Issue4Page3 by Wingspan

opinion3

wingspan • march 19, 2010

• Staff Editorial

Inflexible legislation results in limited make-up options

Do you think that the school system has been effective making up snow days?

not an option. Going to school on Saturdays hurts students who have jobs as well as those who participate in non-school sports and activities. Some seniors missed for college visits and scholarship interviews. All the worry about snow days is getting in the way of learning. While West had about 75 percent of students in attendance on Saturday, March 6, it could hardly be called a “school day.” Early dismissal cut into

“I think the school could have done a better job of making up days. They could have added more Saturdays like the other counties have done. They also could have taken off teacher work days.”

“The school has done a pretty good job because we have gotten enough days so we aren’t behind, and we have gotten all the work done that needed to be done because of the extra time.” Joshua Griffin sophomore

Erin McGraw freshman

instructional time by a half hour per period. On top of that, we could see on the faces of students and teachers alike that few were truly focused on learning. When the N.C. General Assembly goes into session in May, it will be important for lawmakers to consider changes to the school calendar bill to give school systems in the mountain counties more flexibility in setting the opening day for the fall semester.

“I think we probably should have added more days at the end of summer. I came on Saturday, and I’m not a big fan of it, but I guess if it makes up days and we do what we have to do, then it’s OK.”

Alexie Mina junior

“I hate that we had to come on Saturday, but it’s understandable because we did miss a lot of days. I do wish they hadn’t moved back graduation, though; that messed up people’s plans.” Alex Fisher senior

• Viewpoint

Should financial literacy classes be required of students?

he current value of my childhood home is probably less than the amount of money I have borrowed in student loans. The fact that I am $100,000 in debt is so humiliating,” said Sara Tobin, 21, of Tulane University in an interview with The Huffington Post. Too often students drop out of college, not because of academic failure, but because of debt that Kaitlyn Reddy the student can no longer allow to Asst. Feature Editor grow. Debt for college students can be caused by a lack of knowledge of smart budget choices. Transitioning from high school to independent living can be a surprising challenge. Attaining knowledge of financial literacy, or understanding of personal finance, would be a valuable resource to gain while still in high school. Only a quarter of Americans feel well informed about managing household finances, according to Networks Financial Institute. Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy determined that the average student who graduates from high school lacks fundamental skills of personal financial affairs. Many are incapable of balancing a checkbook and most have no insight into basic survival principles involved with earning, spending, saving and investing. At college, students might take a class on financial literacy, but not all high school graduates attend a university. This means that those who go straight into a job could easily be set up for financial failure. According to Financial Literacy Statistics, 49 percent of teenagers want to learn about money management, but only 14 percent have taken a class on the topic. The importance of financial literacy clases isn’t expressed to motivate students to take them. However, when students aren’t educated in economics and personal-finance, it can create problems when they’re adults. Millions of adults have been under-educated about personal finances. They risk their retirement money and becoming victims of mortgage brokers and fraudulent investors. In North Carolina, it is required to take mathematics and civics and economics classes. According to the state, students get enough education through these classes to manage their money as an adult, but these classes do not focus enough on smart choices in managing personal wealth. It would be beneficial to get a jump-start on financial education by preparing students with the financial knowledge and skills to make smart choices.

•PRO 33%

EDITORS-IN-CHIEF Joy Owens Jessica Tobin

ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR Lindsey Fore

MANAGING EDITOR Elizabeth Huntley

ASSISTANT ENTERTAINMENT EDITORS Meredith Cole Hailey Robinson

SENIOR EDITORS Ryan Duckett Kyle Keith

ASSISTANT OPINION EDITORS Kayla Sciupider Josh Wentzel SPORTS EDITOR Matt Thielke

FEATURE EDITOR Ashley Roy

ASSISTANT SPORTS EDITORS Kevin Robinson Camen Royse

JUNIOR EDITORS Katie King Brandi Martin

ASSISTANT FEATURE EDITORS Whitney Howell Kaitlyn Reddy

FEATURE WRITERS Bella Bonnessi Hailey Johns Natalie Rice

NEWS EDITOR Carly Holland

OPINION EDITOR Kaylan Proctor

CREATIVE DIRECTOR Katie Huntley

Celebrities are not role models

Art by Katie Huntley

ith more than 100 school systems stretching from the snowy mountains to the sunny coast, North Carolina is a state of diverse climates. Schools in the mountains typically miss more snow days than those on the coast, and more school days mean more problems finding time to make them up. You would think that these school systems that are worlds apart in weather would have calendars that fit their unique climates, right? No, the state insists on keeping all N.C. schools pretty much on the same calendar. Under state law, schools can start no earlier than Aug. 25 and end no later than June 10 unless a school system qualifies for a waiver. This may seem like enough time to squeeze in 180 instructional days, but the timeframe can get tricky. Students in the nearby North Buncombe district in the Buncombe County school system have missed 17 days so far this winter. In Henderson County, students have missed seven days. In trying to find days to use for make-up days, school leaders face conflicting needs. If the school board votes to have school on Memorial Day or Good Friday, different groups in the community become upset. If days are added to the end of the year, one group of parents becomes angry. If days are taken out of spring break in April, other parents become upset. Saturday school became an option this month, but this option can only be employed if students are making up a day they missed earlier in the same week. If schools were to open on a Saturday after a full five-day week, then every teacher assistant, bus driver and custodian would have to be paid overtime. Considering that North Carolina lawmakers face a second straight year of budget cuts, paying overtime is

