4A - The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, October 18, 2006

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4A - The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, October 18, 2006 I

OPINION


DONNAM. FRESARD EMILY BEAM
do n . f CHRISTOPHER ZBROZEK JEFFREY BLOOMER
Editorial Page Editors Managing Editor
EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS AT
THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN SINCE 1890
413 E. HURON ST.
ANN ARBOR, MI 48104
tothedaily@michigandaily.com
Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily's editorial board. All other
signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their author.
- !SWIu
Lease-date loophole
Revised ordinance, more dorm rooms needed

NOTABLE QUOTABLE
You got the
champagne on ice?
Its over.

-Detroit Tigers outfielder Magglio W ) lE AC T N I2-of
Ordonez, before stepping up to plate to hit
to hit the home run that sent the Tigers
Sunday by the Detroit Free Press.NoT y
A university of one
EMILY BEAM

mhe exploitation of a loophole in
Ann Arbor's new lease-date ordi-
nance is a perfect example of
how well-meaning attempts to improve
student life can be thwarted by a lack
of information. The joint Michigan
Student Assembly-City Council com-
mittee drafted the ordinance in hopes
to relieve students of the chaos of the
fall housing rush. However, a clause
that allows landlords to "request" that
their tenants sign a waiver allowing
them to begin showing houses and
signing leases before the required 90-
day waiting period defeats the purpose
of the ordinance. The Ann Arbor City
Council must close this loophole, but
a real solution to the housing rush stu-
dents face in Ann Arbor will require
more than a reworded legal document.
Although the 90-day waiting period
only temporarily alleviates the hous-
ing problem, closing the loophole
would at least give first-year students
a three-month foundation for the bud-
ding social networks that will make up
next year's living arrangements. How-
ever, a December date for lease signing
coincides with final exams -- adding
more stress to an already stress-ridden
process. When revising the lease-date
ordinance, City Council should push
signing dates into January - after the
first semester tumult of adjusting to
University life has subsided.
However, a significant barrier to dis-
sipating the fall housing rush is the
student body itself. Collective igno-
rance of the 90-day ordinance calls for
housing-related education on campus.;
MSA needs to make students aware

of the purpose of the ordinance, the
nature of the loophole and the impor-
tance of student and landlord -
cooperation. Education, however, is
not enough. Even if students and land-
lords manage to uphold the spirit of
the ordinance, the dizzying challenge
of finding housing near campus in a
tight, overpriced market still remains.
Ultimately, University Housing will
need to respond to the pent-up demand
for centrally located housing that
off-campus housing fails to satisfy.
The defection of upperclassmen from
dorms to off-campus housing reflects
fundamental flaws in the University's'
housing philosophy - flaws that a few
new buildings and an updated model
for student housing can fix. Although
plans for the construction of North
Quad are underway, the inability of
University-owned housing to respond
to demand for affordable, modern
housing in the vicinity of Central
Campus drives students away.
The "institutional" style of existing
dorms does not bind the University to
the designs of the past. The University
should provide more desirable, modern
living arrangements - such as apart-
ments or suite-style dorms designed to
accommodate larger groups than the
typical Markley double - for students
tired of asylum-style halls and cement-
walled rooms. Keeping more upper-
classmen within the dorm system will
relieve some of the pressure on both
the housing market and on freshmen
who are undoubtedly worried about
living arrangements for the following
year.

"It is impor-
tant for
society to
avoid the
neglect of
adults, but
positively
danger-
ous for it to
thwart the
ambition of
youth to reform the world. Only the
schools which act on this belief are
educational institutions in the best
meaning of the term."
- University President Alexander
Grant Ruthven, in a 1938 speech
given in New York City.
t seems a natural goal of a lib-
eral arts institution like the Uni-
versity to encourage students in
their perhaps idealistic efforts to
shape their world. That the ben-
efits of our education would were
necessary to the "happiness of
mankind" was written in the 1787
Northwest Ordinance and later
carved in the fagade of Angell
Hall. We still possess that same
ambition to reform the world as
students did in Ruthven's day, but
its expression is confined to the
margins of our lives. Our society
does exactly what Ruthven warned
against: It compels us to worry
about ourselves first and to leave
all that happiness of mankind stuff
for later.
Theegotisticalelementinafancy
liberal arts education like the one
we're getting right now is easy to
detect in the strange dichotomies
in our generalizations. Consider
the pages of the Daily: Theresa
Kennelly writes about the "plague
of apathy" (The mindless student,

