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Show The Paper That Dares To Take A Stand June 3, 1976 The Utah Independent Page 3 FROM ISIS TO SCHOOL MARILYN MANION Chicago Tribune 510176 Science instruction in high school is being frighteningly sabotaged by ISIS Good Old Golden Rule Days First we discovered that Johnny couldnt read. Now we And that high school graduates are hard put to write a coherent paragraph. In the State of New York, high school students are going to he required to pass a ninth grade reading and math exam - not in order to enter the tenth grade, but in order to receive a high schooldiploma. And yet, almost 85. percent of the seniors at Harvard have been with honors. Ohio State University has had more graduates with straight A averages in the last five years than in its Arsl 100 years. Sixty-eigpercent of University of Texas freshmen are getting graduating ht A's and B's in English. Where, then, are all of those students who can't read and- write? Are Harvard, Ohio State, and the University of Texas getting the top cream of the crop? The answer to this seeming paradox lies in something known as grade inflation," a philosophy being followed on campuses - across the country. Dr. Rocco E. Porreco, a philosophy professor and former graduate dean at Georgetown University, kids may not be able to. read, write, or cipher, but they are getting good marks. Grade inflation may have begun, some say, during the Viet Nam war, when professors wanted students to have good academic averages so that they could stay in school and out of the war. Or, as Dr. John E. Baldwin, liberal arts dean at the University of Oregon, says: Professors with social consciences felt it was important to grade very, very generously. They felt, dividualized Science Instructional System. ISIS, funded over the past three years by $3 million of Foundation National Science money, is offered as an alternative to present high school programs." It consists of unrelated modules", scores of pamphlets prepared to quote one disenchanted observer Tor the generation." and historically philosophically, that the grading system was inherently corrupt, so they gave grades in such a manner that no one would take grades too seriously, All of this might be very amusing, but for the fact that, though we spend more for education than we ever have in history, 23 million U.S. adults are classified as functionally illiterate. Television is considered to be a major culprit in this distressing state of affairs. The tube, they say, has more influence on a child than parents, churcl school combined. EMPLOYEES RIGHTS There are two kinds of Yellow Dog labor contracts, the old kind that required employees to agree not to join a Union as a condition of employment, and the new kind that requires employees of standards, to join a Union as a condition of lowering rather than of an increase in employment. Each is as bad as the student intelligence. The other. In these days of civil rights, equal rights, it is high time that we had employees rights, the right of anybody to work and the freedom to join or not to join a Union as they alone might choose. Anything less discriminates against the em- no ss aPnst those ABORTION P1yed and seeking to be employed. IM TOO YOUNG TO DIE! Let employees be individuals, not parts of majorities or The nearer you get to minorities. the cross, the hotter the heed battle, therefore take lest you fall. is favourable to CONVENTION PREVIEW liberty. Freedom am exist tndym the society ofknowledge. Without Continued from page 1 Claiming that the views of learning, men are incapable of ' county officials, who will be atten-- - knowing their rights, and where ding the meeting, represent 93 learning is confined to a few percent of the nations population, people, liberty can be neither equal nor universal. Webb states: -- Dr. Benjamin Rush County officials must have sufficient input before the November election to influence the Be it remembered, however, direction of federal policies over the next four years. This meeting that liberty must at all hazards be in Salt Lake Gty should give us a supported... cannot be preserved big start in influencing coming without a general knowledge among the people....And the political events." Political observers here preservation of the means of believe the meeting will offer the knowledge among the lowest nearest kind of a political debate ranks, is of more importance to the on issues between all the can- - public than all the property of all didates that we may see in the 1976 the rich men in the country. John Adams Presidential campaign. explains it this way: We really dont fail anyone unless he's really dumb or insulting." The higher grades, then, are indicators of a great gjQp In- comic-strip-and-- TV The modules are short, often inaccurate, and loaded with pictures. From catchly title for instance, Know the Bug and Lets Eat" to the swiftly following end, ISIS modules are designed to tax neither student nor teacher, and to displace rather than to improve any sound science teaching how going on in this countrys high CLICHES OF SOCIALISM When a devotee of private property, free market, limited government principles states his position, he is inevitably confronted with a barrage of socialistic cliches. Failure to answer these has . effectively silenced many a spokesman for freedom. Here are suggested answers to some of the most persistent of the Cliches of Socialism." These are not the only answers or even the best possible answers; but they may help you or others to develop better explanations of the ideas on liberty that are the only effective displacement for the empty promises of socialism. The government can do It cheaper because It doesnt have to make a profit As any schoolboy knows, if there are two or more manufac- turers of widgets supplying a given market, the one whose costs of production are lower will be more schools. likely to profit from his work. And one whose costs are higher may the The sponsors of ISIS concede just break even or show a loss is not that the program recommended as an early instead