I
OPINION
Saturday, September 19, 1981
Page 4
the Iicl igttn tttl
The Michigan Daily.
2.4
I'
Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan
420 Maynard St.
Vol. XCII, NO.9 Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board
Bearing the t
T HE WELL BEING of public
education in Michigan got a tem-
porary reprieve Wednesday when
state legislators rejected a plan by
Gov. William Milliken to cut $125.9
'million from the 1980-81 budget, in-
eluding $51 million for public
education.
Education has been forced
repeatedly to suffer the largest cuts in
state appropriation. This time,
however, the legislators refused to
allow education to bear the brunt of the
cut.
It certainly is no secret that
education in the state is facing grave
economic consequences. An increasing
number of millages have been
defeated in communities across the
state while state aid has been cut back,
forcing school districts to resort to
bare-bones budgets.
Unfortunately, public education
cannot function on such meager,
allotment. There is more to education
than the "three r's" and students in
Michigan's public schools deserve it.
The same is true in higher education.
rudget burden
Right now, faculty members at the
university are faced with a meager 5.5
percent increase. The University will
certainly not be able to retain its
quality faculty if salaries remain at
such a low level. And such academic
institutions are the mainstay of
Michigan's system of higher
education.
If, as Gov. Milliken has said, the
state must pare $125.9 million from its
budget, some other areas should ab-
sorb more of the loss. As difficult as it
may be, perhaps some cuts should be
made in state aid to cities and in the
welfare rolls. As the state attempts to
cut more from its budget, all state
beneficiaries must share in' the bur-
dpn-education cannot be the
scapegoat every time.
The future of the state lies with its
young people, but their resources can
only be adequately developed through
quality education. State legislators
should stick to their guns and refuse to
allow education in the state of
Michigan to suffer such a great loss in
this round of budget cuts.
Bentley Historical Collection photo
The Michigan football team-1904
Playingf'olotball bythe rules
Turning Reagan's
tide
NEWS ITEM: On Thursday, stock
prices fell to a 16 month low.
News item: On Friday, President
Reagan told Wall Street to join in "'a
rising tide of confidence in the future of
America."
The tides are a little funny this year,
aren't they?
Once again, President Reagan is in-
sisting that the stock markets simply
don't know what they're doing.
There is a point where stubbornness
and certitude turn into foolishness, and
one has to wonder if President Reagan
is nearing that point. Officials in the
Administration have hinted that
Wall Street is-for some as yet
unexplained reason-seeking to
sabotage the President's plan for
economic recovery by wreaking
havoc in the stock and bond markets.
The truth, of course, is that the
markets are not controlled by a small
group of sinister plotters. The prices in
the stock market represent the percep-
tions of millions of investors and hun-
dreds of financial institutions the
collusion of which is most doubtful.
Reagan has predicted that the
financial markets will surge when his
own budget takes effect on Oct. 1.
Perhaps he will be proven correct, but
the indications are that the markets'
lackluster performance comes as a'
result of Reagan's budget, not in spite
of it.
Reports indicate that the latest dip in
the stock market is directly at-
tributable to a sharp drop in housing
starts that has accompanied the record
high interest rates.
And those high interest rates are
caused, at least in part, by the ad-
ministration's refusal to make
significant cuts in its highly in-
flationary military budget. It may not
be totally a matter of coincidence that
this newest slide in, stock market
prices came the morning after reports
were released that the Administration
was planning only paltry cuts in the
defense budget.
At any other time, President
Reagan's persistence in sticking to his
original position and program might
have been more admirable. The
nation, however, is more in need of a
workable budget and economic policy
than such foolish tenacity.
Football is and always has been a rough
if not a violent game. In the early 1900's
football was especially brutal due to the
absence of adequate protective equipment
and a lack of rules designed to reduce in-
jury.
It is estimated that from 1893 to 1902, a
total of 654 known serious injuries oc-
curred among those playing college foot-
ball in the U. S.; another estimate lists 68
deaths and 804 incapacitating injuries
recorded between 1901 and 1904.
Ironically, perhaps our most vigorous and
RePlay'
By
Will McLean Greeley
athletic president, Theodore Roosevelt,
threatened to abolish football by
executive order in 1905. Instead, a series
of reforms were institut'ed, the first of
which are described in the Jah. 30, 1905
edition of the Daily..
RULES COMMITTEE
MAKES GREAT CHANGES
The national intercollegiate football rules
committee at the close of the session held in
New York announced the adoption of a num-
ber of new rules calculated to do away with
brutality in the game. Before becoming law
these rules must be ratified at a meeting of
the committee to be held in two weeks.
The ten yard rule was passed, without,
however, any action as to the number of
downs that shall be allowed to make the
distance in. The matter of the number of
downs will be taken up subsequently.
IT WAS DECIDED that striking with fists,
elbow, knees, or deliberately kicking an op-
ponent shall be punishableby disqualification
for the remainder of the game, and the offen-
ding team shall lope half the distance to its
own goal line. A substitute shall be allowed in
place of the player disqualified.
For unnecessary roughness, such as
striking the runner with the ball in the face,
with the hand, neeting with the knees,
piling up. striking with the locked hands by
linemen in breaking through, tripping,
tackling runner when out of bounds, and all
acts of unnecessary roughness, the penalty
shall be a loss of fifteen yards.
Unsportsmanlike conduct, including
abusive or insulting language to opponent or
officials, a penalty of suspension for remain-
der of day.
IT SHALL BE the duty of all officials to
penalize for the above offense. It was agreed
that there shall be a referee, two umpires,
and a linesman for each game. For small
games, if necessary there shall be but one
umpire.
