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The Horace Mann Review
Vol XV Issue IV Summer 2006
Politics in Education
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Summer 2006
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
The Horace Mann Review Volume XV, Issue IV, Summer 2006
A Journal of Opinion on Current Events, Politics, Public Policy, and Culture
For This Junior Issue: Charles M. Stam Editor-in-Chief
Kunal Malkani Anoushka Vaswani Executive Editors
Rhonda Shafei Business Director
Carl Case
Director of Publishing
Diana Greenwald Jonathan Sarnoff Contributing Editors
Ted Sumers
Director of Photography
Gopal Das
Chief Advertising Officer Copy Editors Jed Feiman, Benito Fernandez, Lindsey Gellman, Elizabeth Goodstien, Venkat Kausik, Alice Kissilenko, Zach Malter, Ben Mishkin, Andreas Sakellaris, Robby Shapiro, Sam Shelley, Rachael Siegel Contributing Writers Amanda Cole, William Kim, Gresa Matoshi, Stephanie Nass, Gaurav Saxena The Board of Trustees Daniel S. Levien, Bharat Das, Raj Hathiramani, Shaan Hathiramani, David Katz, Sabeel Rahman, Eric Todrys, Mark Todrys Faculty Advisors Dr. Sam Gellens, Ms. Sharon Kunde, Dr. Barbara Tischler
Outgoing Editorial Board Maximilian D.C. Thompson Editor-in-Chief
Zachary Fryer-Biggs Executive Editor
Alexandra Moss
Layout Editor
Education in the United States continues to become politicized. No Child Left Behind, the role of God in the classroom, sex education curriculum and political bias in teaching are all mainstream political issues. Thus, the topic for this issue is politics in education. Review staff writers explore topics ranging from a controversies on college campuses to alternative forms of education to education here at Horace Mann. Also featured in this issue is a year in review section which highlights some of the most important trends in the past year. This edition of the Review is a junior issue, and every editor needed to adopt to their new rules, which can be difficult at times. Nevertheless, the issue was completed in a short amount of time without sacrificing substance. In fact, this 60 page issue is the longest this year and, in fact, throughout The Review’s history. I would like thank everyone that contributed, from writers to copy editors. I would especially like to recognize a few individuals and institutions. The Horace Mann security staff, specifically Richie Velez, for being so reliable and flexible. Glenda Karnes and Adam Kenner for their logistical help. Dr. Tischler, Dr. Gellens, and Ms. Kunde, our faculty advisors. Ted Sumers for his assistance to the publication during crunch time. Our teachers, for putting up for what has been a turbulent past few weeks. The Horace Mann Record for sharing the stupub and being good neighbors. Alexandra Moss, for being an invaluable asset who has truly defines altruism. And above all, Zachary Fryer-Biggs and Max Thompson for their innovation and insight. Building upon the success of this year, I anticipate great things for Volume XVI.
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The Horace Mann Review is printed quarterly during the academic year. The Review is a member of the Columbia Scholastic Press Association, the American Scholastic Press Association, and the National Scholastic Press Association. Please contact The Horace Mann Review for information on advertisements at TheReview@horacemann.org. Editorials represent the majority opinion of the Editorial Board. Opinions expressed in articles or illustrations are not necessarily those of the Editorial Board or of the Horace Mann School. Š 2006, The Horace Mann Re
Charles M. Stam Editor-in-Chief
The Horace Mann Review
Politics in Education Summer 2006
Genocide Strikes Again By Gresa Matoshi..............................................................................................................................................Page 6
Why Bother? By Elizabeth Goldstein......................................................................................................................................Page 9
No Sex Allowed By Alice Kissilenko..........................................................................................................................................Page 10
Leave No Child Left Behind By Ben Mishkin..............................................................................................................................................Page 12
Inteligent Design The Ten Comandments
By Venkat Kausik............................................................................................................................................Page 17
Columbia Controversy By Rachel Siegal..............................................................................................................................................Page 20
Sir, Yes Sir!
Military Recruitment On High School Campuses By Benito Fernandez......................................................................................................................................Page 22
Home Schools
An In-Depth Examination By Amanda Cole.............................................................................................................................................Page 24
Anti-Imperialists Ahmadinejad, Castro, and Chavez By Alice Kissilenko..........................................................................................................................................Page 26
Summer 2006
The Horace Mann Review Summer 2006
Charter Schools
A new solution or waste of resources? By Stephanie Nass...........................................................................................................................................Page 30
Discrimination Institutionalized By Sam Shelley................................................................................................................................................Page 32
Seperate But Equal? By Lindsay Gellman.......................................................................................................................................Page 34
Objective Teaching? By Zach Malter................................................................................................................................................Page 36
SAT? By William Kim..............................................................................................................................................Page 38
Education Abroad
Interview with President Nitish Jain of S.P. Jain Institute of Research & Management By Diana Greenwald.......................................................................................................................................Page 40
GC Restructuring
Changes in the Governing Council By Jed Feiman.................................................................................................................................................Page 42
Classroom Politics An Opnion Piece By Robby Shapiro...........................................................................................................................................Page 44
Year In Review Articles By Review Staff...............................................................................................................................................Page 47
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Genocide Strikes Again By Gresa Matoshi
“The death toll in Kosovo was 3,000 people and the death toll in Darfur is 400,000... how can people turn their backs on such a crime?� Page
Summer 2006 April 22nd marked my seventh anniversary in the United States. It’s still hard to believe that seven years ago, I was hiding in Kosovo in my apartment afraid that the windows would burst every time a bomb went off in the distance. I, along with my mom, sister and three brothers, tried to flee to Macedonia. Our neighbors decided to do the same. My family split up into different cars; I was with one of my brothers, my sister was with another one of my brothers, my mom was alone. My eldest brother was also alone. As we were leaving Prishtina, the capital, there was a checkpoint surrounded by Serbian police. They stopped all of the cars. When the Serbs walked to our car, I was absolutely terrified. All I wanted was to go back home. I never wanted to leave my house; I felt safest there although it was far from being safe. The police kept on asking my neighbor for money; he gave them a couple of hundred marks, the currency back in 1999. Then they asked for his wife’s jewelry and she quickly took her necklace, earrings, bracelets, and rings off hoping that would persuade them to let us pass. It didn’t. The policemen told us to turn back. We returned to our apartment building. When we arrived in front of our building, I saw my sister sitting on the front steps crying and rocking back and forth. I asked what was wrong and she said that our mom and oldest brother still hadn’t returned yet. We suddenly saw our brother coming down the deserted street all by himself. We waited around in our apartment for our mom as our neighbors tried to comfort us by saying, “She’ll be back soon” or “Maybe she was allowed through.” None of us calmed down. Around midnight, we children were getting ready to go to sleep although sleeping was the last thing on our minds. At midnight, the telephone rang. My sister picked up the phone, a stranger told her that my mom was fine and that she was in the neutral zone between Kosovo and Macedonia called Blace. Hearing that my mom was alive was the best news that I have ever heard. The next day was March 30th, my ninth birthday. My dad, who was in the United States at the time, called me as usual to wish me a happy birthday. However after he did so, I replied, “Thanks, I forgot.” I had been so worried for my mom that I had forgotten my own birthday. My dad asked to speak to my mom; however we told him that she had gone for tea to our neighbor’s house because we didn’t want him to worry. The next day, as tanks and Serbian military filled the surrounding streets, we were waiting for the worst.
Every once in a while we would get up from the floor and peek out the window hoping that military was not moving towards the building. We received a phone call that day that my mom was coming back to Kosovo with our neighbor’s parents. My mom refused to stay in the Blace without her children and she risked her life to come back to us. The old, small red car pulled up in front of the building. My older brother, who was only seventeen at the time, was waiting in the lobby for her because it wasn’t safe for him to go outside. Teenage boys, men and young girls were the main targets for the Serbs. I remember her getting out of the car clearly because it was the first time that I had seen my mom in a weak position. She had always kept her composure, and seeing her in this state was not only shocking but also concerning. An older couple was holding her up as she slowly walked towards the building. When she arrived at the front steps my brother walked out and helped her into the building. Finally, we were united and that night we all decided that no matter what happened, we were going to stay in our apartment, together. However, this was not an option for long. Although this is only a glimpse of my experience of the war in Kosovo, it is a very emotional and eventful part of it. Reflecting back on what I experienced, I was lucky enough to not only survive but also to lose less than most people do in wars. Before the war in Kosovo, there have been many other genocides: in Rwanda, Bosnia, and Cambodia, for example. Currently, genocide is occuring in Sudan’s western region of Darfur. Yet no country seems to want to stop it even though almost all agree that genocides, such as the past ones, are horrendous and need to be stopped. According to the Save Darfur website, 400,000 thousand non-Arab Sudanese have been killed since the violence began in 2003, more than two million have been forced out of their homes, and 50,000 have already been displaced since January. Like in all genocides there is always someone responsible for the atrocities. In Darfur, it is the Janjaweed, an Arab militia group supported by the Arab run government. The Janjaweed force the non- Arab Sudanese out of their homes and villages. The Janjaweed usually attack a village, kill all of the men and teenage boys, rape the women, steal any valuables, and then burn the entire village down. There are refugee camps in neighboring countries like Chad however safety isn’t guaranteed. The Janjaweed have attacked the unprotected camps, killing and raping refugees. Peacekeeping forces are also present in Darfur; however, they Page
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Hundreds of thousands have been killed and even more have been displaced in the Darfur region. have to worry about their own lives before they can try to save someone else’s. When I hear and see pictures of the atrocities in Darfur, all of the memories and feelings that I have from the genocide in Kosovo are rekindled. I remember the fear, the anger, the hope, the prayers, the tears, the burning houses, and the dead bodies. The situation in Darfur is much graver than the situation in Kosovo. The death toll in Kosovo was 3,000 people and the death toll in Darfur is 400,000. I don’t understand how can people turn their backs on such a crime. During the war in Kosovo, everyone would pray and hope for foreign help to put an end to the violence. America is and will always be viewed as a savior to Albanians in Kosovo because America took the lead in stopping the violence there. Just as I once hoped for countries like the United States to save my life and stop the violence, I am positive that there is at least one little eight or nine year old girl somewhere in Darfur hoping and praying for the United States to come and rescue her just as I once did. Unfortunately, most people in the United States don’t even know where Darfur is or that there is a genocide occurring there. If there is any hope for some kind of intervention in Darfur, the United States has to take the lead; however, our government will not do so because of our involvement Page
in Iraq. America has always been able to influence most of the other countries in the world. The genocide in Darfur can also be stopped if the United States takes the lead in the United Nations because countries like the United Kingdom and many other countries will join. The war in Kosovo was stopped by the NATO forces headed by the United States; therefore the genocide in Darfur can also be an international effort. As I stated earlier, the violence is too great for peacekeepers to be able to put a stop to it. However an international force of some kind whether it is military or diplomatic, can help stop the genocide if the message to the Sudanese government is clear and strong. We can convince our government to help put an end to the Darfur genocide. At the Darfur assembly, Michael Posner said that if enough people show concern, then the government will do something. There are numerous organizations which have been trying to raise awareness for Darfur. There is even a group of students at HM who are working together to try to raise awareness. If anyone is reading about Darfur and thinking that what is occurring is horrific and unjust, then do something about it. You can join the group of students who are raising awareness and see how you can get involved. People in Darfur are counting on the United States to save « them; it’s our job to not let them down.
Why Bother?
