0 OPINION Page Friday, October 30, 1981 The Michigan Daily C Corporate taxes could help save schools By Maureen Fleming It doesn't make sense. The state Constitution guarantees the right to a primary and secon- dary education for all children. But the Con- stitution can't pay for it. Parents demand the right to have their children educated. But, too often, they won't pay for it. MEANWHILE, ALPENA schools have closed. Taxpayers revolted, and the state refused to bail the district out. Tomorrow's special millage renewal election there will decide whether they can re-open. Taylor schools are scheduled to close in early November. Four other districts could shut their doors within a year if millages don't pass. All six districts.have had repeated millage elec- tions; all have been defeated. Taxpayers say they shouldn't have to paying more money for schools with declining enrollments. They fail to take into account in- flation, which has sent education costs soaring. SOME SAY they won't renew millage because their schools are mismanaged. A special team of state investigators is looking at the Taylor system because of these charges. Unfortunately, the city's residents are un- willing to renew millage while the study is being completed. The school tax could be judged unfair to the elderly-except they get their money refunded through the state's Homestead Act. Perhaps it is not surprising that the state of Michigan can't help out its financially-troubled schools. People, after all, make up the state. WITH .14 PERCENT of the people unem- ployed, fewer taxes are generated, making less money for Michigan, which filters less money to the school systems. Children have been forgotten in the struggle. It is disgraceful that residents of the closing districts have chosen to deny their children the basic right of an education. A New York ruling Tuesday outlawed that state's method of funding schools, ruling that a system relying too heavily on local property taxes to finance public education is con- stitutionally defective. It discriminates against children in poor school districts, the court said. MICHIGAN HAS A similar school-funding formula. As a result, nine Wayne County school districts plan to sue the state, using the New York argument. Rather than losing in court, the state should work out a more equal taxation system. And taxpayers should understand that even though public schools are free, the money must come from somewhere. The system of assessing school taxes on the basis of property values is fair. People with more expensive homes pay more taxes, which still are less than the cost of a private education for their children. SOME SCHOOL districts have voters who believe in a high-quality education for their children; approval of millage increases year after .year despite decreasing state aid shows this. These voters should not be penalized for spending money on education. One way to equalize school funding would be to redistribute corporate taxes. For instance, Southfield has 80 corporate headquarters, all paying Southfield school taxes. Because of the enormous tax revenues the corporations generate for the school district, residents don't have to pay as much to ensure quality education for their children as do taxpayers in predominantly residential communities. Corporate school taxes should be paid direc- tly to the state and distributed to all of Michigan's school districts. It isn't the magical cure, but it's a start. Fleming is a former Daily staff writer. al A Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan Demise of 'amily universe' a0 Vol. XCII, No. 44 420 Maynard St. A n Arbor, MI 48109 Editorials represenrt a-majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board A black representative T HE APPOINTMENT of a black representative to the University Office of Minority Student Services is a ound, but long overdue, decision. For amore than a year, University student services administrators have offered, euases and rationalizations for not. ,filling the post. The position first became vacant in .June, 1980, when black representative ,Richard Garland was fired for what of- ficials termed "behavioral problems." Despite student protests, the Univer-. sity decided not to fill the spot per-, manently; they said it could be filled by the other ethnic represen- tatives-hispanic, native American, and Asian American-in the office. This move, however, ignored the 1specific needs of the black student. -population. It was almost as if Univer- psity officials were saying that all ethnic backgrounds are alike. The University, in effect, chose to ignore ,the differences between the black, hispanic, native American, and Asian American experiences. Finally last August, Thomas Moorehead, University community services director,. decided that the of- fice could use another person-and he made preparations to hire a black representative. However, he neglected to solicit any student input in the selec- tion process as he had earlier promised. One of the chief respon- sibilities of a minority representative is to work with students; it seems logical that students should have input in the selection process. Many studen- ts, fortunately, have indicated a willingness to work with the represen- tative, despite their lack of input in the selection process. At least now there is a black representative in the Minority Student Services Office. It's unfortunate the University had to hem an4 haw for such a long time until it recognized the need to fill the position.' By John L. McKnight CHICAGO-Everyone in government these days is for the family. It has become a major theme in U.S. politics, and it's the fundamen- tal building block in President Reagan's vision of a revitalized America. In the older neighborhoods of the nation's cities, however, that vision is taking on a special irony. Here, the systematic assault on the family universe which has been waged for years-under' Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conser- vatives-still goes on. INDEED, THE very conception of the family held by those at the institutional top of the U.S. society remains at polar odds with the view held by those at the neighborhood and family level. The view from the top is expressed by voices which speakof families as "markets," "producing baby booms," "in need of being strengthened," and "having demographic patterns demonstrating various needs." One hears this language most frequently in the board rooms of corporations, the staff meetings of social service agencies and the hearing rooms of legislatures. It demonstrates the uniformity of the in- stitutional view of the family: Family is to buy, to use, to consume, to be helped, to be treated. And family is to provide effective workers and soldiers for the maintenance of institutions. BUT OUT in the Neighborhoods of Chicago and our other great cities, families are the place where you are, from which you come, and