Players of the side that has possession of
the ball shall not hold, lock or otherwise ob-
struct, except with the body; but a player
running with the ball may ward off an op-
ponent with the hands ... The definition of
holding was finally, held over until the next
meeting for further discussion.
Hurdling in the line is to be prohibited (the
definition of hurdling to be given out at the
meeting two weeks hence).
"Michigan's athletic department has eon-
Sfidence enough in the rules committee to
readily agree to any changes that will be
adopted by all other schools," declared Direc-
tor Charles Baird yesterday.
The opinions of the faculties of the dif-
ferent western universities on the rules
changes is awaited with a great deal of in-
terest. So far all have refused to commit
themselves with the exception of Professor
Adams of Wisconsin, a radical anti-football
crank, who says that the changes are not as
sweeping as the faculty had expected.
* * * .*
NEXT WEEK: A Nineteenth Century
Ann Arbor Streetperson.
Greeley's column appears every Satur-
day.
t,,
Black alternative education.~
Weasel
By Robert Lence
AP
AT MY FIRST Cot. LEA
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LOS ANGELES - The wealthy in Los
Angeles have closets bigger than this
classroom - cinderblock walls brightly pain-
ted, a swatch of African fabric covering a
small barred window, old-fashioned desks at-
tached to chairs, marred from years of use in
public schools before they were passed on.
But the one blackboard is crowded with ad-
vanced math, and little arms fly as the
teacher, a young black man, asks for
solutions to the questions. This is the third
grade at Marcus Garvey elementary school
and the class text is "Arithmetic for College
Students." Tim Jones, the teacher, commen-
ted, "It's just a matter of exposing them.
They learn so easily."
IN FACT, IN a recent contest, the Garvey
third grade out-performed the sixth grade
from a public "magnet" school (a school for
gifted children, predominantly white) in both
reading and math.
Yet Garvey isn't dubbed a "special"
school; it isn't funded by any corporation; it
receives no federal funds; nor is it an ex-
periment of any reseach body. It doesn't feed
off any, university; it doesn't pay high
salaries; and-the staff doesn't tout a string of
academic degrees.
It is, instead, an indigenous expression of
the Los Angeles black community, created by
people who feel the public schools have
betrayed their children.
THE GARVEY SCHOOL is an example of a
rising national trend toward black "alter
native" education: private schools run by
blacks for blacks, charging tuition, usually
with tough academics in an environment of
caring.
Garvey began in 1975 when Anyim Palmer
put his $20;000 savings into building his
dream.
Palmer explained: "After 14 years of ex-
perience in various school systems as a coun-
slnr .vice nrincinal and university
By Pamela Douglas
whites. Recognizing this, I decided to
establish this school which in time would
become a model for others to emulate."
The parents of Garvey, students have
become its most enthusiastic backers.
Dorothy and Joseph Miller have a 5-year-old
daughter in the Garvey kindergarten and two
older sons in public school Dorothy Miller
reflected: "Public school doesn't i motivate
them. We're trying hard now to get a junior
high at Garvey so they can go. We're going to
put our seventh-grade son in the sixth grade at
Garvey. He'll get more out of this sixth grade
at Garvey than the eighth grade in public
school.. . part of his problem in public
school was that the fifth-grade class had six
different teachers during this past year
because they just didn't care enough and they
kept quitting. Our 10-year-old and our 5-year-
old read on the same level now."
It's the feeling in the school that makes the
difference. Palmer led visitors into a class
where 19 students sat in a semicircle around a
blackboard. He asked the young black
teacher, "Sister, can you show them. . , "
And before he could even ask, most of the
hands were waving to be called on.
ON THE WALL is a collage of black family
pictures, bordered with "Unity, Purpose,
Faith," in English and Swahili.
On another wall hangs the "World Wide
Family Tree," a black cutout of a tree'em-
bellished with pictures of former U.N. Am-
bassador Andrew Young, Mayor Tom
Bradley, Joe Louis, Stevie Wonder and
several kids from the class.
Then the children got their chance to show
off. Seven-year-olds spelled "exhaust," "sub-
stantial," "violation"-all words picked from
the newspaper that morning. Palmer's eyes
lit up and he shouted, "Give yourself a hand!"
IN ANOTHER CUBICLE housing a sixth-
grade class, teacher Nono Olu, dressed in a T-
shirt nrinted with the African word "kwan-
what the world is really like. For example,
they learn that George Washington was the
father of this country; but they also learn that
he owned slaves."
LESMA CLEMONS, WHO grew up in
Jamaica; said, "When I heard my son coming
home knowing who Marcus Garvey was, that
touched me. At Garvey -they open 'up the
younger generation to all of history, instead
of having only white history."
But the sense of pride is a vehicle, not an
end. The solution for black education, said
Clemons, is "more affirmative 'black in-
dependent institutions. No federal funds. A
totally independent black school system~
where kids can be taught to be responsive to
community needs. It should be like Africans
who get schooling here and go back to build
their own country. I hope my son, Rashad,
would bring back his knowledge into the
community to develop a resource here, a
strong economic base, along principles that
will unify the people."
The cost, of course, is a personal burden for
many. A third of the children at Garvey are
from single-parent families on welfare. Out of
monthly checks totaling around $400 they
have to find $132 a month for schooling.
"The tuition is the first thing we pay each
month," said William Ross, "even if
something else doesn't get paid, because
that's his future."
But what of others who can't afford the
school at all? Are alternative schools like
Garvey nothing but fringe phenomena,
something for a new elite?
Miller answered by turning to 5-year-old
Joandrea, asking her to say "The Black
Pledge." The little girl recited the words
she's seen on the walls of the Garvey
classrooms: "I pledge allegiance to my black
people; to develop my mind and learn all I
can in order to do my best; to keep my body
physically fit, strong and free from anything
that would weaken me; to be kind and
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