Summer 2006
Diminishing Value of The GED By Elizabeth Goodstein The main concern in most Horace Mann students’ minds is quite often which college they want to and can attend. HM has a 100% graduation rate, which is very different from most typical American high schools. Many students are unaware of the problems surrounding of General Education Certificates, a type of diploma awarded to students around the US at the end of his or her high school career. To discuss this matter, we must first understand why this is happening. The opinions of Time Magazine, The New York Times, and our very own Director of Admissions Lisa Moreira, relate the increasing rate of high school dropouts to socio-economic status. Mrs. Moreira and I spoke about the unfortunate truth for people who possess a GED or less. The job market is looking increasingly grim everyday. She also added that many people of her parents’ generation grew up thinking that a GED would be more than sufficient in providing a middle class lifestyle for his or her family. However, presently someone looking for a job with a GED cannot find employment with sufficient pay to afford a middle class lifestyle. In addition to the ever difficult task of finding a job with limited education, six million jobs in the manufacturing industry have disappeared in the past 30 years. So, not only are there tremendous disadvantages to GED-only earners in getting a job, but it is virtually impossible for all of them to find one with these fairly recent job cuts. This is also leading to the decline of the middle class. Much like in the Great Depression, our middle class is decreasing in size, which leaves little imagination to what might happen within the American economy. The Current Population Survey in Time Magazine found that 90% of whites 25 and older, 81% of African-Americans, and 58% of Hispanics have graduated high school. In some aspects America is improving its message on education because almost 1/3 of Americans receive a bachelors degree or above, compared to 1950 where just over 1/3 of Americans graduated from high school. This may seem like
How much is this GED worth? tremendous improvement, but for the people not able to get through high school due to family pressure in making money, there is still a whole lot of work to be done. In Mrs. Moreiras’ opinion, the increase in the number of boys dropping out of high school is due to the pressure they get specifically to make money for their families while girls feel the pressure to support their families later in life. She also added that there are fabulous programs, such as Prep for Prep, which work to give exceptional students the opportunity of recognition for their academic accomplishments. However, this also discriminates against a student who may not be doing that well on paper because he or she has not been motivated to learn. The only way to keep teens in high school who are much less fortunate than we are is to create more organizations and get active in creating a better environment in which one can enjoy going to classes everyday. Let us realize how fortunate we are in attending Horace Mann, and see that going to such classes is a hard-earned gift from our families. The responsibility of keeping kids in high school, and therefore, keeping down the unemployment rate later, lies partly with us. « Page
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No Sex Allowed By Alice Kissilenko Historically, the task of instructing adolescents about sexual activities has been seen as the responsibility of the parents. This policy, however, does not ensure that the children will receive efficient or adequate information. Parents can be embarrassed to discuss sex or can be pushed away by various intergenerational tensions and religious beliefs. In the 1950s, right before the beginning of the “sexual revolution,” abstinence was the only morally correct sexual choice for unmarried people. Today, however, after the surge of televised and publicized sexual acts, the main motivation for an increase in sex education is an issue of public health. The teaching of abstinence in place of other sex education programs however, is one that has been the focal point of huge controversy. Regardless of the teaching method, all programs dealing with sex education demand that children are made aware of the 25 widespread sexually transmitted diseases and the consequences of engaging in sexual intercourse. These dangerous matters are not dealt with as openly in the media, and are effective in instilling fear as a method of promoting abstinence. Many sexually transmitted infections (STIs) leave serious physical and emotional damages and can lead to lifelong suffering, infertility, or death. Psychological injury is also a consequence of engaging in early sexual activity; feelings of regret, guilt, or low self-esteem often accompany teenage sexual intercourse. Studies show that children who have had sex early on in life are less likely to form stable and healthy marital relationships and are more likely to pursue other high-risk behaviors, such as tobacco, alcohol, and drug use. The debate continues, however, on exactly how the state should proceed with educating young teens about making this fateful choice. There are three divergences in educational styles: abstinence-only programs, comprehensive programs, and abstinence-plus programs. Currently, President Bush associates himself and the Republican Party with the moral and religious inclinations of abstinence-only approaches throughout the US. Of the Page 10
billion dollars spent on this form of sex education since 1982, over half has been spent under the current Presidency, and he plans to increase his funding to $206 million this year. Yet this money is only available to organizations that agree to teach by a narrow abstinence-only curriculum. This consists of convincing students that abstinence is the sole option for moral purity and physical health. The issue of protection, if one indeed decides to have sex, is not discussed, as abstinenceonly educators agree that this inclusion would dilute their abstinence-only message and send improper mixed signals. Furthermore, they argue that condoms are not efficient in preventing all STIs and provide no significant protection against the human papilloma virus (HPV) or chlamydia. These programs conduct “resistance exercises” by simulating the pressure situation to have sex and encourage students to take a formal pledge of virginity instead. This approach is seen as unrealistic and dangerous in our modern, industrial societies, in which people marry later in life and usually have multiple sexual partners before they decide to settle down. On the other hand, other nations such as the United Kingdom support the alternative option of comprehensive sex education. These programs do not focus solely on teaching young people that they should abstain from sex until they are married, and instead explain how you can protect yourself from infections and pregnancy if you do decide to have sex. They also go into genital anatomy, the reproductive system, various forms of birth control, and the advantages of abstinence. The goal is to provide students with enough knowledge so that they can make an educated and appropriate decision when ready. The most reliable studies and statistics indicate that comprehensive sex education is the most successful method. The number of young people choosing abstinence is increasing, instead of the decrease predicted by Christian religious fanatics. They are also able to protect themselves knowledgeably from HIV/ AIDS, other STIs, and unintended pregnancy. The studies done on abstinence-only education are neither conclusive
A billboard featuring a typical abstinence message nor numerous enough to help derive any other result than that the most affected groups would be those with strong religious views. This approach would have some short-term benefits, but would place young people at a greater risk later on in life. Some people have argued that it is possible to combine the main elements of both comprehensive and abstinenceonly approaches into one sex education program, which is sometimes referred to as abstinence-plus. These classes mainly emphasize that abstinence is the preferred choice of protection, but also provide information about contraception and disease prevention for future protection. It is this form of sexual education that is most applicable in countries worst affected by the HIV/AIDS crisis, as it addresses the most prevalent issues involved. While studies have shown that abstinence messages work to some extent for younger sexually inactive people, Horace Mann has opted for a thoroughly comprehensive program, which discusses birth control, abortion, sexual activity, STIs, psychological and emotional consequences, and abstinence, among other topics. Mrs. Hartmann, our health teacher, feels that the most important aspect of sexual education is providing an open environment where kids can become comfortable asking questions about anything and can throw
away the taboo on sexual nuances. With the Internet and television, it is not difficult for adolescents to find information concerning the many options surrounding sexual topics in our society today; a comprehensive program is necessary to make sure they are educated and informed by knowledgeable people instead of by inappropriate sources. In Horace Mann, students are taught that abstinence means no worries about pregnancy, STIs, or HIV/AIDS. Yet, if they decide to become sexually active before marriage, they will have the correct and appropriate information to do so safely and happily. The source of this moral and ethical debate still resides with the state’s usurpation of parental rights and responsibilities. Parents are still the most influential figures in a child’s life, and it remains up to their familiar, societal, and religious values to come through in their progeny. Adults must step up in this “political minefield” to assure that they raise the consciousness of sexually active and inactive teens, while overcoming the “puritanical ignorance” surrounding operations today. Reliable studies and students have proved that everyone deserves the right to the information that can enable them to protect themselves against the consequences of uneducated sex – “it is neither Christian nor moral to refuse them.”
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Leave No Child Left Behind By Ben Miskin
Since September 11th, George W. Bush’s presidency has been all-but consumed by the War on Terrorism, the War in Afghanistan and the War in Iraq. This focus has eclipsed what had been a central focus of Bush’s pre-September 11 presidency: education. Before the terrorist attacks of September 11th, one of the President’s largest focuses was his education policy, the centerpiece of which was the “No Child Left Behind” (NCLB) program. The controversial NCLB program aims to improve primary and secondary education through a series of measures based on “Outcome-Based Education,” (OBE) also known as “Performance-Based Education.” This educational principal, as its name implies, uses testing to ensure that students are learning in school. In contrast to input-based education, which focuses on curriculum and the process of teaching itself, OBE concentrates on the results of the teaching and learning process. An important goal of the program is to raise the achievement level of disadvantaged students, including black, Latino, and lowincome students. NCLB’s focus on OBE fails to solve the problem of students not succeeding in school. While it is true that students learn differently, it is possible that with better teaching will come better results. The true outcome of education is not how well a person does on a test, but how they use their education in life. As a nation, we need to ensure that the education out children receive is the best possible. The NCLB program has garnered much criticism from teacher’s unions who argue that its focus on testing is unfair to teachers. They claim that because different factors, such as English proficiency and learning disabilities, are not accounted for when grading the standardized tests, teachers and administrators become the focal point for criticism in poor test results. Using standardized test scores to determine Page 12
a school or teacher’s “rating”, they argue, unfairly punishes teachers and administrators for having students for which learning is a challenge. NCLB has also earned criticism, stemming from a clause with regards to recruitment, which mandates every school receiving assistances provides “access to secondary school students names, addresses, and telephone listings” on “request made by military recruiters.” The Department of Defense is separate from the Department of Education for a reason. There is no need to please the DoD in a piece of legislation dealing with education. Although there is a way for parents to “opt-out” of giving their children’s information to the military, it requires unnecessary effort that would not have had to be expended in the first place. Accountability on the part of the school districts is also a large part of NCLB. NCLB’s accountability provisions mandate that states create a system of school assessments based on student performance, graduation rates, and other indicators. NCLB also mandates a program of Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), which requires states to initiate programs that raise achievement levels of students’ scores, tracked based on subgroups of race and income. Schools must also set achievement goals. If districts who receive Federal funding under NCLB do not meet their goals, they are subject to a series of sequential sanctions. Unfortunately, schools have an incentive to set goals low because the consequences of failing to reach their goals are worse than having students who do not achieve as much. The system of goals is contrary to the overall mission of NCLB. This section of the NCLB program is strong in theory, but not in reality. Requiring schools to keep track of teacher performance is a necessary measure to ensure a high teacher quality. However, the system of achievement goals is deeply flawed. This is a section of NCLB that could incorporate
Summer 2006
President Bush congratulates the 2006 teacher of the year, as a part of Performance Based Education. input-based education. Instead of punishing schools, which in effect punishes the students, it would be better to have schools that do not meet their goals get evaluated by teachers and administrators from successful schools. Perhaps the only part of NCLB that has its roots in InputBased Education is that which deals with teacher quality. NCLB establishes new requirements for new teachers and re-qualification requirements for existing teachers. New teachers must now have at least a Bachelor’s Degree and must pass state examinations demonstrating specific subject knowledge. Outcome-Based Education appears in its purest mode in NCLB with the provisions regarding student testing; under NCLB, students must take standardized tests in math and reading every year in grades 3-8 and once during high school. Students will also have to take standardized tests in science once in grades 3-5, 6-9, and 10-12. Schools are required to keep track of and report to the Federal Government students’ test scores based on a series of factors,
most notably race. Parental involvement in their children’s schooling is also a major theme of the NCLB legislation. Parents are supposed to receive report cards about their child’s school. Parents are also entitled to know if their student’s teacher has not met the requirements for teaching set forth by NCLB. Parents are also to be provided with the opportunity to have their child change schools if their current school is deemed “needing improvement.” The president’s advocacy of a program such as NCLB began during his tenure as governor of Texas during the 1990’s. Then-Governor Bush instituted a series of reforms in the Texas education system; these later became the basis for the national NCLB program. During Bush’s first presidential campaign in 2000, education reform was a key part of his platform. NCLB had support from both sides of the political aisle; one of the President’s greatest supporters of the program was Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA). The House of Representatives’ Resolution 1 of the 107th session Page 13
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President Bush’s No Child Left Behind program was enacted with bi-partisan support. – the first session of Bush’s presidency – was the first draft of the NCLB legislation. It passed the House on December 13th, 2001 by a vote of 381 – 41, and the Senate on December 18th, 2001 by a vote of 87-10. The President signed the bill into law on January 8th, 2002, less than a year into his already-eventful presidency. The President pushed NCLB even in the wake of the devastating terrorist attack. In addition to criticism of its underlying theory, there has been much criticism about the implementation of the program. In the last presidential campaign, Democratic candidate John Kerry (D-MA) claimed that the program was under funded by $28 billion. Recently, questions about the program were raised when it was revealed that a loophole allows districts to not report minority students’ test scores. As minority students tend to fare worse on standardized tests, this was a way for schools to avoid underachievement penalties. Significantly, the Republican governor of Utah, Jon Huntsman, signed a state law in March 2005, that allows districts to ignore provision of the law in conflict Page 14
with existing Utah programs. In response, the Department of Education has threatened to withhold federal funding for Utah schools. NCLB, at its core, has good intentions. However, it does not do enough to improve teaching in public schools. Instead it shows that the government believes that minority students inherently perform worse that white students, when in fact their performance could be revealing of a larger racial socioeconomic problem that faces America. As America moves into a century that will, no doubt, witness the rise of two larger nations, China and India, both of which have strong public education systems, we must maintain an education system that ensures a good education for all. There must be a middle-ground between only providing for the underprivileged and only providing for the gifted. We must also take multiple approaches to complex teaching situations, which includes better teacher training. NCLB, as it stands, is a good start, but in no way does it solve America’s looming education problem. «
Summer 2006
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Bad Education: The Bureaucracy of The DOE By Charles Stam Horace Mann is a truly unique school. We at Horace Mann have innumerable opportunities unavailable at the typical public school. I, along with several Review staff writers, looked into attending a public high school in the Bronx for a day, so that we could experience public school firsthand in an attempt to understand these differences. Our first step was to contact one of our advisors, Dr. Barbara Tischler, for advice on where to visit. She led us to Mr. Michael Mitchell, a physics teachers at the BETA program within Kennedy High School. Mr. Mitchell seemed enthusiastic about my proposal to attend classes for a day, viewing it as a positive learning experience. He checked with his Vice Principle, who backed the project. A few days later, Mr. Mitchell contacted me saying that the Department of Education must screen all press visits to high schools. I thought nothing of it and called the Department of Communications within the DOE. There I spoke to a nice, articulate woman who gave me the go ahead. Only minutes later I received a call from Keith Kalb, a DOE spokesman. Kalb stated that we could not go to Kennedy, saying that it “wasn’t equipped to handle visitors at this time.” He stated that he would contact the regional office and find another school close to Horace Mann, which is equipped to handle visitors. When I didn’t hear back from Mr. Kalb, I called him repeatedly to try to attain permission to visit a school. He stated that the “regional office hasn’t reached out to us yet.” Mr. Kalb claimed to have contacted said office a week before, and at the time of printing he had not granted The Review access Page 16
Review Editor-in-Chief Charles Stam to any school. While this could be a result of an inefficient and clogged bureaucracy, it could be an attempt of the DOE to shield its schools from tax paying citizens. Is there something they don’t want us to see? I am unsure. Whenever I call the office, I hear a recorded message stating how students will grow up to be professional citizens with lucrative and important jobs. Is this truly the case? I hope that Mr. Kalb and his department give me approval to go ahead with the visits. I still intend to go ahead with my proposal and visit a school. Look for my findings in the next issue of The Review. «
Summer 2006
n t e D g i l esign l e t n I The Ten Commandments By Venkat Kausik Currently in the Kansas School system and in other schools across the heartland, the principle of creationism has been resurrected from the Ancient Greeks and Romans. Although some may argue that the concept of creationism has changed since the classical era, in actuality creationism has stayed the same. For example, a common argument used to legitimize creationism is the watchmaker analogy, which was not developed in the 20th century, but instead was developed by Cicero back in 34 BC. “When you see a sundial or a water-clock, you see that it tells the time by design and not by chance,” Cicero said. “How then can you imagine that the universe as a whole is devoid of purpose and intelligence, when it embraces everything, including these artifacts themselves and their artificers?” Cicero’s statement reflects exactly the views of proponents of intelligent design, and should alert us to the fact that intelligent design is really nothing new. The only real difference between creationism and intelligent design is that intelligent design masquerades as a scientific theory instead of a religious principle. We Americans need to realize that it is absolutely pathetic that after 2,000 years, we are still looking at Cicero’s statements as modern scientific views. The following ten commandments are all valid reasons why intelligent design must not be taught in public schools.
interaction of forty complex proteins to function; if one of the proteins doesn’t work, then the entire flagellum doesn’t work. The basis of using this as evidence is that if something is extremely rare, it must have been caused through intelligent (divine) intervention. This is logically inane. Darwin’s theory of evolution with natural selection explains that, although it’s uncommon, the flagellum motor was created through a natural process. In reality, the “evidence” presented for intelligent design is only a mask for the true inspiration of intelligent design- the Genesis account of the bible. The second reason why intelligent design is not a scientific theory is the fact that intelligent design is not a theory in the first place. Because intelligent design is simply the Genesis account of the creation of life, intelligent design will never be changed. This is extremely unscientific, as even the greatest and most obvious scientific theories have been modified and edited when necessary. Intelligent design is a religious principle and not a scientific theory; therefore, it should not be taught in public schools.
