joel Cohen, guest columnist from University of Maryland.
College Park, Md. — If a law had the potential to directly affect your life while costing the nation a smidge less than a trillion dollars, would you pay attention? Of course.
Then why are college kids oblivious to the details of President Obama’s push to reform health care?
After attending today’s health care rally at the University of Maryland, the student attendees generally were enthralled with being in the presence of the president — and could have seemingly cared less about what he was talking about.
Sure, the president gave his pitch to the friendly crowd on the liberal campus. He stressed the notion that under his plan, young adults would be able to stay on their parents’ health insurance plan until age 26 (maybe because, as my friend joked, there won’t be any jobs available for graduates in the near future…). And he dismissed opponents’ arguments that his plan would add to the debt, saying “most of this plan can be paid for by finding savings within the existing health care system.”
But as I walked around soliciting students’ opinions of Obama’s health plan, few could explain in detail specific reasons why they liked it or why it was a necessary reform even though they’re at the heart of 18 to 29 demographic, which polls show is the most supportive group of the legislation.
Even fewer students could describe details of the public option proposal – despite the fact that they had vehemently cheered for just that minutes before.
“The bill seems so complicated, I don’t even want to try to figure it out,” said Mike Moore. The University of Maryland junior government and politics major added that his statistics class is more than enough decoding for one day.
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By Giles Howard, guest columnist from the University of Pittsburgh
An organization at the University of Pittsburgh, receiving thousands of dollars in funding from the school, supports a fringe anarchist group with the goal of disrupting educational activities at next week’s G-20 Summit.
Students for Justice in Palestine endorsed a proclamation issued by the Pittsburgh G-20 Resistance Project calling on people to “take to the streets of Pittsburgh to disrupt the summit” and on students to “disrupt schools” in protest against the G-20’s policies. The Resistance Project is planning an unpermitted march in Pittsburgh on Sept. 24 that, according to plans detailed on its Web site, involve unspecified “direct actions” — a term that has, at past international conferences in Seattle and London, served as code for violently disruptive protests and vandalism.
The Resistance Project has even posted a list of targets for protests, including Trader Joe’s, the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute and the Oakland Planning and Development Corporation. The Resistance Project’s plans constitute a clear threat against educational institutions and their ability to function free from the interference of extremists.
It’s unconscionable that a university-certified organization, which received thousands of dollars in funding last year, would promote and endorse such plans.
The UWIRE Forum 