of a profit. In markets for most goods and preparation for future scientists. services, competition for cusIn other words, no one expects tomers tends to keep prices down. graduates of the ISIS program to Each seller has to meet or beat have learned anything substantial. William W. Dunkum, head of competition pricewise if he expects math and science teaching in to sell his wares. So, the one who can produce and market an item Alexandria Va. public schools, more efficiently stands the better says ISIS may prove as emchance of attracting customers and barrassing to the NSF as another of its projects, Man: A Course of gaining profits. Profits, in other words, are not something a Study MACOSJ Mr. Dunkum producer artibrarily adds to his clearly is an unreconstructed costs of production to arrive at a idealist, as he says, Popular science and bad science do not have . selling price. The selling price is determined by competition; and to.be synonymous." profits, if any, are earned by cutcosts and operating efficiently. Elementaiy and secondary ting Now, it may be that there are education in the United States have not reached their present sorry so few willing buyers of widgets so little market demand state against the concerted resistance of teachers and professors of for them that no producer could education. ISIS, for instance, is pdssibly make and sell them at a profit. So, there wouldnt be any touted as reflecting the assistance of production of more than 65 scientists and educators and hundreds of widgets. Whereupon, some widget teachers and thousands of enthusiast will come forth the The hard facts of life are that if customers really want something, the price they are willing to pay will be high enough to allow one or more producers to make and sell the item at a profit. But if there are no willing customers for an item, there will be no production of it unless the government forces someone to make and sell it at a loss, or else forces someone to subsidize its production or to buy it at a price higher than he'd freely pay. Let us suppose that there is a demand for widgets, and that the price is high enough to afford one or more producers a profit. In all probability, there will be one or perhaps several less efficient widget makers just breaking even or showing loss instead of profit. Total production is enough to satisfy the market demand at, let us say, a dollar a widget. What if the starts producing government profitless widgets in this situation, and the price drops somewhat? Immediately,- the less efficient widget makers are out of business bankrupt. But the most efficient private operators may be able to sell at the lower price and still make some profit. - In any event, the profitable operators in any business are not the ones who keep prices high. It is the high-cos- t, profitless, marginal producer whose costs of production have to be covered by the market price in order to call forth his limited output and thus balance supply and demand at that price. And that marginal, high-coproducer is always the first to be driven out when the government enters the business. There is no evidence that any government ever has made a profit in any business venture. This is merely to say that economic activity is not within the competence of government. Indeed, its impossible to tell what the true costs of production are whenever government force is substituted for the interaction ' of supply and demand in a free market. One thing is certain: any taxpayer who recommendation that the believes that his taxes are too high government do the job, arguing is in no position to argue that the that the government can do it government can do a thing cheaper because it doesn't have to cheaper! Paul L Poirot make a profit! st free-enterpri- se students." One cant run through S3 million dollars without putting money in a good many pockets. For every William Dunkum with the brains to recognize nonsense when he sees it and the character to buck a trend, there are several others in the school business who are enemies of basic education rather than its champions. MAJORITY RULE IN RHODESIA Continued from page 2 skills, trades, and professions. Farming is being upgraded as scientific methods are being introduced. The blacks of Rhodesia have better education, better housing, better jobs, and far better medical care than the blacks living in surrounding countries. The blacks and the whites of Rhodesia and South Africa understand their problems better than outsiders. If they could be left alone, without communist infiltration and guerrilla activity, they would work out their own solutions to their own problems in a much more satisfactory manner than can ever be accomplished by the troublemakers from outside Economics Department . Professional betrayers of sound schooling assume that pupils like the substitution of undemanding entertainment for study, and no doubt many do. But a reporter for a newspaper in San Jose, Calif., came up with some wonderful quotations from some high school students there. Wiser thaB a good oftheir eIder!i NORTHWOOD INSTITUTE thcse The youngsten gaid; minimum have requirements siippcd to a point of being meaningless." When I go to class it a t0 karn and not t0 fun We are allowing kids to take what is fun and not what they should to Salt Laka City, Utah learn." The entire system is too ' The Utah Independent le published by the Utah Independent each Tuesjax" day at 57 East Oakland Avenue, Salt Lake City, Utah 84115. Yearly ' These youngsters sound subscription rate Is $10.00 by surface mail In the United States, $15.00 foreign. eligible to start a new institution Second Class Postage Paid at Salt Lake City which might be known as SCHOOL Study Gvilization ?nd change of address forma and corraapondanca to Habitually Or Offend Liberty, the liberty known only by those who 57 East Oakland Avenue, Salt Lake City, Utah 84115 realize that knowledge comes only through hard work and discipline, Utah's Largest and Fastest- - Growing Subscription Weekly and cannot be injected into the brain by catch phrases and acronyms. " HMKl lndp.nd.nt |