Evolution is the backbone of much of the science curriculum
Evolution is one of the most important parts of the Intelligent design is not a scientific theory science curriculum and is used to support the rest of biology. Without evolution, scientists would not be able Intelligent design is not a scientific theory for a two to explain the progression of certain species and other main reasons. Firstly, there is absolutely no evidence for things having to do with genetics. They would also not intelligent design. Although proponents of intelligent be able to create proper antibiotics if intelligent design design say that it is supported by circumstantial evidence, is taught in schools- without understanding evolution, the “evidence” is feeble and inconsequential. For example, AIDS, for example, will never be cured. Some supporters a common argument supporters use is the example of of intelligent design say that biology can be studied the flagellum motor. A flagellum needs the perfect through creationist means. However, there is no way Page 17
The Horace Mann Review that the unscientific concept of intelligent design can fill only theory able to be observed is evolution. The easiest the huge scientific void that would ensue if evolution is way to observe evolution is through the observation of dismissed. quickly replicating bacteria. In terms of the human body, for example, viruses evolve to be unaffected by certain Intelligent design has been proved wrong antibiotics. If an intelligent power could be observed making viruses immune to certain antibiotics, then Even if it were a scientific theory, intelligent design intelligent design would be a legitimate scientific theory. has still been proven wrong and must be abandoned. The However, predictably, intelligent design falls short of Genesis account of the Bible says that God created the having any useful applications. entire universe in seven days around 6,000 years ago. Unfortunately, this is scientifically impossible. There Intelligent design is propaganda to try and are no miracles in science- science provides a practical impress Christianity on children explanation as to why things happen, not a supernatural one. Scientific research has shown that the Earth is older Children are among the most vulnerable to than 6,000 years old and that the world was not created propaganda, and they may believe the Genesis account in seven days. If intelligent design is to be truly successful, of creation is the scientific truth if they are exposed to it must be brought out of the scientific classroom where it early enough. This is immoral and detrimental to the it is effortlessly disproved. students. As intelligent design has been proven wrong by science, intelligent design does not belong in a science Evolution is one of the most supported class. Teaching it in a science class will distort a student’s theories in science understanding of what science actually is, and might cause disastrous misunderstandings later on in life when the Unlike intelligent design, evolution is supported student is studying more advanced science. Sometimes, by a huge quantity of evidence discovered by scientists proponents of intelligent design say that if intelligent over a long period of years. This evidence includes rock design is not taught, students will grow up not believing formation, the fossil record, comparative anatomy, in Christianity. This is completely untrue, as students can comparative embryology, molecular evolution, and simple still learn about intelligent design in faith-based areas. observation of a species; for example, gorillas were recently Evolution is only taught in science classes and not in seen using tools for the first time. Although evolution is church; however, many people still believe in evolution. only a theory, just about everything in science is a theory, Likewise, if intelligent design was only taught in church and teaching intelligent design would unfairly discredit and not in science class, many people would still believe evolution. The overwhelming amount of evidence for in intelligent design. Although these people would not evolution makes evolution as good as fact. believe that intelligent design was scientific, this is fine as intelligent design really isn’t scientific anyway.
Evolution may observed, while intelligent design may not
As intelligent design declares that humans were created as we are now, intelligent design is not only a theory about the creation of life but also a theory about the development of life, stating that life hasn’t developed since the beginning of the world. This means that, as both are theories about the development of species, both evolution and intelligent design should be able to be observed as species are still developing. However, the Page 18
Evolution may be accepted without abandoning Christianity Unfortunately, there is no possible way that the world could have been created in seven days. For some Christians, accepting this fact would mean renouncing the Bible, but if we humans were to cling on to everything the Bible said as literal fact, we would have to say that the sun revolves around the Earth along with other things we know now to be false. A literal following of everything
Summer 2006 the Bible says would throw science back 2,000 years. In reality, evolution may be accepted without abandoning Christianity, as is shown in the Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches’ acceptance of evolution. The Bible was not meant to be a scientific account like Darwin’s Origin of Species, and therefore we must not treat it as one. Instead, we can look at the Bible as a religious text. By keeping the religion and science away from competition with one another, both can coexist peacefully.
Teaching intelligent design violates the First Amendment to the Constitution The First Amendment to the Constitution declares that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” meaning that the government is not allowed to enforce religious principles. As intelligent design is a religious principle and not a scientific one, teaching intelligent design in public schools violates the First Amendment to the Constitution. By teaching intelligent design to students, schools are (unconstitutionally) forcing a religious principle upon the students.
Intelligent design is discriminatory Intelligent design is a discriminatory principle that excludes the creationist beliefs of other religions besides Christianity. Although America is a predominantly Christian society, other creationist beliefs could be taught in schools with the same argument that the Genesis account is taught. The focus on the Genesis account shows that the point of intelligent design is to promote Christianity, not to advance science. One example of intelligent design exclusion is the Flying Spaghetti Monster. A man named Brian Henderson submitted a letter to the Kansas Board of Education asking if his theory that the Flying Spaghetti Monster created the world could be taught. Kathy Martin, District 6 representative on the Kansas Board, responded by saying that “[i]t is a serious offense to mock God.” The Flying Spaghetti Monster shows how those who believe that intelligent design is a scientific principle are getting duped. Intelligent design promotes the Christian way of thinking over all other religions, and when other creationist theories are suggested, they
Intelligent design is a religious, not scientific, theory are ignored.
Intelligent design is slanderous of God While some may believe that intelligent design spreads Christianity, the truth is that intelligent design becomes a substitute for God. Currently, proponents of intelligent design cite the numerous proteins involved in flagella as evidence for the existence of God. However, when scientists discover a precise explanation as to how so many proteins work together to run a flagellum (which undoubtedly will happen), suddenly the evidence of God’s existence is removed. If intelligent design cites certain evidence as the reason why God exists and created the world, and that evidence is proved false, all intelligent design has done is to say that there is no evidence humans have found showing the existence of God. Intelligent design is not scientific, and the evidence for the existence of God is not scientific but spiritual. The only thing intelligent design in science class is tarnish the bible and God’s name. « Page 19
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Columbia Controversy By Rachel Siegel “Many college campuses have a ‘serious problem’ with anti-Semitism,” according to the U.S. Committee on Civil Rights, as it appears in the RNS Daily Digest. Columbia Unbecoming, a documentary created by The David Project, features fourteen students from Columbia University recounting tales of their experience with anti-Semitic professors. In the film, audacious students describe being intimidated by members of the college’s Department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures for expressing pro-Israel sentiment. The film has brought to light the reality that contrary to the beliefs of many naïve Americans’ views that the nation’s elite are devoid of prejudice and bigotry. In fact, the repercussions of the Israel-Palestine conflict are being felt in the United States on the campus of one on the nation’s most prestigious universities. Joseph Massad, a figure at the center of this calamity, teaches a course entitled “Palestinian and Israeli Politics and Societies.” In his review of the feature film Munich, Massad says of the movie, “It is emphatically about Israeli Jews and Israeli terrorism.” He goes on to say that Munich “poses moral questions about terrorist methods and whether the end justifies the means as it chronicles the pangs of conscience troubling Israeli terrorists while they murder Palestinian poets, writers, and politicians across Europe and in Lebanon.” He concludes the review with the statement that “as for the rest of the Palestinian people, Munich, like the Israeli authorities, hopes that they stick to making baklava and stop resisting Israeli oppression, resistance which forces Israel to kill them and which in turn forces moral dilemmas on Spielberg, Kushner, and some of Israel’s other supporters in the diaspora.” Page 20
Massad clearly doesn’t take a neutral view on the conflict in the Middle East and makes no effort to hide his feelings of hatred towards the Israelis. In fact, the professor denies that the Holocaust happened. According to former Columbia student Anat Malkin, who was born in Israel, Mr. Massad told her class that Israelis rape female Palestinian prisoners before sending them back to the territories to be killed. When Malkin voiced her opposition to this statement, she says Massad shouted at her. She claims that he has caused her to drop out of the Middle Eastern studies program. Many similar accusations have been publicized. In February of this year, Columbia responded to the allegations by promoting Massad to the position of associate professor where he may receive tenure. This promotion has come after the formation of a committee created to look into the accusations against members of the Middle East Studies Department. The group stated that apart from one incident where it had found that Massad had inappropriately responded to a question by shouting at a student “If you’re going to deny the atrocities being committed against Palestinians, then you can get the hell out of my classroom,” it found that the professors had done nothing wrong. Massad disputes the fact that he said that to a student. Joseph Massad is by no means the only anti-Semitic professor on Columbia’s campus. Columbia Unbecoming accuses two other professors, namely Hamid Dabashi and George Saliba, of threatening students who defend Israel in the classroom. Dean Lisa Anderson went on a trip to Saudi Arabia that was paid for by the oil company Saudi Aramco just before joining the aforementioned
Columbia University professors have been accused of bias and anti-semitism. committee that investigated the claims of anti-Semitism. The trip took nine other Columbia faculty members to Saudi Arabia to visit major cities and meet with executives of the company. Furthermore, Columbia has admitted that it receives grants from the United Arab Emirates and a charity group based in Saudi Arabia known as the Olyan group. Since 2002 the college has also been receiving annual donations of $15,000 from Aramco for research in the Middle East Studies Department. Nadia Abu El-Haj, a professor of Athropology at Barnard is the author of the book Facts on the Ground: Archeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society. The book has little to do with archaeology and is merely an attack on the Jewish people for conducting archaeological digs in the area they call Israel. She says that they conduct searches to try and find items giving them a claim to the area in order to unfairly steal the land from the Palestinians. The Middle East war that rages on the campus of
Columbia has made its way to Princeton. Rashid Khalidi is currently a professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University and students at Princeton have heard he has been offered a job there. Alumni are contacting the school to make sure he doesn’t become a part of the faculty there despite his prestige in the field of Middle Eastern Studies. Princeton is known for hiring professors who are more sympathetic to the United States and Israel than to Palestine, and hiring Khalidi would signify a major shift. The interim director of the Center for Jewish Life has said that, “I and many others feel that such an appointment makes a political statement by Princeton University and that this statement will [affect] Jewish enrollment at Princeton.” As Princeton alumnus Katz wrote in a letter to his former school where he voiced the dominant opinion amongst Jewish students and alumni of Princeton, “If [Princeton] wants to turn Princeton into Columbia, I want nothing more to do with it.” « Page 21
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Underage Fighting Military Recruiters In High Schools By Benito Fernandez In the land of opportunity, it is estimated that a million public school students do not receive their high school diplomas each year. Of those who do graduate only 32% are qualified to attend a four-year college. This bleak future, the natural tendency for adolescent males to have a primal aggression, and a desire to be accepted in a group make public high schools the ideal target for military recruiters. In 1973, the United States abolished the draft and created an all-volunteer army. Since then, all branches of the armed forces have required all soldiers to possess a high school diploma; therefore it is dependent on the recruiters’ ability to attract high school graduates. For this reason, the law, specifically the No Child Left Behind Act, grants military recruiters access to public schools that accept federal funds. Not only can recruiters visit a school, but they are also permitted to use the school directory to follow up on students who are interested in a military career. The position of S. Douglas Smith, Spokesman for the U.S. Army Recruiting Command, is that “the presence of military recruiters in high schools does not force students to join the military; it simply alerts them to an option.” The military argues that it provides training and a career and that presenting opportunities to high schoolers is necessary to maintain a capable military. However, the issue is not whether they are forcing students to enlist, but rather if recruiters are unfairly misleading impressionable minds. When recruiters present the military as a career option, they focus on its most attractive qualities. They speak of world travel, home loans, free higher education, free medical and dental care, and retirement benefits. In the post 9/11 world they also play to students’ patriotism and Page 22