10/17/2006), while James Dickson
complains that we glorify those
who hand out campaign stickers
(The case for apathy, 10/20/2006).
We hear seemingly contradictory
complaints: Students volunteer
just to boost their resumes. Stu-
dents spend more time worrying
about LSAT scores than the world
outside their Kaplan classrooms.
Students are all apathetic. Students
wave signs on the Diag just to feel
they're making a difference.
No matter which way you look
at it, you're probably right. Maybe
we pass on a summer internship
to spend our summer tutoring, or
we're too busy studying to "get
involved." Our decisions are a
careful calculation of what we can
get out of each hour of our day, or
how much time we can afford to
spare. The end result is that our
priorities are motivated by our
desire to become more effective
individuals. And we're also really,
really busy.
This excess of individualism
is not just happening to students
internally - it's driving the phi-
losophy of higher education.
The Committee on the Future of
Higher Education just released its
report on what's wrong with post-
secondary education and what can
be done about it. Its conclusion
was that a college degree, which
is "increasingly vital to an individ-
ual's economic security," should
be made more affordable. In the
report's 62 pages, there's a lot to
consider and a lot to contest.
But the one thing missing from
the report is what we might gain
beyond the $2.1 million in total
lifetime earnings per college
graduate - the value of a well-

informed populace in preserving
democracy, the ability to empower
ourselves to do good beyond the
realm of our own lives.
It has become a sort of luxury
to concern oneself with learning,
not grades, with doing something
meaningful even if you can't put
it on a resume. We graduate with
degrees and the ability to stretch
our schedules beyond what we
thought possible, both of which
will come in handy in making
the world a better, happier place
- sort of. In becoming more
efficient, more effective at train-
ing ourselves for the "real world,'
we have outsmarted individual-
ism. We're so-so at improving the
"happiness of mankind," but we're
amazingly effective at worrying
about ourselves. Isn't that good
enough?
Like the utopian age that never
came, when people thought tech-
nological progress meant we'd
work four-hour days and live in
leisure, we empower ourselves
with the notion that someday
we'll find time to relax, clear our
heads and worry about this happi-
ness of mankind business. But we
will always be able to work harder
and further broaden our skills.
Our resumes can always be better
- and to compete with everyone
else working just as hard, they
probably should be. In the end,
we're amazingly skilled, stuffed
with experience but unable to do
much for the happiness of man-
kind, let alone our own happi-
ness. Maybe individualism has
outsmarted us.
Beam can be reached
at ebeam@umich.edu.

0

JOHN OQUIST LIVE (,)Y. YUR FELT
MAN, RENEWED NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION... I LIKt TO THINK SIR KIS WILL
GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE... TERRORISM... INHERIT A HIH MRE HORRIFYING
T'S GREAT TO KNOW THAT'S NICE.
THAT WE IN tRITI THE WORLD THAT THAN ONE WE LIVE IN. YEAH, IT'S HOW
SCARIEST WORLD PEOPLEE TO BED
HAVE EVER AT NIGHT
LIVED I.
Associate Editorial Page Editors: Whitney Dibo, Theresa Kennelly, lmran Syed
Editorial Board Members: Reggie Brown, Kevin Bunkley, Amanda Burns, Sam Butler, Ben
Caleca, Devika Daga, Milly Dick, James David Dickson, Jesse Forester, Gary Graca, Jared
Goldberg, Jessi Holler, Rafi Martina, Toby Mitchell, Rajiv Prabhakar, David Russell,
Katherine Seid, John Stiglich, Rachel Wagner.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR tohdeatdaiy@michigandaicto

Students: Every vote counts
on Election Day
TO THE DAILY:
In his 1906 address to the nation, W.E.B. Du Bois
observed that "with the right to vote goes everything." We
agree most wholeheartedly. The power and right to vote
is a bedrock element of engagement with our democracy.
We urge members of our community not to take this right
for granted, and to make their voices heard in the Nov.7
elections. In the presidential election of 2000, the Michi-
gan Student Assembly's Voice Your Vote volunteers reg-
istered nearly 7,000 individuals, placing the University in
the top three campuses nationwide.
As we saw in the 2000 election, every vote counts.
Make sure that includes you!
Mary Sue Coleman
University president
E. Royster Harper
University vice president for student affairs