to which you will return. However you define them-extended or nuclear, legal or de fac- to-families are about survival. Families make, do, make-do, produce, solve, celebrate and, sometimes, fail. Families also exist in a special universe. They are surrounded by other bodies that make up the interrelated system necessary for the family to work. These bodies are the neighborhood organization, civic club, ethnic organization, local political club, family business, local union, church or temple and thousands of informal groups. It is this universe that gets much of the work of America done. It is this universe that provides the gravity that holds America on course as our great institutions and their systems increasingly fluctuate, wobble, veer and fail. VIEWED FROM the neighborhoods, the family and its related organizations are the center of life. Yet, with government's blessing and direct help, large-scale institutions generally dominate and take power away from the family universe. And from the viewpoint of these institutions, families are not the center of society-they are the end of a pipeline, at the bottom of an organizational chart of society. Indeed, evidence of policies that disem- power the family universe abounds. Gover- nment services are replete with programs, for example, 'that promote the division of families by age. This is most vivid in the case of the elderly, where public agencies en- courage care by institutions rather than families.' MANY GOVERNMENT programs also are injurious because they allocate massive resources to professionals who basically see the family as a client in need of treatment and therapy. These service professionals have the in- creasing effect of convincing. families that they are incompetent to know, care, teach, cure, make, or do. Only certified experts can do that. Moreover, professional services take in- creasing proportions of public money, desperately needed by the poor, and consume it in the name of helping poor families. In one Chicago neighborhood, for every dollar received.In cash income by a person forced on welfare, medical care professionals receive 50 cents. We need a radical new policy that reexamines such service transfer payments in terms of their potential to promote a real investment in competence and independence. INSTEAD, THE very social and economic context that could ensure the working capacity of the family universe is being un- dermined by a public policy which favors large-scale corporations to the disadvantage of small-scale family and neighborhood en- terprises, as well as the small family farm. This administration, like its recent predecessors, clearly sees the economy of the family only as a trickle-down beneficiary of large-scale production. A government seriously concerned about family and production would begin to reexamine what we make and how we make it. Why not hold hearings on neighborhood economy, tools for community production, legal authority to create local energy management corporations? EVEN WITHOUT such reinforcement, families in our older, inner-city neigh- borhoods function as critical survival centers. But as the neighborhood savings institution begins to invest neighborhood savings in the growth of suburbia, a part of the family universe dies. As community schools become centralized and their purposes are defined by professionals, a part of the family universe dies. As government offers advantages to large corporations and "uncompetitive" neigh- borhood enterprise collapses, a part of the family universe dies. As doctors, lawyers, social workers, teachers, counselors,and therapists are funded to provide more and more services, the functions of the local civic and ethnic associations and churches atrophy. As television replaces the local political club as the vehicle for selecting our represen- tatives, a part of the family universe dies. The basis of an economy for family sur- vival-the authority, tools, skill, capital-is being taken away, andthe family in the inner city, especially, often stands alone. The. question, therefore, is not whether government is willing simply to declare itself "pro-family." It is whether government is prepared to remove the restraints and provide the protections to allow the family universe a central place in our society. To do so will require a new breed of public of- ficial-because the family and its constituent groups presently have no real lobbies, while those who have taken our power and authority have loud voices in Washington. We wonder out in the neighborhoods-at the corner of Kedzie and .Madison in Chicago-whether anyone in Washington can even hear us. McKnight is associate director of the Center for Urban Affairs and Policy Research at Northwestern University. He wrote this article for Pacific News Ser- vice. 9 *1 "ANP NOW A TESTIMOH1AL FROM A SATISFEPI -- AS SON AS HFS STRONG EHA16N TO' _ w :1 f ~OFTHE M . 5.+,'MWTPA QCUSTOMER TALK LETTERS TO THE DAILY: French dept. grading syste s--7%. :/ .- .'I To the Daily: Last week, I got my French midterm back. Upon seeing the grade distribution, I was shocked to discover that only about five percent of the students got grades in the "A" range. As I looked on, I saw that the majority of the students (approximately seven- ty-five to eighty percent) received "C"'s. My TA informed me that the reason the grades were so low was because of the French Department's strict grading policy. It was also explained to me that the grading policy was followed in order to help students learn French better (via disgust motivation?) I totally disagree language courses "pass/fail", which only requires a "C-" average to pass. The result is that students do just enough work to pass the course, and they forget about learning the language. This is the status quo. I would like to advocate a change. I would like to see the University's French Department liberalize its grading policy. If this is done, students will receive better grades for their efforts. Better grades will in turn en- courage students to learn the French language better. This is what I assume to be the goal of the French Department. What it all boils down to is this: it is a mattr fm ntiatnn. The get better grades for a good reason, a student will eventually develop the love of the language that is so essential in learning that language. Especially in learning a foreign language, grades are not an end, but a means to an end. They are motivational tools-tools that, used in the right way, can en- courage students to learn the m woes language better. I honestly hope that the French Department seriously considers liberalizing its grading policy so that more students will be motivated to learn French. Il faut encourager les estudiants a apprendre le fran- cais! -Thomas Jacques October 29 10 r . .r __. ,: ..... Letters to the Daily should be typed, triple-spaced, with inch margins A 11 suhmiksinnC smust he I 1 r it tl Awls y: 14--AA L