desire to serve their country. All of this is expected. It is the recruiter’s job to attract young people to the military. What the salesman obviously does not explain is the gruesome and brutal job that is war and the enormous risks of lasting psychological and physical pain and possibly death. These dangers might be overlooked by those students who see no other way out of the poverty and lack of a future. It is also possible that the reality of war is not as obvious when a skilled recruiter speaks. Recruiters have not accomplished their goal by simply explaining the opportunities in the military; they must in some way bind the students to their word of enlistment. One effective way recruiters accomplish this goal is through the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC). This program, almost equivalent to the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC), was established by an act of Congress in 1916 to develop citizenship and responsibility in the youth of the nation. The JROTC consists of more than half a million students enrolled at over 3,000 schools nationwide and is supplied with
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Many new recruits are fresh out of high school and are of minority backgrounds. $250 million by the Pentagon each year. The program is consequently very effective and approximately 40% of its graduates enlist in the military. Defenders of the JROTC claim that the purpose of the program is to develop citizenship, instill discipline, and prevent dropouts. Despite the JROTC and the efforts of recruiters, enlistment numbers have plummeted in recent months, probably due to the unpopular wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2005, the Pentagon announced that it was 3,973 short of its goal for the year. This makes 2005, according to military statistics, the worst recruiting year since 1973, the first year of the all-volunteer army. In an attempt to increase recruitment numbers, there has recently been a huge advertising blitz for the military. The $2.2 billion dollar “GO ARMY” campaign is seen on TV, at sporting events, and heard on the radio. The advertisements depict parents full of pride for their sons and daughters in the military and all the possible ways to serve their country within the army while bettering themselves. The advertising campaign only reinforces the message that recruiters try to spread by showing proud,
successful members of the military. This campaign gives recruiters another tool and one that is very dangerous because it deals with the subconscious. The purpose of the recruiter is to sell the military and persuade people to enlist. They are, by law, given the permission to visit high schools and access the school directories, but they are trained to go to the schools whose population is predominantly living in poverty. Military recruiters are also extensively trained to speak and act in a manner that will best sell their product, the military. The product, however, can be fierce and deadly war, which is being sold in a disingenuous way. Moreover, the consumers are not educated adults but impressionable, adolescents who are unlikely to see another way out of the poverty and seamless future in their lives. Undoubtedly, there is a need for a fullystaffed and capable armed forces, especially in today’s War Against Terrorism. However, we must be mindful of not taking advantage of our impressionable youth: it is to our advantage to have recruits who know what their responsibilities entail. « Page 23
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Home Schools An In-Depth Examination By Amanda Cole We have all seen Mean Girls. Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan) is home schooled through her youth in Africa and then gets thrown into the public school district as a junior and becomes corrupted by typical fake teenager girls. There is a certain stigma associated to home schooling: the awkward child who has no social skills; is too smart for their own good; and ends up in college by 15. Home schooling, however, means different things to different people. For some families, home schooling means replicating school at home, complete with all aspects of school like textbooks, report cards, and field trips. For other families, home schooling is a way of life where children and adults live and learn together seamlessly, making the boundary between home and school invisible. Home schooling could be either of these two structures, or anything in between. For many people, the deepest and most enduring benefit of home schooling is the bond developed within a family. Home schooling families spend huge amounts of time together learning and living. These families have the opportunity to develop a depth of understanding and a commitment to the family that is difficult to comprehend for other families that spend their days going in separate directions. Many families enjoy the flexibility home schooling provides to the parents and the children. Children can learn about things they are truly interested in and at a time when they are ready to learn. There is no preconceived schedule that rushes students ahead or holds them back. Vacations can be planned for times when the family is ready and the time convenient. Many argue that children can learn about the ‘real world’ by being a part of it first hand instead of being placed in an artificial setting unrepresentative of real life. Page 24
Children can receive a superior education designed specifically to their own needs, learning styles, personalities, and passionate interests, all at a far less cost than that of a private or public school education. Or can they? One of the best concepts of school is that different teachers are specialized at different subjects. A student gets the opportunity to deal with experts of the subject most of the time. Even a bad teacher can too be a valuable experience because you learn how to overcome certain difficulties before you enter the real world. It is important to have different and opposing views taught by different teachers because you learn how to discern which one is correct. Now for the main argument and the question home schoolers often grimace about: social lives. The concern is whether home schooled children will be able to function out in the world without the experience 14 years of schooling can provide. There are two ways to look at this issue. On the negative side, some will argue that it is impossible for a child to learn important lessons provided by simple experience if he is home schooled. It is debated that rejection, arguments with friend, “cliques,” and gossip are all really important concepts that have to be experienced before the child reaches the real world. Others make the point that schools categorize and segregate children by age and aptitude, reinforce gender, class, and racial prejudice, and don’t give from children the right to real interaction. To people with these views, socialization becomes submitting one’s will to that of the group or person in charge, which is not the basis for healthy relationships. While there are certainly advantages to the individualized attention that homeschooling can offer, they must be « weighed against high social and economic costs.
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Anti-Imperialists Ahmadinejad, Castro, and Chavez By Alice Kissilenko While there has always been unrest in the antiAmerican block of certain socialist and rogue nations, the United States has recently found it necessary to increase its awareness and action in this area. America’s primary concern is the use of oil and nuclear weapons to finalize strategic alliances between certain Latin American, Middle Eastern, and Russian states with the goal of overpowering “the imperialist West.” Of these, Cuba, Venezuela, and Iran have proven themselves to be entangled in many more agreements and action plans than was originally suspected by the United States. Especially in the case of the recent June 2005 elections in Iran, where the hardline conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad defeated former reformist president Rafsanjani, the actions of these countries have been placed under intense international scrutiny and criticism. Fidel Castro Ruz is no stranger to international ostracism, critique, and inspection, due to his 47 years as the controversial Communist leader of Cuba. Originally taking over during a guerrilla – style coup d’etat in 1959 against the American-backed Batista government, he oversaw the transformation of Cuba into the first and only remaining Communist state in the Western Hemisphere. Some see him as a legitimate leader who enacted vast land reform and collectivization policies, nationalized leading industries, and made free health care and education available. Others view him as a dictator who starves his people while he lavishes in wealth and extravagance. In 1961, the US attempted to use an army of Cuban emigrants to unseat Castro in the Bay of Pigs invasion of the island, which ended in a total rout and allowed Castro to be labeled as “the Page 26
David who stood up to the Goliath of America.” Castro has had an effect all over the Latin American continent and has successfully gained an admiring ally in Hugo Chavez, the left-wing socialist president of Venezuela. After an unsuccessful coup d’etat during which he used military force to overthrow the Perez administration, Chavez came to power in 1998 through “free and fair elections,” despite US accusations of rigging and fraud. His most important domestic policy is his “Bolivarian Revolution,” which is the process of change that he has enacted within Venezuela and plans to spread all throughout the continent. This plan includes using oil money to combat disease, illiteracy, malnutrition, poverty, bad living standards, and other social ills. As he believes in a protectionist economic policy, grassroots participation, self-sufficiency, and redistribution of wealth, Chavez also wishes to scale back globalization and IMF austerity programs. However, the political elite of Venezuela, backed by the US and the EU, criticize his land reform policy, which limits the amount of land one can own and taxes unused property, redistributes unused land, and expropriates land from large estates. Chavez, however, is very active in combating United States imperialism, and has thus strived for Latin American integration and Russian and Iranian “brothers” to support his ideals. While Iran had been in contact with both Cuba and Venezuela before the recent elections, these ties became even more important when the poor former mayor of Tehran, Ahmadinejad, openly stated his anti-American and anti-Israeli views. Reluctant to reestablish the broken relations with the US and rumored to have participated in taking American hostages in the 1979
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Presidents Ahmadinejad is widely supported by Iranians for his defiance towards the West. Islamic Revolution, Iran has further incensed other nations by requesting that the state of Israel be “wiped off the map.” Iran’s refusal to stop its nuclear work has resulted in additional international criticism. Ahmadinejad’s platform, however, was centered on rolling back previous reforms and halting corruption. With a populist streak, he advocated for a focus on poverty, social justice, and the distribution of wealth inside Iran so as to benefit the poor. While Latin America and Iran are separated both by geographical barriers and by conflicting political policies, in the United States they have found a common enemy against which to hinge their alliance. These ‘lesser’ nations agree that “countries such as the U.S. have taken it upon themselves to decide for us in the developing world, even to interfere in our domestic affairs and to bring about what they call regime change.” Cuban relations with the US have been extremely negative, especially since the beginning of Castro’s regime, when he began expropriating US-owned Page 28
property with very low compensation rates. Since then the United States has launched the Bay of Pigs invasion and the CIA-based Operation Mongoose to attempt to get rid of this controversial socialist leader. Therefore, it is natural that Cuba views the US as a permanent threat to its society, and has been eagerly engaged in economic trade-offs with Venezuela to help fund its anti-American spirit. Venezuelan president Chavez has also been very vocal about his thorough displeasure with the US’s imperialistic attempts to “dominate the world,” denouncing this rich superpower as a “threat to all life on the planet” and the cause of world hunger, pollution, war, climate change, agricultural trade barriers, debt interest payments by developing nations, and poverty. In addition to historical rift between the state of Iran and the Westernized Americas, Ahmadinejad is particularly concerned with the Bush administration’s agenda for secular democracy in the Middle East. As an Islamist religious conservative, he is particularly interested in maintaining a traditional
Summer 2006 and non-reformist government. Further reason for dispute is the US call for sanctions to be put on Iran if it does not stop engaging in nuclear development. The US fears that Iran’s nuclear program is moving towards constructing an atomic weapon. The Iranian president has replied that “it remains Iran’s decision” whether to reestablish good relations with America, and that he must “carefully weigh the pros and cons” so as to preserve his nation’s independence, dignity, and integrity. With Iran’s recent refusal to abide by the US’s request in the United Nations and with the anti-American pressure from countries such as Cuba, Venezuela, and Russia, it seems unlikely that Ahmadinejad will turn to the West for compromise. The key factor allowing these countries (two of which are oil-rich) to form such friendly alliances and to pose a crucial threat to their Western opposition is the presence of some form of nuclear activity. Of the three, Ahmadinejad has recently risen to the international scene when he ignored US warnings of sanctions and UN involvement if Iran did not stop enriching uranium. This process, which Ahmadinejad claims is “purely for peaceful, civilian, energy purposes,” can easily be diverted to the creation of an atomic weapon. Instead of respecting US concerns, Iran has continued testing more advanced centrifuges to enrich uranium even faster and will not halt its nuclear work until “the West understands that they cannot resolve this issue through force.” Ahmadinejad claims that this “peaceful nuclear technology is the product of scientific progress by the young people of this country, and that it would be illegal and against our religion to search for atomic weapons.” He has invited “all countries to participate in Iran’s nuclear project,” and has even proposed sharing his atomic technology to promote security within the region. Venezuela has been very eager to respond to Iran’s invitation. Chavez has allowed Iran access to the 50,000 tons of uranium deposits within Venezuela in exchange for peaceful atomic technology. Furthermore, Chavez verbally supports Ahmadinejad’s right to being accepted as a nuclear power, denouncing the US as a hypocritical nation that maintains the nuclear weapons of its allies yet demands that all others paralyze their programs. Both Cuba and Venezuela voted against sending Iran’s nuclear case to the UN Security Council.
