Fee Hike Protesters, Get Your Shit Straight

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last few months, most of you know that there has been a lot of drama centered around the recent decision of the UC Board of Regents to increase tuition fees by over 30% in the next year. At UCLA where the November 19^th meeting was held, students gathered to protest the largely unpopular vote. Fifteen people were arrested or cited total there, a rather small number compared to the slew of over 50 students arrested on campus at my own school, UC Davis.

During a two day period, protesters marched around campus holding signs, chanting their disgust with the fee hike. They settled in Mrak Hall (the main administration building) where they succesfully managed to set up a meeting with the Student Affairs vice chancellor and the campus budget director to discuss the issues. When 5 o’clock rolled around it was announced that the building was closed for the night and everyone would have to leave. The majority did, however more than a few pesky students decided to give the officers problems. In all, 52 students were arrested for tresspassing and taken to the Yolo County Jail for the night.

Many people seem to believe that these protests are a good thing. People are excited about getting involved and standing up for what they believe in, sticking it to the man. That’s all fine and dandy to me in theory; but not when you are protesting against the wrong people, causing even more problems that our schools should not have to deal with right now.

The fee increases are NECESSARY. For over two years the UC system has been receiving millions of dollars in cuts forcing them to lay off faculty, cut classes, enroll less students, and impose other difficult measures. If schools aren’t being properly funded it is impossible go on as usual. If something isn’t done soon about the poor state of funding for colleges, schools are going to fall into a hole so deep that they will never be able to climb out. The standard of education at a university level will fall. It will no longer mean the same thing to have a degree from UC Berkeley because they will have had to cut so many programs, stop spending money on research and get rid of so much faculty that the state of the art education UCs once had will be no more.

Students who are upset apparently don’t understand what is at stake. These students also are forgetting or unaware that the UCs have what’s called the “Blue and Gold” program that will cover all fees for those whose families make less than 70K a year. That means that over 1/3 of students are eligible for full financial aid: a large number of the people protesting. Not only that but the entire financial aid system is being expanded to help even more people than ever. Those students who don’t qualify have no right to complain whatsoever because that means they can sure as hell afford an extra couple thousand dollars for their education.

We are in a recession. The piss-poor management at the state and federal levels are failing our country and it is affecting everyone. Universities now receive half of the support they recieved in 1991, and unless we address this huge problem in academic funding it will only get worse. Because schools aren’t getting enough help from the state they need to take whatever means necessary to keep universities at a high level of functioning; if that means increasing tuition then we need to bite the bullet and handle it in a productive way.

In order to start fixing the damage, we all need to start getting involved at the ballots. Start by writing letters to your representatives telling them your disgust and how you want it fixed. Research candidates for elected positions and vote for the ones who care about education and are willing to make it a priority. It is important for students to be politically active, but more importantly to be politically mature. Stop making the problems worse and start actually taking control of your education.

Protesting universities themselves or the people on the Board of Regents, who have done a good job to date, is not going to help anything but rather make everyone’s jobs more difficult when they are already facing challenges. The Regents don’t want to impose a fee increase. They aren’t going to benefit personally from it. They understand what will happen if we don’t get that extra money and they are responding accordingly.

So to all the protestors out there, PLEASE stop wasting your time getting mad at the people on the university level and start directing your outrage to the state and federal governments who are the ones fucking everything up in the first place.

The Duggars: Why Children Should Never be Home-Schooled

Today during my break between classes I sat on the couch to watch a little television. I was flicking through the channels when I came to TLC and found that my favorite show, 17 Kids and Counting (I believe it’s called 18 Kids and Counting now, with #19 on the way) was on. Of course I had to stop here and see what they were up to, and to my surprise the Duggar family was visiting the Creationism Museum in Kentucky.

Jim Bob (the husband/father of the family, and yes, his name is Jim Bob) was being interviewed on why they were there. He said he wanted to teach his children about how the world was created, and show them that all this “evolution stuff” just isn’t true. They saw all the different parts of the museum such as the “Natural Selection is Not Evolution” exhibit where they were shown how “natural selection allows organisms to possess characteristics most favorable for a given environment—but it is not an example of evolution in the molecules-to-man sense”, the “Dinosaur Den” where humans and dinosaurs lived harmoniously on Earth together, the “Noah’s Ark Contruction Site” where millions of animals in “close quarters” were saved from the floods, and the “Walk Through Biblical History” where they could see the TRUE time line of the universe unfold.

After, some of the kids were asked about their thoughts on the subject. One of the girls said that scientific evidence suggests that the Earth is 6000 years old. I don’t think I need to even go further into that. Her brother said that a lot of things about evolution made sense to him, but once he read the Bible and its explanations he knew that evolution couldn’t be true because the Bible explains everything.

The show then went to a clip of Jim Bob in front of a large chart on the wall that shows humans in relation to other primates. The chart showed humans, fully developed, tall and slender as we are today, on one side with a line indicating 6000 years ago to today. The other side had a small tree of apes, all evolved from one common ancestor, with another line indicating 6000 years ago to today. Jim Bob said, “See kids! We aren’t evolved from apes!”

You may be wondering, like me, “How the hell can they possibly believe those things?!” Well, my friend, the lovely notion of home-schooling is why.

Extreme religion is just one example of why kids should NEVER be home-schooled. Home-schooling gives the parent complete control over what their child learns. Although there are laws (varying from state to state) regarding what subjects to teach and different standardized tests they need to take, in the state of Arkansas (where the Duggar family resides) there are no required subjects to be taught. No credentials are needed for the parents to teach, or any required amount of time they need to spend “learning”. The student does not even have to meet a minimum score on any standardized tests. All the state requires is the parents must alert the superintendant in writing that their child will be home-schooled, and show up for the testing.

Now, I for one would never in a million years want my mom or dad to be my teachers. Don’t get me wrong, I love my parents and they are both very smart in different ways, but they have little to no idea what is going on in an academic world. They know very little about history, science, math, sociology or any other subject that might be taught in school. Even if they do know the basics, there is no way that one person could supply all the information I need to be successful. Throughout my academic career I have had a lot of teachers; most people have had a lot of teachers. The reason for this is because everyone specializes in different things. Students need to have all these teachers so they can absorb all the new information that each one brings to the table. They need to listen to all the different opinions, deal with all the different teaching styles, discuss problems, theories, equations, but most importantly develop their critical thinking skills.

Although even public schools for the most part fail to really promote or expand critical thinking in students, simply being in an environment that promotes the spread of information as a whole lessens the severity of ignorance. Not to mention the laws regarding curriculum, teaching credentials, and testing help the situation as well. But with good ol’ home-schooling if I wanted to, I could spend all day teaching my child that fairies create everything. That fairies run the country, make decisions and magically make cookies appear.

That may sound silly, “But Angie, fairies aren’t real!” you say. Well, it’s not far from reality in a home-schooled setting. A parent can completely brain wash their child. They have the legal ability to keep their child isolated from not only their peers, but information. Vital information that is needed in order for the child to function at a healthy level in society. Vital information that may change their undoubted faith to “God,” and question their beliefs. And there is nothing keeping these parents from doing that.