STAFF WRITERS Tyler Bice Lauren Gentile Diane Gromelski Angela Gross Autumn Hardin Josh Heatherly Jamie Hunt Brandon McArthur Katlyn McCarthy Rachel Shoemaker Aury St. Germain De’Shawn Thomas Marissa Treible

or something so important, financial knowledge is not being taught effectively or approached sensibly, and it shows. However, exposure to personal finance classes won’t change lives or fix the nation’s financial woes. So-called “financial literacy” isn’t that easy to teach in a high school setting. The truth is that financial literacy classes don’t work. The evidence? High school seniors who do take financial literacy Josh Wentzel classes score no higher than those who Asst. Opinion Editor have not on personal finance surveys. A 2009 study by Indiana State University even showed that soldiers who did receive financial training were less likely to pay off credit card bills and use budgets than soldiers who had not received the training. It’s not that students don’t need to be financially savvy; it’s that financial literacy classes simply aren’t effective. Ambitious students who want to spend their limited class periods on certain courses shouldn’t be prevented from doing so by a required financial literacy course. Many students need every available class period for courses that give college credit or career experience. They shouldn’t have to take a mandated class that has been proven ineffective. The crux of the matter is this: “How do you teach responsibility?” The answer: you don’t, at least not in schools. The problem lies with what it takes to generate financial responsibility. It takes just that — responsibility. Parents are by far the most influential force in a child’s development, and the classroom can do little to change that fact. Much of the burden of passing on monetary knowledge lies with one’s family. Parents need to place additional emphasis on teaching their children the lessons of the financial marketplace so they won’t have to learn the hard way. Semester-long classes won’t instill a newfound sense of responsibility in a student, and a student’s sense of self-restraint and accountability is largely developed and ingrained by the time he or she reaches high school. North Carolina requires financial education to be incorporated into other subject areas, but there is still an acute shortage of expertise in personal finance. A lack of financial responsibility reflects a simple lack in consumer awareness. Why are people so unaware of the workings of the economy? It certainly isn’t because they didn’t have a high school (based on a survey financial literacy class. As a whole, Americans need to be of 324 students) more aware and informed consumers.

•CON 67%

Talons & Feathers Feather to the members of the swim, wrestling and winter track teams who qualified for state. Talon to the snowy weather that has kept pushing back graduation and created the necessity for students to attend Saturday school. Feather to the new locks that have been added to stalls in the girls’ restrooms. Talon to the chain of earthquakes that have devastated the countries of Haiti, Chile, Taiwan and Turkey.

mericans rip open tabloids, searching for the latest scandals. They turn on Entertainment Tonight, hoping for a juicy piece of news. We live for the drama of celebrities’ lives and especially their falls from the pedestal of moral righteousness. In the aftermath of the Tiger Woods fiasco, sports announcers, news anchors and newspaper writers are criticizing the man, Jessica Tobin saying that he has failed his duty as a role model. That by having a less than perfect personal life, he has failed children across the globe who look up to him. His 14 major golf championships, second highest all time, are irrelevant. Woods is expected to have a flawless moral character on top of his record-making golfing skills. John Edwards, a wellknown politician and former Democratic senator from North Carolina, admitted on Jan. 21 that he had indeed fathered a child with his mistress, Rielle Hunter. On top of that, his wife Elizabeth has been suffering from breast cancer and was undergoing chemotherapy at the time of the affair. Needless to say, the media went crazy. A former campaign aide of Edwards’, Andrew Young, even wrote a book detailing the affair. Everyone had a negative opinion on John Edwards and his moral character, and they wanted to make their opinions known to the world. But perhaps Americans are looking up to the wrong people. Maybe our obsession with celebrities and those in the public eye is unhealthy. If we teach children to look up to rich, famous people as role models, then who would be satisfied with anything less? We are indoctrinating our kids from a young age to always want more: more money, a bigger house, fame. Charles Barkley, a former National Basketball Association star, said in a Nike commercial, “I am not a role model. I am paid to wreak havoc on the basketball court. Parents should be role models. Just because I dunk a basketball doesn’t mean I should raise your kids.” Some in the media made mincemeat out of him for that, saying that by agreeing to be in the public eye, he was agreeing to the status of role model. Or was he? Barkley was the one who truly had it right all along. Celebrities shouldn’t be role models for kids. Being famous doesn’t make someone a kind person; it doesn’t make him a positive role model. It usually just means that the individual was in the right place at the right time. After all, is cheating on your wife illegal? It’s morally wrong. But almost half of all marriage today ends in divorce. And a major contributing factor to that is adultery. A large percentage of Americans may be cheating on their spouse. But when it’s found out, they don’t take a fall as huge as Woods or Edwards. Yes, celebrities are famous and expect us to follow what they do. But they rarely claim to be perfect. They rarely ask to be role models for other people. They’re simply human, not superhuman.

wingspan The student forum of West Henderson High School is published seven times each year by the newspaper journalism class. The purpose of Wingspan is to convey school and community news to the students, faculty, administration and community. Wingspan content is determined by an editorial board of student editors. Wingspan is a Southern Interscholastic Press Association All-Southern, National Scholastic Press Association All-American, Columbia Scholastic Press Association Gold Medalist and N.C. Scholastic Media Association All-North Carolina and Tar Heel Award publication. Staff editorials express the opinion of the editorial board. Columns reflect the opinions of the writer. Circulation is 1,200. Printed by The Mountaineer of Waynesville, NC 28786. Contact the staff at wingspan@henderson.k12.nc.us.