It is rumored that Iran has planned to send nuclear facilities to Castro as well and has frequently met with the leader to discuss this agreement. Cuba is currently receiving large amounts of subsidized oil from Venezuela, in exchange for support of the Bolivarian Revolution. In attempting to establish an anti-American block, all three nations have turned to alternative supporters such as Russia and China for resources and encouragement. With the goal of diversifying Venezuela’s economic ties away from the US and the EU, Chavez has bought large amounts of arms from Russia, of which the United States suspects are for terrorist groups. They are working on “fixing” oil prices and weakening opposition. Russia has also had a very long history of agreements and arms sales with Cuba, dating back to the USSR and continuing on through Castro’s regime. Iran, however, depends on Russia for its veto in the UN rather than for procurement of aircrafts or rifles. Russia, as one of Iran’s last hopes in avoiding punishment and sanctions, insists on a diplomatic solution to the nuclear standoff. Recently, however, Russia is demanding that Iran show “wisdom and flexibility” in its negotiations if the US-proposed sanctions are to be avoided. Russia has promoted a compromise deal which would allow Tehran to enrich uranium, but only on Russian soil under strict supervision. The United States is now accustomed to being seen as the sole superpower for all that is successful and modern. However, it has been ignorant as to the growing anti-American sentiment throughout many nations of the world. Cuba, Venezuela, and Iran have taken advantage of the rumors of US hypocrisy and have allowed these controversies to spread, fueled by economics and nationalism. Left to amass great nuclear capabilities as a threat to the leader of the Western world and to form a web of complex alliances and constant support, these nations have arisen as the emblems for a new coalition combating Western imperialism and promoting a multi-polar world. The United States is in the tedious position of deciding how to respond to this movement. While there is always the possibility of overreacting, the US has efficiently maintained a diplomatic stance, and has succeeded in drawing upon the continued support of other nations such as those in « the European Union. Page 29
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Charter Schools Solution Or Waste of Resources? By Stephanie Nass
“Regardless of the ultimate value of charter schools, they reflect the need for innovation within public education.� Page 30
Summer 2006 Over the past several decades, educators have proposed a number of radical solutions to what are perceived as the critical problems of the American system of public education. While many advocate increased funding for public schools, others, such as the Edison Project, suggest that privatization of public education is our hope for the future. Between these two positions, however, the idea of charter schools has gained increasing attention as means of providing parents and students with choice and giving teachers and communities more power over how their children are educated. The major difference between the “traditional” public school system and the charter school system is that charter schools have the liberty to design their academic programs. However, the popularity of charter schools has only added fuel to the debate about their effectiveness. In 1991, the first charter school opened in Minnesota, and since then, more than 3,600 have sprung up across the nation. The term “charter” comes from the 1970s when an educator suggested the idea of giving teachers contracts, or “charters,” to explore new ideas. Soon after, Philadelphia created schoolswithin-schools and called them “charters.” This concept was refined in Minnesota, and the schools were built in accordance to three main values, “opportunity, choice, and responsibility for others.” Minnesota then passed the first charter law and was followed by California. In 2003, there were forty states with charter schools, in addition to the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. The support of the past two presidential administrations has allowed charter schools to grow rapidly and to reach the point where they now serve over a million students. While receiving only the same per pupil finance means as the public schools in any given state, charter schools are given freedom in designing their curriculum. They provide an alternative to public schools by offering innovative approaches to teaching within smaller, independent environments. By giving teachers more freedom, they can tailor their curriculum to suit the needs of different types of students and develop
approaches to learning that are more effective because they do not cater to a “one-size-fits-all” philosophy. Moreover, because charter schools must register students on a first-come-first-serve basis, the student body tends to be racially diverse. Finally, in most charter schools, there is generally more individualized attention because they tend to enroll a slightly smaller number of students per teacher and operate as much smaller units, a strategy that has attracted praise and support from, among others, the Gates Foundation. Charter school students, the proponents of charter schools suggest, tend to be more closely monitored and ultimately more successful both socially and academically than students of their same age in neighboring public schools. Some would even go as far as to believe that the excellence and high demands of charter schools will force public schools perform better. However, there is also an increasingly vocal opposition that points to charter schools’ downsides. First, charter schools have limited resources and often underestimate the extraordinary costs involved in starting up. Charter school opponents claim that charter schools are an inefficient use of resources, requiring school systems to put expensive facilities such as science labs into a number of smaller institutions rather than one large school. At the same time, smaller schools find themselves unable to offer a range of advanced courses, such as AP Physics and Math, because the small number of students taking the class does not justify the cost. In addition, charter schools can often lure good teachers away from schools where they are most needed, creating an unequal contest when it comes to deciding on the relative merits of the two approaches. Regardless of the ultimate value of charter schools, they reflect the need for innovation within public education and the realization that something needs to be done. Although each individual charter school might not be successful, and the jury is still out on the charter school movement as a whole, the move toward empowering teachers and parents through choice seems to be the « direction in which education needs to go. Page 31
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Discrimination Institutionalized By Sam Shelley
Dean Edley has been hurt by affirmative action
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hristopher Edley Jr., Dean and Professor of law at Berkeley Law School said that the most upsetting thing for him was knowing that each year, when he gave his speech at the opening assembly, a large portion of the students listening to him believed that he had received the position only because he was black. Those students assume that because Dr. Edley was black, he had somehow benefited from affirmative action, which in fact is not the case at all. He is only one of the many black professionals who each day feel the ramifications of affirmative action and the way it has stigmatized his or her entire race. Page 32
In 1961, President Kennedy enacted a policy entitled “affirmative action.” When initially conceived, the goal of this project was to “level the playing field for all Americans” in an environment where racial segregation was still omnipresent. Kennedy created the foundation from which future presidents and the Supreme Court could further define “affirmative action.” President Johnson became the second President to address affirmative action with his executive order requiring that all contractors look equally upon applications from potential employees when hiring, an order which was later amended to require equality among gender as well as race. Johnson’s policy took the first step towards making affirmative action more about preferential treatment and equal results rather than equal opportunity. Ironically it was the Republican President Richard Nixon who took the most aggressive stance in terms of establishing laws for race and gender based hiring. Historians speculate that he was responding to urban unrest of the 1960s. Nixon’s “Philadelphia Plan” created goals and specific timetables which contractors should follow when hiring new employees. For the first time contractors were required to establish targeted goals for hiring underrepresented minorities and women. When asked about the possible ramifications of this policy he responded, “We would not impose quotas, but would require federal contractors to show affirmative action to meet the goals of increasing minority employment.” With this crucial development affirmative action began to take a firm hold in American culture. Since its inception, affirmative action has morphed and grown into something far more encompassing than was
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Affirmative Action is presumed to have helped all people of minority backgrounds, even when it hasn’t. first intended. As it has progressed, it has been shaped by Supreme Court cases to work based on the race of the applicant as opposed to the applicant’s socioeconomic background. This change has occurred most likely due to the difficulty that schools and employers have in gathering data about the background of the applicant. Schools find it far easier to use racial statistics created by various private organizations and the United States census. However, due to the increased tendency to rely on race as the standard by which affirmative action is defined; affirmative action has created a system in which discrimination between races has actually increased. Affirmative action was an attempt to create equal opportunity for disadvantaged applicants at transitional periods in their lives, and although proponents argue that affirmative action ensures diversity in school systems, it also stigmatizes minorities. The unintended effect of the
policy is to create a situation in which those who benefit from affirmative action, no matter how talented they are, will always be viewed as being judged differently and unable to compete at the same level as those who must meet a higher standard. In other words affirmative action inadvertently leads to an increase in discrimination against minorities. Opponents of affirmative action also point out that being race based, the policy ignores students who are economically disadvantaged an important barrier to university entrance. In an attempt to create diversity in our country we have in fact created even more discrimination, discrimination against those who do not fit the race criteria for affirmative action. Affirmative action may provide minority students a chance to go to colleges that may have previously excluded them, but is it really worth stigmatizing and discriminating against whole groups of ÂŤ minorities? I would say not. Page 33
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Separate But Equal? By Lindsay Gellman What if, as you looked around your classroom, you were not surrounded by a diverse student body as we are here at Horace Mann, but instead you saw only students whose skin is the same color as yours? This unsettling prospect is becoming a reality for public school students in Omaha, Nebraska, who will be subject to a new law which segregates their schools into three racially distinct districts. One district is predominantly white, another is mostly black, and the third is largely Hispanic. The law, passed on April 13, 2006 and signed immediately by Governor Dave Heineman, is a reaction to a previous debate concerning Nebraska school districts. Last June, the Omaha school district, directed by Superintendent John J. Mackiel, expressed its wish to absorb affluent suburban schools which lie within Omaha city limits. This plan, mandated in the new law, was an attempt to equalize funding to both affluent suburban and struggling inner-city schools, as well as encourage integration through joint extracurricular programs. The campaign, marketed under the slogan “One City, One School District,” attracted the attention of parents in affluent areas who feared that the district might return to its busing program. The busing program, which took place in Nebraska from 1976 until 1999, forced integration by transporting many students to schools in other districts and thus exposing them to differing socioeconomic conditions and quality of education. However, legislators have already moved to block any possible busing in the new law. The cause for intense debate and national attention in recent weeks has not been the unified school district itself, but rather a specific amendment attached to the bill proposed by Ernie Chambers, Nebraska’s only AfricanAmerican state senator. Chambers’ amendment, a mere two pages in length as compared to the to the 170-page bill, divides the new school district based on mapping requirements which clearly represent “ethnic thirds.” Page 34
Chambers forcefully defends his amendment. He claims that the fact that the district is segregated will allow more resources to flow directly to minority students. He also maintains that segregated schools will allow minority parents and communities greater control over any decisions made. The bill must now fend off legal challenges before it can go into effect. Despite its possible benefits, critics denounce the amendment as unconstitutional and dangerously segregationist. Many believe that Chambers’ plan breaches the landmark 1954 U.S. Supreme Court case of Brown vs. Board of Education, in which “separate but equal” facilities for blacks and whites were deemed unconstitutional. Further, critics feel that the possible advantage of community control is not great enough cause for large-scale restructuring of educational facilities based on race and socioeconomic background. In addition, many parents worry about the negative message that resegregation will send to their children. The possibility of segregated schools in twenty-first century America certainly comes as a shock to those of us who would like to think that our nation is moving towards color-blindness and universal equality. If Chambers’ amendment goes into effect, Nebraska will be setting a precedent of institutionalizing segregation. The United States government risks sponsoring a regression in Civil Rights and reversing any progress in racial equality made in the more than fifty years since Brown vs. Board. Segregating schools may in fact provide minority communities with greater control over school decisions. However, we as a nation must work toward an environment in which wise and fair decisions are made regardless of which ethnic group is in control or which race of people the decision affects. The students of today are the leaders of tomorrow. They must work, play, and grow in a diverse environment in which all people are « treated with respect.
Summer 2006
“Segregated schools in the 21st century shocks those who would think that we are moving to color-blindness and universal equality.� Page 35
The Horace Mann Review
Objective Teaching? By Zach Malter Fourteen state legislators have considered bills that aim to make teaching on college campuses more objective. Specifically, the bills place restrictions on professors and give students a forum to complain about political bias. Although no legislation has yet been made law, the movement is gaining strength. In 2004, four state universities in Colorado established procedures that improve academic freedom and limit political partisanship. Some conservatives are concerned because students, young and politically undeveloped, are particularly impressionable, meaning that teachers could make students believe subjective issues as truths. People also believe many teachers are only exposing one view on certain issues to their students and are not allowing free and open discourse in the classroom. On the other side of the argument, people believe that teachers should be given complete discretion about what and how they teach, regardless of if they politicize the subject. Students for Academic Freedom (SAF), a hardline conservative education group that promotes academic freedom for students in the classroom, has been at the forefront of the movement. Its founder, David Horowitz, recently published a novel, The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America. The book argues that academia is pervaded by un-American, left wing bias. This organization is most deeply concerned with the teaching of the Muslim Faith and the persuading of students not to join the military. Other groups have created literature to publicize their beliefs and online forums to discuss liberal bias in teaching. These recently established organizations are made up of dissatisfied conservative students and parents across the country. These new developments reflect the change in political opinion our country has undergone, as more people have adopted conservative views. Although SAF is garnering some support from students and parents, a Page 36
recent poll from the Christian Science Monitor shows that only 25% of Americans believe that public schools are becoming sites of liberal indoctrination. The entire debate revolves around academic freedom, which is defined by Columbia University as “the freedom of teachers, students, and academic institutions to pursue knowledge wherever it may lead, without undue or unreasonable interference.” Academic freedom is not a law that must be upheld in the classroom, but rather an ideal that many believe is important in academia. There is an explicit difference between academic freedom for students and academic freedom for teachers. The people that subscribe to the concept of academic freedom for students believe that all viewpoints should be discussed equally. The other side of the argument includes sentiments such as the one from the American Association of University Professors which states that all teachers should have the full freedom to teach and discuss their subject in the way that they see to be fit. The point of disagreement between the two sides occurs when a teacher’s freedom to teach conflicts with a student’s freedom to learn. The SAF has established the academic bill of rights, which calls for the regulation of colleges by ensuring that students are aware of all viewpoints, that hiring and firing is based on competence instead of political ideologues, and that the grading of students is based on performance instead of religious or political beliefs. This bill was presented to the House of Representatives, but has also received much criticism from education groups including the American Association of University Professors, which released a statement saying, “A fundamental premise of academic freedom is that decisions concerning the quality of scholarship and teaching are to be made by reference to the standards of the academic profession, as interpreted and applied by
Summer 2006 the community of scholars who are qualified by expertise and training to establish such standards.” The members of the association believe that the bill threatens academic freedom and undermines the education system. Their main concern is that it calls for the hiring of a teacher based on his or her ability to stay neutral, instead of hiring a teacher based on teaching ability. At an institution like Horace Mann, which bears many similarities to the collegiate atmosphere, similar accusations have been made and the same debate exists. Is there political bias in the classroom and if so what are the implications of this bias? Horace Mann can provide a model for the entire national situation. Like many schools nationwide, Horace Mann’s faculty is mostly comprised of left-leaning teachers. One HM teacher commented, “I know there is a liberal slant to this school.” Some conservative students believe that their views are not being represented in the classroom and that teachers are infusing a political bias into the subject. At Horace Mann many teachers do express their political beliefs, which both teachers and students believe can be a positive thing if expressed appropriately. English teacher Ms. Bahr argued that expressing her political beliefs has benefited her students. “Sometimes I think things are so vague on our political landscape that they need to be talked about. I’m just not sure if kids are getting a chance to talk about politics. We are all so consumed with our little subject areas… I hope that I ask a good question that gets people thinking about things.” She continued, “I think it’s good for students to hear different teachers’ beliefs. I’m sure they hear from the other adults in their lives- their parents, rabbis, priests, aunts and uncles or whatever adult friends.” She also explained, “Everyone brings their political beliefs into the classroom. You can’t go in neutral. Things like English and History lend themselves to talking about values. In English when you are talking about peoples’ choices and what they believe in, how can you not [discuss politics].” Dr. Glenn Wallach, Horace Mann history teacher and 10th grade dean, says that a student will not be fully persuaded by one teacher’s political point of view. “There isn’t a simple formula that says, I say X and students therefore believe Y. If they did, all advertisers would have to do is put an ad on and 100% of the people would go buy
whatever it is they are advertising…So when teachers say anything students don’t necessarily swallow it wholesale.” “Teachers do not give up their first amendment rights when they walk into the classroom. I think the bigger question is should anyone’s beliefs dictate how someone gets graded or they run a class,” Wallach added. The issue is not that teachers are expressing their beliefs but that they are bringing a bias to the classroom. There is a difference between political bias and political expression in the context of teaching. Political expression is when a teacher expresses his or her ideologues, and allows open discussion. When a teacher dictates a certain belief on the students without acknowledging another side of the argument or allowing other opinions it is considered political bias. Another example of political bias is when a teacher grades or assesses a student based on his or her political beliefs. One HM teacher expressed his belief that it’s inappropriate when a teacher dictates a particular attitude and does not allow for any others. He also stated that there should be free and open discourse in a classroom. Ms. Bahr also agreed saying, “I mean I always try to keep the dialogue open. For people that disagree with me I want them to talk about things, and I’m always willing to have my mind changed. If kids want to show me something that provides a different view, I’m always open for that… I never want kids to think I’m shutting them down.” Most Horace Mann teachers haven’t seen any serious instances or complaints of political bias in teaching. Dr. Wallach commented that some students are quick to assume that there is political bias when they hear a teacher express a political view. He also noted that some students that make these accusations don’t have a true understanding of what political bias really is. A lesson about the nationwide debate can be learned from the situation at Horace Mann. Many teachers that are well regarded happen to be some of the more politically outspoken. People around the country need to be more aware that not only students but also hard-working teachers deserve academic freedom and discretion in what they teach. Organizations such as the Students for Academic Freedom along with other people who find issue with teachers having political bias need to be more aware of the positives of political expression and of the difference « between political bias and expression. Page 37
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SAT: Standard For Whom? By William Kim Every year, 1.7 million students take���������������� the������������ Scholastic Aptitude Test at the request of college admission officers. This test is now widely accepted in colleges as a reliable and valid assessment test. Therefore ���������������������� many colleges to this day use it������������������������������������������� as a key factor in determining admission. Yet� ���� o��������������������������������������������������������� ver seven hundred���������������������������������������� universities in the United States have made the test optional�������������������������������� .������������������������������� One of the key motivations���� ��������������� is that the tests seem to discriminate against certain groups, whether it is���������������������������������������������� ������������������������������������������������ race, sex, ���������������������������������� age, family ����������������������������� income, or some other characteristics.��������������������������������������� SAT proponents deem the test fair and unbiased. ���������������������������������������������� However, others are �������������������������� vehemently ��������������� opposed to the SAT and its discriminatory nature. According to research����������������������������� ,���������������������������� all but on����������������� e���������������� minority group (Asians and Pacific Islanders) scored ������������������������� drastically lower than the average Caucasian�������������������������� ����������������������������������� male��������������������� on the SAT���������� . AfricanAmericans scored nearly two hundred points lower on their composite score.�������������������������������������� Many critics of the SAT believe that this disparity between the scores of different groups can be attributed to the group’s socio-economic class in society. Wealthier students may have more access to tutors or test preparation materials.������������������������������� There is a direct correlation between a student���������������������������������������� ’��������������������������������������� s income and the student��������������� ’�������������� s test score. Children who belong to a family with relatively higher income have a greater likelihood of applying to a private school and participating in supplementary coaching classes specifically for the purpose of increasing SAT score. Research shows that coaching can increase one���’��s score by a hundred or more points. Originally, the ETS (Educational Testing Service) stated that composite scores could not be improved by coaching; presently, the College Board division of the ETS now distributes its own test materials for a monetary fee. R������������������������������������������������� esearch by writers Crouse and Trusheim indicates that scores are ���������������������������������������� proportional���������������������������� to family income: students from families with higher incomes tend to receive higher scores. And with the addition of the new SAT Reasoning Test���������������������������������������������������������� ’��������������������������������������������������������� s writing section, the ability to coach this������������� test ������� merely� increases��. Page 38
In addition, the SAT discriminates against age groups, specifically people who are older than the age of twentyfive who have not experienced school or multiple choice format tests in several years. As a result the SAT often incorrectly predicts these students�������������������������� ’������������������������� performance in college. Even the Educational Testing Service, which administers the test, acknowledges the tests have a great margin for error in predicting “������������������������������������� �������������������������������������� non-traditional���������������������� ”��������������������� students in college performance. For the same reason numerous colleges do not require the SAT for students who have ceased attending high school for over five years. Although this next case is not a bias, it certainly adds to one������������������������������������������������ ’����������������������������������������������� s consideration of whether the SAT is fair. In October 2005��������������������������������������� , numerous����������������������������� ���������������������������� students’������������������� tests were scored incorrectly giving the students substantially different scores. The College Board������������������������������� announced that it had changed the scores of those who were hurt������������������������� by the error, but those who received��������������������������������������������� ����������������������������������������������������� inflated scores would����������������������� ���������������������������� remain unaffected. In ��� addition, the College Board recommended that students should have their tests hand graded, at a fee of up to one hundred dollars. For many families, this is simply not an option.���������������������������������������������������� A lawsuit has been filed by a student who ��������� received� a lower score due to this ������������������������������ debacle; more wronged parties may follow suite��. After reflecting on the evidence������������������� , the�������������� SAT seems to favor the middle or upper class Caucasian male and under-predicts people of other than the white male, including minority groups, people older than twenty five, and other students. In the test, there appear numerous biased questions and even the structure itself seems to discriminate���������������������������������������������� against these students. S�������������������� ��������������������� tudents from higher socioeconomic backgrounds have a higher overall score on these tests. Overall, the SAT along with a student��������� ’�������� s grade point average successfully predicts grades in college in only 72% of �������������������� the cases, ������������� while ��������������������������� GPA alone provides correct predictions in 73% of the cases. Comprehensively, the SAT is not only an unfair test, but a poor predictor of « college performance.
Summer 2006
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Education Abroad Interview with President Nitish Jain of S.P. Jain Institute of Management & Research By Diana Greenwald Firstly, how did you become involved in business? What was your career before becoming President of SP Jain? I am born to a family engaged in a Chemicals business. I studied in Bombay and then went to Cornell University for a MBA. I returned to join my family business. I then went on to start my own company to manufacture branded foods. After 8 years I sold my business to Bestfoods and American company (subsequently it got acquired by Unilever). I had a natural inclination to education and I then joined full time a business school in Bombay promoted by my grand father. My mission was to take its operations overseas. What were your principal motives in establishing SP Jain? SP Jain was set up in 1981 to help Indian students learn business management. Over the years thanks to the efforts of our Dean, the reputation of the school grew dramatically and today gets ranked 5 or 6 from over 1,000 B-schools in India. Our admission is so selective that 25,000 apply for just 150 seats. When I joined the simplest thing to do was merely to increase the number of seats. Clearly there was no shortage of students. However, I was determined to take S P Jain outside the shores of India. This helped in 2 ways. Firstly, It helped our brand to get visibility in foreign lands. Though Indian professors are to be found in the best universities all over the world, India education institutions are highly India centric. Secondly, most of our students Page 40
are extremely bright and ambitious. However, as they have never left India they are not exposed to global economy we live in today. 90% of our students are Indians from India who are then exposed to an international environment, which in our opinion broadens ones horizons. Specifically, SP Jain has campuses in Dubai and Singapore, why were these places chosen as good locations for SP Jain?
Summer 2006 Dubai is today one of the fastest growing cities in the world. Jain as a start. This is a dream city as its zero tax, English speaking, very How do you think the role of business in Asia and safe and with jobs in multinational companies. Singapore the Middle East will evolve in the future? is a highly developed city and a financial capital of the world. It is home to other international universities like Lets start at the basics. Consider three sets of facts. One, University of Chicago, INSEAD and several more. It’s a Asia is home to nearly half the population of the world, perfect backdrop for management education 50% of them are under 25 years of age! The growth of this region is going to be explosive. This can already been When you were young, what were India and the seen. The Asian economies are growing in the high single Indian people’s attitudes towards business and how digits – India and China but also Singapore, Taiwan and have these changed over time? Do you think these Australia! Just the demand from India and China, exports attitudes reflect those of the other nations in which to the US are fueling these economies. Second, the demand SP Jain has been established? for oil is keeping prices really high. There is an estimated $ Wow! I was young too long back! My simple answer 750 Bn “excess” cash flow into the Middle East. This time is that today we live in a highly globalized world which around Governments are investing the money very wisely wasn’t true 20 years ago. When I started in business, into infrastructure. But even those economies are going to Corporate India was largely dominated by large families. find it hard to absorb such a large amount of investment. The Government controlled everything thru a licensing Post 9/11 a lot of that investible surplus is flowing into regime. That meant that once an industrial group got Asia as opposed to the US and Europe. Three bring these a license to manufacture any product – it was a virtual two together and the outlook for Asia and the Middle monopoly. This then lead to very little attention being paid East looks extremely strong. Not that there are no risks or to customer service, quality and innovation. Further more success is guaranteed but having said that – the prospects imports were banned. The customer was forced to accept for success are higher than ever before. All of this means whatever he/she was offered. There has been a huge sea that the demand for trained individuals who know these change. India has embarked on the path of liberalization – markets, understand the nuances, have the local support industrial groups today can pretty much get into any field and understanding coupled with qualifications will do they want. Imports are more freely allowed. This has lead very well. SP Jain is looking to provide that to the best and to significant competition. Indian industrial houses now brightest. feel the need to compete against the best in the world and What role do you think your school, and higher frankly have developed the confidence that they can! This education in general, will play in this evolution? has lead to the need for highly qualified trained people. In the field of education, the evolution has been the same I think I have covered the answer to that question in – private education did not exist till a few years ago. Now it does. India has a very large workforce – determined, the preceding responses. In summary, the opportunity is English literate and hungry to succeed. The aim is to give tremendous. We are seeking to tweak the education that the person the tools to win! Dubai and Singapore as city- today’s youth gets to make it far more relevant, real and states – exemplify that same situation. Both are small but focused. This intensity should pay off for the students. In hungry to win! Both of them have become gateways to the final analysis, the real value of the school will come the regions in which they are located and now have global from the ambassadors of the school – those who gone to aspirations. The very location and atmosphere leads to be successful leaders. The business model at SP Jain is one people thinking broadly, more innovatively and reaching of win – win. We will win if our students win! We are out. It’s the equivalent of working in Silicon Valley – it’s therefore totally committed and dedicated to making our buzzing with entrepreneurs! And that’s one of the key students with providing them with the best tools that«are reasons why I have chosen these two cities to establish SP most relevant to them. Page 41
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GC Restructuring Changes in the Governing Council By Jed Feiman Page 42
Summer 2006 Every once in a while it is important to question the effectiveness and efficiency of an institution. While the issue of reaffirming the GC’s “role within the community” has been reexamined time and time again, now is the time for real change. A transformation must address three important issues: representation, structure, and authority (or lack thereof). It is a unique time in our school’s history. With new Division Heads and a new Head of School, now the GC must go through a systematic checkup and respond to constructive criticism, rather than disregard any insulting, and probably truthful, observations. Despite anxiety by both teachers and students in addressing this issue, the debate over fair representation on the GC must lead to change for coming years. Undoubtedly, student and faculty representatives feel differently about representing their constituents, partly because the student and faculty communities are so different. However, ‘representation’ is abstract and is a system that is not and should not be guided by policy. Consistent with remarks during open debate, student and faculty members have discussed philosophies of representation: whether or not members should be representing a certain constituency or be basing opinions on particularized principals. Legitimacy comes from efficiency, competence and confidence. While the Governing Council is constitutionally legitimate, there is typically an attitude among various members of the community that the GC is an indifferent, ineffectual body. In comparison to earlier Councils as seen in Record archives, the GC is not equally valued by the community and the administration. The Governing Council is limited by a structure that is, not admittedly to most members, ineffective. The only way for the GC to regain influence in the school is through legitimacy, and the only way to regain legitimacy at this point is through reorganization. The GC’s current objective is to ‘reform’ policy, but there are no distinct goals or checks. This is not the fault of leadership nor is it the fault of our current representation. It is the fault of our outdated structure that realistically cannot target specifics. Presently, legislation is generated by random and unsystematic ideas from representatives and unproductively edited among the entire Council. While mandated process is not a good answer for solving relevant issues, there should be a structured system for developing solutions. Some representatives, mostly students, feel that another additional difficulty is confusion regarding entitlement of
responsibilities. More specifically, they feel that the GC and the Committee on Instruction (COI) seem to each feel responsible over the same issues concerning the school. The COI is a body made up of departmentally elected representatives, other administrative and selected members, the Student Body President, the GC Chair, and is presided over by the Head of the Upper Division. An overlapping gray area between the COI and the GC has appeared because the limits and boundaries of each body are not clearly defined. Both bodies reviewed the Senior Initiative proposal because both felt entitled to cover such a curricular issue. In addition to reviewing issues aforementioned in this piece, it is essential for designated definitions regarding disparity between the GC and the COI. An overall reform of the GC must incorporate ideas to tackle each developing issue. In the 1970s and 80s, the Governing Council included subcommittees. Each committee would focus on a particular topic, such as Educational Philosophy, debating specific topics. With the inclusion of both students and teachers within each group, committee meetings were efficiently, discussing possible solutions, creating legislation, and amending the resulting legislation, there, at the subcommittee, before taking a bill to the entire GC. One important benefit of subcommittees was that several issues were debated concurrently and in groups that were smaller and more concentrated. After amendments at the subcommittees, the “Governing Council,” or the general assembly of all subcommittee members would meet to review and vote on the legislation. The guided structure of the committee system for manufacturing reform for Horace Mann made the previous Governing Councils so efficient and legitimate, and a revival of such a structure would reinstate direction. Governing Council meetings have taken place to purely discuss restructuring issues. Resulting dialogue outside of the council meetings has taken place, assuring some that reform will happen. However, growing disputes between teacher and student reps have erupted over the future of the council and the expansion of the GC in school governance. While there is no clear change for the GC’s relationship with the COI, dialogue should continue. The administration must be on board for any reform. Without its confidence, school government is ineffective and hopeless. However, with the support of the administration and a new reformed structure, we may just create a stronger « and more efficient representative leadership for next year. Page 43
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Classroom Politics An Opinion Piece By Robby Shapiro This is not a column about politics, religion, gender or sexual preference. It is not a column about who is right and who is wrong. It is not a column about liberalism versus conservatism. It is a column about the meaning of tolerance, fairness, and free speech. In addition to the superb academic education that we receive at Horace Mann, we are also bombarded on a daily basis with pleas for tolerance, fairness, and multiculturalism, with a secular fervor that is breathtaking. Traditional values, moral judgments, and patriotism are disparaged as code words for racism, sexism, and homophobia. Tolerance, fairness, and free speech, however, extend only to points of view that agree with modern liberal educational wisdom. To their credit most Horace Mann professors outside of the social sciences refrain from political discourse. However, it is not uncommon for a professor bursting with hatred and disdain for George Bush to drop a nasty comment about the President, Vice-President, Republicans or Conservatives. Since the vast majority of students agree with these comments, laughter and approval usually follows. The minority that disagrees have been conditioned like Pavlov’s dogs to keep their mouths shut. On the other hand, if a professor makes an off-color remark about gender, race or sexual preference our campus would explode. There is no question that such a remark, even in jest, would be fervently rejected and opposed. How did this come about? When it comes to preaching multiculturalism and politically correct social engineering in our schools, the Left is certainly the most vocal of free speech purists. On the other hand, the same people react with horror to the mere mention of religion or Conservative views. Are there limits to free speech? If there are, who gets to set those limits? Can teachers use classrooms as soapboxes from which to preach their personal philosophy? Page 44
Should any religious or political views be banned from public schools – or only Judeo-Christian and Conservative perspectives? Jay Bennish’s case in Colorado reinforces the point. Bennish, a radical Left-wing teacher was caught on tape railing against President Bush, the war in Iraq, capitalism, democracy and America while supposedly teaching a geography class. According to Bennish’s defenders, he was merely exercising his First Amendment rights, and not pushing a particular point of view. His school steadfastly refused to acknowledge that Bennish did anything wrong. The Left pompously declares that free speech may not be interfered with, especially not in the classroom. Whenever a teacher seems to espouse a right-of-center viewpoint however, they are quick to remind us that students see teachers as the voice of authority, although left-wing diatribes aren’t seen as exerting undue influence. As much as Judeo-Christian discussions offend them, most schools devote at least some class time to teaching students about Islam. The institutionalized abuse of women under shari’a law somehow always escapes discussion. In Eklund v. Byron Unified School District, parents sued a California district over their teaching practices. Students were encouraged to adopt Muslim names, pray to Allah in Arabic, and wear Muslim robes for extra credit. Imagine the outcry if a teacher encouraged students to adopt Biblical names, pray to God in English or Hebrew, and wear Christian or Jewish symbols for extra credit. Schools have room in the curriculum for the Five Pillars of Islam, but not the Ten Commandments. The controversy of the recent “cartoon jihad” brings up many of the same issues. After a Danish newspaper printed twelve cartoons depicting Mohammed, Muslim rioted and made death threats against the editors specifically
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The Qu’ran, but not the Bible, is taught in public schools. and all Danes, in general. The issue is freedom of speech: whether our freedom to think, write, and draw is to be subjugated to the “religious sensitivities” of anyone who threatens us with force. Censorship, especially the violent type threatened by Muslim fanatics, is effective only when it can isolate a specific victim. What intimidates an author is not simply some fanatic carrying a placard that reads “behead those who insult Islam.” What intimidates him is the feeling that when the executioners come everyone else will be too cowardly to stick their necks out. The issue of freedom of speech is too well settled in the West to be worth spending much time debating it. What is far more interesting is the fact that such a debate is nonetheless occurring. While we hold freedom of speech as a centerpiece of our liberty, the Muslim world does not
recognize this freedom. The goal of radical Muslims is not to achieve any specific political demand or settlement. Their goal is submission: our submission to their will, to their laws, to their dictatorship. Europe particularly needs to learn this lesson. The Europeans have deluded themselves into thinking that this is America’s fight. If only Israel weren’t so intransigent, if only the U.S. weren’t so belligerent, we could all live in peace with the Muslims. They delude themselves into thinking that they can seek a separate peace. The Europeans should know better. With cries of “Death to Israel” and “Death to American” now being joined by cries of “Death to Denmark”, every honest European can now see that they are in this fight, too, and they are closer to the front lines than we are. Threats against American Page 45
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It appears that many Muslims do not believe that Freedom of Speech extends to the Quran. cartoonists are hollow; there is no mob of violent young Muslims in the United States to carry them out. European writers and filmmakers, by contrast, are already being murdered in the streets. If you appease the terrorists, tyrants, and dictators, they won’t leave you alone. Europe ought to have learned that lesson, at terrible cost, in 1939. Religious conservatives are no better, as they squirm with discomfort at the idea of someone criticizing religion. Hugh Hewitt says that the Danish editors were “irresponsible” for printing the cartoons because they could have predicted that it would “provoke” a violent reaction. The flaw in conservative thinking is that they believe the core of the West is our “Judeo-Christian tradition,” rather than our Enlightenment legacy of individual rights and regard for the reasoning mind. When the issue involves a religion alien to American traditions, most conservatives have had no problem drawing the line in favor of freedom. But will they draw a different line when their own religious dogmas are challenged? At Horace Mann, students, conservative or otherwise, Page 46
who don’t buy into the West and white man are evil theory can have an awful time. Students stuck in a left-wing echo chamber keep their real views to themselves and parrot the “correct” line, fearing that otherwise they’ll get a low grade. Is it right for students to check their intellectual and philosophical honesty at the door in order to get treated fairly? Students who speak up in opposition to conventional New York liberal wisdom are ridiculed by their classmates and feel isolated. There is little, if any, recognition that more than one point of view might be valid. Either you agree with the majority or risk being labeled as an insensitive reactionary. In the end this all comes back to what our education at Horace Mann should be. When free speech means free speech for only one point of view there is no freedom at all. Free speech is not an abstract principle and caving in to blackmail is not moral bravery. We will all be better off and better informed if competing points of view see the light of day and are rejected because of the weakness of their « argument, not the fear of their arguer.
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Immigrant Protests A Plea For Citizenship By Lindsay Gellman In recent days, tens of thousands of illegal immigrants have been protesting in the streets of American cities and boycotting their jobs. Immigrants are fighting hard for the right to live and work in America, and through their boycotts they aim to prove their importance to the American economy. They wish to pressure legislators into defeating a bill passed by the House of Representatives on December 16, 2005 which would criminalize illegal immigrants and possibly subject them to deportation. This House legislation, arising from concerns about border protection, anti-terrorism and illegal immigration, increases the penalty for unlawful presence in the United States from its current status as a civil offense to a felony. The bill calls for the construction of a fence along regions of the border between the United States and Mexico, and significantly heightens security and penalties at this border. The bill also requires employers to verify the legal status of their workers. House conservatives strongly support the bill, citing it as a necessary step toward securing United States borders in response to the September 11, 2001 terrorism attacks. Senate moderates and many Americans, however, criticize the bill as harsh and impractical. They claim that the majority of illegal immigrants are hard-working people with families and deserve a clear-cut path to a legal status. Furthermore, they argue, immigration offices are not equipped to investigate the estimated twelve million illegal immigrants currently residing in the United States. In response to the House bill, a bipartisan group of senators sponsored a new bill to create a more lenient system of immigration control. The proposed
bill, which is currently stalled in the Senate, would divide illegal immigrants into three groups based on how long they have lived in the United States. Illegal immigrants who had arrived after January 2004 would face deportation, but could possibly reenter via a temporary-worker program. Illegal immigrants who arrived between 2001 and 2004 could apply for a temporary residency in the United States, and immigrants who had resided in the United States for at least five years could work towards permanent residency and citizenship. This Senate plan, generally supported by President Bush, is also favored by many businesses, unions, churches, ethnic groups, and pro-business politicians because of the aid it offers to the illegal immigrants so influential in those groups. President Bush also advocates a guest-worker program under which immigrants could legally fill jobs that Americans are unwilling or unable to perform. However, critics pointed to the nearly impossible administrative task of performing the bill’s required background checks on the twelve million illegal immigrants. Conservatives were concerned by the relaxed security and accelerated immigration process incorporated in the bill. As illegal immigrants boycott their jobs and protest for their rights, lawmakers in Washington, D.C. plan to decide their fate before Memorial Day. Will they be branded as felons and forced to leave their new homes, or will they be guided on a path to all that United States citizenship has to offer? More is at stake than simple law enforcement and clarification of the rules. The United States economy, national security, and the lives of millions of immigrants and their families could  well hang in the balance. Page 47
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Democracy In Peril An Uncertain Future For Nepal By Ben Mishkin Nepal is the site of the peaceful, isolated Himalayas; but recently hundreds of thousands of Nepali people have disturbed that tenuous bliss by taking to the streets to protest the recent actions taken by King Gyanendra. The protests, coupled with a military blockade, have been organized by Maoist rebels. The protests’ goal has been for King Gyanendra to give up the power that he seized in 2005 and return it to the people, by way of reinstituting the Parliament. The rebels also instituted a blockade of the capital city, Kathmandu, in protest. The opposition called for a new constitution and checks on the power of the King, who has been ruling by decree ever since he dissolved Parliament in February 2005, citing the government inability to deal with the Maoist rebels’ insurgency. The opposition also called for the King to reconvene Parliament. On April 24th, 2006, in order to quell the nation-wide unrest, the King announced that he would be reinstating Parliament. During the nineteen days of demonstrations a reported 15 people were shot and killed by government forces, enforcing curfews put in by the King. The King appointed Girija Prasad Koralia to become the new Prime Minister. Koirala, who is in his eighties and has multiple health problems, which caused him to miss the first session of the new parliament, has been in the forefront of Nepalese politics for decades. He has already served three terms as PM, starting in the 1990’s; his longest term was only three years. Reportedly, the King was pressured into restoring Parliament’s authority by the Indian government, his biggest supporter. Relative order between the rebels and the government has been maintained through a series of temporary ceasefires. The most recent one, announced on April 27th, 2006, by Page 48
King Gyanendra seized absolute control in Nepal. the rebels, is scheduled to last three months in order to give the new government time to set up a government and begin work on rebuilding Nepal. The opposition is made up of seven political parties working with the Maoist rebels. Much of the support for the recent protests, and organizing of the blockade came from the Maoist rebels, who have tremendous influence in
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Maoists in Nepal have the support of many rural citizens. the rural areas, which they all-but control. The war between the rebels and the government, especially the monarchy in recent times, has claimed some 13,000 lives. The rebels have approximately 10,000 – 15,000 experienced fighters, and possibly 50,000 “part-time” fighters. While there has been a growing Maoist insurgency in Nepal since 1996, the current saga, one might say, begins in 2001. On June 1st, 2001, then Crown Prince Dipendra, walked into the royal palace, drunk, and killed his parents the King and Queen of Nepal, and other seven other members of the royal family, before eventually shooting himself; he died two days later of his wounds. King Gyanendra, the current monarch, assumed the throne after the massacre. In the past Nepal has been lead by a series of corrupt and incompetent democratic governments. There have been thirteen different Prime Ministers since parliamentary democracy was introduced in 1990; not one PM has finished a full term. An inherent problem with the democratic government has been the role of the monarch. Virtually every king for the past fifty years has tried and succeeded in taking absolute control, by either dissolving or dismissing elected governments. In the wake of the recent demonstration there have been numerous calls for
Nepal to become a republic: eliminating the monarchy alltogether. The Maoist rebels’ goal is for Nepal to become a communist republic, similar to that of communist China. The rebels are led by a shadowy leader, Pushpa Kamal Dahal, more commonly known by his nom-deguerre Prachanda (“The Fierce One”). Prachanda is the Supreme Commander, and therefore undisputed leader of the Maoist rebels. Up until recently the only picture that the world had of Prachanda was taken in rural Nepal in November 2001. In an interview with the BBC, Prachanda said his group was far from abandoning their violent protests. This, perhaps, is what puts Nepal’s future in the greatest doubt. Nepal could end up being a flashpoint for the tension between China and India. The two nations whose economies are booming each support different sides in Nepal. China supports the Maoists, whose ideologies are that of the father of modern China, Mao Zedong. Even though China has abandoned many of the practices that it did under Mao, they still support communism when it appears. India, meanwhile, a democracy, supports a democracy and not a constitutional monarchy. These two rivals could end up fighting a proxy war for the future of « Nepal. Page 49
The Horace Mann Review
Turmoil In Iraq
By Kimya Zahedi Page 50
Summer 2006 Although the war in Iraq has taken steps forward through the establishment of a democratic government, the issues of insurgents and non-stop violence, less international support, a decreasing approval rate, and civil unrest are still troubling efforts at reconstruction. In early 2005, the Pentagon admitted to having plans of keeping at least 120,000 troops in Iraq for the next two years. Can the international community handle two more years of hearing about the violence that occurs everyday of this war; more importantly, can the Iraqis endure it? In January of 2005, car bombings, suicide bombers, and other forms of attacks indicated to US troops that insurgents were showing no signs of stopping their campaign to wreck the elections scheduled for the end of the month. Everyday of January came to our media with news of bloodshed. On January 5th, in the most high-profile killing for several months, the governor of Baghdad was assassinated in the Iraqi capital as a new wave of violence swept across the country. Although there were many pleads to delay the elections, the prime minister of Iraq repeatedly refused saying, “An election will lessen the violence.” Directly before the elections, cities of Iraq, which rested untouched and safe were beginning to be attacked as the insurgents stepped up attacks in an attempt to fight the elections. The government in Baghdad ordered the closure of the country’s main airport and a broad new curfew for the next week’s elections, hoping to somehow secure the country so the elections could go through. On January 30th, more than 57% of all Iraqis went to the polls for the first democratic election in 50 years. Iraq’s Shia Muslims ended their historic political ascendancy by winning just about half of the votes in the country’s landmark multi-party elections. The long-oppressed Shia majority was given its first taste of power in decades. On December 15th, Iraqi’s turned out in large numbers to vote for a four-year parliament, with initial figures suggesting a 70% turnout. There were no repeats of the suicide attacks that hit polls in January. The Shia-based United Iraqi Alliance lead with a 58%
share, followed by the Consensus Front, a coalition of Sunni religious and secular parties on 19%. Former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi’s party came in third. Despite beliefs of the Iraqi Prime Minister, the bloodshed didn’t stop after the elections. The Shies’ lead in government sparked new troubles within Iraq. The Sunnis always had dominant power over the country and were outraged when they became a social as well as political minority. Sunni attacks (suicide bombs) began to target Shia mosques and other holy Shia grounds, to illustrate their unhappiness towards the new Shia power. On February 22nd, 2006, insurgents detonated bombs inside the al-Askari shrine in Samarra, one of Iraq’s holist Shia sites, and sparked a new wave of sectarian violence in which hundreds died. The increasing Sunni vs. Shia violence in Iraq is slowly acquiring a more sectarian character. Many are saying that Iraq is in the midst of a civil war. If so, what would that do to the war in Iraq, and the US troops? How would things change? The US encountered much scrutiny this past year. On February 15th, 2006, US troops were humiliated when photographs of soldiers apparently abusing prisoners were broadcast by an Australian current affairs television show. The photographs were instantly picked up by Arabic television stations and broadcasted around the globe. The photographs came as an outrage to the US public, as more and more people are now worrying about how the US is viewed internationally, and how this war is affecting our national image. The continuing troubles that the US faces in Iraq have lessened the international as well as national approval rate of the way the war is being dealt with. In April 2006, about 58% of the US was unhappy with President Bush’s job in Iraq. Most say they are “tired of all the violence.” Allies, Italy and Spain in particular, have removed troops from Iraq, saying, “their job there is done,” or “there is nothing more they can do.” Although a government and parliament have been established in Iraq, and steps have been taken forward, there are still looming troubles that the US and Iraq must face and overcome in order to win international « approval of this war. Page 51
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Summer 2006
A Nation of Addicts Petroleum & Prosperity By Andreas Sakellaris Our nation’s prosperity and wealth are all dependent on one commodity without which the modern world would not have developed: oil. It propels our motor vehicles, drives our power plants, and provides the chemicals necessary to produce everything from combs to computers. The quality of life of industrialized, first world nations is dependent upon it, and history reveals that states will go to great lengths to obtain a plentiful supply of it. When the internal combustion engine was invented and used in horseless carriages during the late nineteenth century, it was at first a luxury for the very wealthy. Mass production of cars for the average American started only in the 1910s, pioneered by Henry Ford’s Model T. In the aftermath of World War II, oil-thirst pushed America to secure a plentiful supply of Saudi Arabian oil. All was well through the 50s and 60s, when America prospered and indulged in oil. As a result, Saudi Arabia was flooded in petrodollars and underwent an unprecedented boom, bringing untold wealth to the Saudi royal family, which had been living off dates in the desert only a generation earlier. Grasping the power that oil could bring to their nations, impoverished states across the globe who were rich in oil joined forces to form a cartel, OPEC, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. It was founded in 1965, and a subset within it became OAPEC, the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries. In 1973, OAPEC decided to stop selling oil to industrialized nations, especially the United States, after suffering defeat during the Yom Kippur War. The American economy, which was already in the midst of a recession, went into freefall, as oil prices quadrupled nationwide. High oil prices endured through the 70s and went down only in the mid-80s. The
The demand for oil far outstrips supply. 90s brought a brief era of cheap oil, but now oil prices have shot up once more because of an unquenchable oilthirst from booming economies, especially those of China and India, along with declining oil production and more remote supplies. Today, oil has enslaved the United States with a dependency parallel to that of a drug addict. It has Page 53
The Horace Mann Review been rendered complacent to some of the world’s most oppressive dictatorships who are kept in power through the steady stream of petrodollars inundating their economies. America turns a blind eye to the crimes of such regimes, for fear that they might turn off the oil faucet and paralyze our economy. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which has a quarter of the world’s known oil reserves (260 billion barrels), is a Wahabi Muslim theocracy that publicly beheads and tortures people, treats women as second class citizens who are not even permitted to walk on a street unveiled or unaccompanied by a man, and ended slavery only in the 1960s. Iran, another Muslim theocracy, is the world’s second largest producer of oil with known reserves totaling 90 billion barrels. Over the past few years, it has engaged in a uranium enrichment process that can be used to produce weapons grade materials as well as fuel for peaceful nuclear power plants. Considering its determination to acquire nuclear weapons and its status as a rogue nation and sponsor of terrorism, these efforts are worrisome at best. An effort to end the proliferation of nuclear technology has been led by Germany, France and Britain, but their efforts have lacked leverage because of the world’s dependency on oil. Iran’s nuclear ambitions have been brought before the United Nations Security Council, an effort which has revealed just how important Iranian oil is to the world order: India, Russia, and China, whose support would be essential to impose meaningful sanctions against Iran, failed to back these efforts, since an embargo on Iran would result in a shortage of oil supplies and a potentially catastrophic increase in prices. Another example of a petro-nation is Venezuela, which supplies a significant percentage of America’s oil and possesses known reserves that total 72.6 billion barrels. Its leader, Hugo Chavez, has turned it into a bulwark against America, intending to replace American economic policies that have bred disenchantment in Latin America with those of a socialist utopia. Chavez is buying the latest weapons systems and arming militias to fight America, who, he is convinced, intends to conquer and enslave his nation. He supports Bolivian president Evo Morales in his decriminalization of coca growing (the plant from which cocaine is derived), and finances the FARC and other guerrilla groups that are controlled by drug lords and seek to overthrow the Colombian government. Why Page 54
Reserve supplies of oil are falling. can Chavez afford to do this? Why doesn’t America impose crushing sanctions on such a country? They have oil, we need oil. Petro-nations are to be found in every corner of the globe: from the smallest banana republics to titans such as the Russian Federation. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia has had to rely on its natural resources for sustenance following the failure of its economy. It has exploited its position as a fossil fuel behemoth as a diplomatic tool with other nations. After the collapse of a pro-Soviet government in Ukraine in late 2004 in the Orange Revolution, Russia, Ukraine’s chief oil supplier, cut off supplies to punish it it. Similar events evolved in Georgia this winter, when Russia cut off supplies of natural gas to Georgia during a cold spell. This was intended to intimidate the Georgian government into giving up its pro-western ideals and revert to a pro-Moscow autocracy. A repercussion of American oil dependency we often fail to notice is that the majority of Arabs live in dire poverty and witness a small minority of their population attain huge wealth. They feel alienated towards an Americanbacked government that has failed to raise its citizens out of poverty, but has stuffed its purses with petrodollars instead. This situation leads to anti-Americanism and is a powerful recruiting tool for terrorism. There are many other reasons why anti-Americanism is widespread in the
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Of late, the price of oil and gasoline have reached record levels. Middle East, such as US support for Israel, but this one sits towards the top of the list. In recent years, it has been coming to light that we cannot continue down this path. Oil production in Saudi Arabia and worldwide has peaked and demand is only increasing with the industrialization of India and China. This has been reflected in the steady increase in oil prices, which have more than tripled over the past four years. The future leaves no alternative other than the pursuit of a cheap alternative to oil. The effects of global warming caused by CO2 emissions are starting to be felt, and as advanced as science is now, the complicated and connected forces of the environment means that there is no way to know how our climate will be affected. Most importantly, oil supplies are finite, and experts have been estimating as to how much longer we can remain dependent on oil almost as long as we have been using it. Current estimates suggest another 50 years, but there is no way to know the amount of reserves that truly exist, or how consumption
will fluctuate in the future. As we progress into the twenty-first century, it is becoming clear that a sizeable investment by the world’s industrialized nations is needed to discover an alternative to oil. Coal was the fuel of the 19th century, oil of the 20th century, and we have yet to find that of the 21st. Unfortunately, it seems as though our leaders cannot look beyond the next election and are blind to long term plans. The oil lobby, with its campaign contributions and shortsighted promises of wealth and economic prosperity, has successfully limited most efforts by governments at finding an alternative to oil. No leader has had the courage to demand a sacrifice by each and every one of us so that we may solve the long term problem of our oil dependency. They are blind to the long term effects of continued oil addiction and the appeasement of oilrich dictatorships. Until something is done about our oil addiction, the situation can only worsen. Increasing prices  at the pumps are only the beginning. Page 55
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Life of The Mind? Learning Cannot Be Forced
An opinion piece by Zachary Fryer-Biggs, Executive Editor Emeritus. The sheer concept that Horace Mann is a school devoted to the “life of the mind,” is utterly ridiculous. While the administration constantly claims a desire to instill in the student body this value of education, and in fact there are teachers who follow through on this goal in their teaching methods, without a willing student body such an idea is bound to fail. However, the fundamental flaw in the concept of imposing the life of the mind on students is that this imposition is in itself contradictory to the nature of the life of the mind. To me this concept means the desire of the student to learn for the sake of learning, to attain knowledge to satisfy ones own intellectual curiosity. How can you force students to want to learn? I truly value the life of the mind. I must admit here that I am a transplant from a school, The Day School, which goes out of its way to nurture intellectual curiosity. I switched to Horace Mann after 5th grade, although I had been accepted into Horace Mann’s nursery school as a toddler. My parents at that stage in my life determined that this school was not focused on learning. I must also admit that I have indeed enjoyed parts of my education here. I have experienced two years in this school’s independent study program furthering myself under my own whip and accumulating knowledge as fast as I possibly could. Yet this is an anomaly; nearly 90% of my grade was not involved in the independent study program. While participation in independent study is not a prerequisite for the life of the mind, it is one of the best programs in our school for self motivated learning. The best example of the general will against self Page 56
motivated learning was an experience I had in my eighth grade English class. I had asked my teacher a question as to why my interpretation of a book was flawed. The teacher kindly took the time to demonstrate that while there were merits to my opinion, based on the authors other works her approach made more sense. After this class a student approached me and asked me why I had asked my question about another interpretation. I responded that I was curious. This seemed to dumbfound the student as she replied, “but we don’t need to know it for the test.” Sadly this is not the only example of such an occurrence. While I could recount numerous such situations, the greatest systemic problem comes from most Horace Mann students’ approach to the college process. It has become so consuming that it is literally the point of high school for many students. They attend so that they might be accepted to the college of their choice. Thus, they care little for what they learn as the only important element of their education is the grade they receive on their high school transcript. While one might wish to change this sentiment, it is nearly impossible. Since Horace Mann has an excellent reputation for placing its students in the top colleges in the country, we attract students who want to attend such universities and parents who wish to get there kids into these universities. As a result the school is infested with students who simply have no interest in learning, students who memorize facts and regurgitate textbooks on their way to sure up their report cards. I have been sucked in by this approach numerous times myself. One of my greatest desires is that I escape Horace Mann with my love of learning intact.
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A thriving Life of the Mind needs engaged students whose only concern is not the Ivy League. What can Horace Mann do? The truth is that this change could only occur if Horace Mann stopped attracting these robotic students. That would only occur if Horace Mann’s reputation for college acceptance was tarnished. This school simply would never accept such a change in status. The only other option is to change the current course of admission to attempt to weed out these students, and exceedingly difficult process since many students enter this school early in their lives when it is very difficult to discern what type of student a child is. Plainly, Horace Mann can’t create the life of the mind; instead it must acquire it. Since the life of the
mind cannot be instilled in students, the school must go out of its way to bring students into the school who value intellectual curiosity. Unless Horace Mann is willing to make this radical change, a change which would undoubtedly result in a reduction of alumnus donations among other financial difficulties, Horace Mann’s claims to further the life of the mind are absurd. The school thrives on its current combination of regurgitating students and rude ungrateful ones. While the latter are truly terrible human beings, they make great financial contributors. Together they form « an unstoppable influx of uninterested students. Page 57
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The Year In Photo Credits Issue 1 Images Courtesy of: Billy Graham Crusade: 34, 36, 37 Genevieve Martin: 30 International Church of Satan: 19, 20 Julia Wittes: 1 Max Thompson: 6, 12, 13, 15, 22 Zachary Fryer-Biggs: 18
Issue 2 Images Courtesy of: Calvin Klein: 8 Carl Jr’s: 7 Genevieve Martin: 1 Google Earth: 28 Gloria Feldt: 23 Ivan the Hatmaster: 12, 14, 15 Max Thompson, 10, 11 Times Square Alliance: 36, 38[1], 38[2] USAID: 41 US State Department: 18, 20, 26, 30, 33 Issue 3 Images Courtesy of: Amana: 20 Brand X: 11, 14, 17, 26
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CIA: 25, 41 Digital Vision by: 2, 37 Getty: 10, 26, 36 Image Source: 26 IPN Relay: 1 Jupiter: 26 US State Department: 6, 9, 23, 35 Issue 4 Images Courtesy of Ted Sumers: 1, 36, 42, 56, 57 Office of Ernie Chambers: 35 USAID: 8 State of Ohio: 9 White House Photo Gallery: 13, 14 Alexander Moss: 16 Columbia University: 21 National Guard: 22 US Army: 23 Adobe Stock Photos: 25 [1-3], 33, 46 AP Images: 27, 50 Southern Illinois University: 21 Juneau School District: 30 Berckley Law School: 32 Scantron Corporation: 39 Nitish Jain: 40 New Horizon School: 45 Blog for A Democratic Nepal: 49 Wikipedia/Howrealisreal: 55 Flickr: 6, 10, 19, 28, 40, 47, 53, 55 Royal Court of Npal: 48
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