Gay acceptance in the Midwest
has a long way to go
TO THE DAILY:
A column by Deb Price in Monday's Detroit News
reported that the Midwest is becoming a friendlier place
for gays to be out. But there is still much work to be done.
For example, Marian High School, a Catholic girls school
in Bloomfield Hills, recently fired one of its staff mem-
bers whose soon to be published book publicly reveals
that she is gay. Because the employee signed an at-will
contract, this is entirely legal. But it is still appalling.
This is a public forum, so I would like to inform the
public that I'm gay too, and also a Marian alumna. Do
you think they'll revoke my diploma? I sure do hope so.
They taught me in school that it's wrong to participate
in discrimination - even if only by silent association.
Hypocrites.
Holly Painter
Los Angeles, Calif.

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The Michigan Daily and The Michigan Review periodi-
Will Prop 5 protect school funding or tie the state's hands? instacx

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THE MICHIGAN REVIEWNR

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BY CHRISTOPHER ZBROZEK
Michigan, the general consensus goes, needs a
better-educated workforce if it is to shake off the
economic malaise that has gripped the state in
recent years. By guaranteeing funding increases
to the state's public schools and universities, the
passage of Proposal 5 would do far more for the
state's students - and its economic future - than
the governor and the state Legislature have seen fit
to do in recent years.
Locking in annual inflationary funding increas-
es should never be the first option in financing any
function of government. Ideally, a responsible gov-
ernment should be able to ensure there are enough
resources available to pay for needed public ser-
vices like education.
Michigan doesn't have that kind of responsible
government now, and it hasn't had one like that
for years. Term limits have left the Legislature
singularly bereft of experience, allowing ideology
to trump sound public policy. Under the current
Republican-led Legislature, tax cuts are the policy
of choice - no matter what the effect on the state's
public schools and universities. Meanwhile, Dem-
ocratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm has failed to be a
strong advocate for higher education funding.
The result is that education funding has fared
poorly in the past few years. K-12 funding hasn't
seen drastic cuts because no politician - not even
longtime charter-school advocate Dick DeVos
- wants to come across as being against public
schools. The state's universities, however, have
been an easy target. Our public universities saw
four straight years of funding cuts until the most
recent budget in this election year. Coupled with

rising enrollment, those steady cuts caused the
state appropriation per public university student to
drop more than $1,100 between 2001 and 2005.
The state's universities have filled that gap large-
ly through years of double-digit tuition increases,
making higher education inaccessible to many
would-be educated workers. K-12 schools have
tried to cope with rising health-care and pension
costs by cutting programs and increasing class
sizes - in short, by cutting into the quality of the
education their students receive. These are sorry
strategies at a time when the collapse of Michi-
gan's traditional manufacturing base has left the
state in desperate need of educated workers able to
attract high-tech firms.
Proposal 5 isn't perfect. In particular, a provi-
sion that caps the share of retirement costs that
districts must pay and shifts the rest to the state
government likely will delay needed reforms to
retirement costs.
Cutting taxes hasn't done much so far to turn
the state's economy around; maybe investing in
the education of our future workforce will. The
proposal also includes a provision to decrease the
funding gap between poor and affluent districts -
something any fair-minded person should support.
Michigan's dysfunctional state government has
shown all too clearly over the past few years that it
isn't committed to providing quality public educa-
tion of the kind that Michigan residents need if the
state's economy is ever to turn around. Proposal
5 may be just the shock state government needs
to make sure Michigan students get the education
they deserve.
Zbrozek is a Daily editorial page editor.

By MICHAEL O'BRIEN
Nary a soul on this enlightened campus would
come out against a ballot initiative that consis-
tently increases funding for schools ... right?
After all, I hear children are our future.
Proposal 5, which will be put to Michigan vot-
ers this election day, would shroud bad public
policy in the rhetoric of good intentions. Fixing
funding for schools to inflation might seem like
a good idea on its face, but there are a number of
financial and practical drawbacks to such a pro-
posal.
Implicit in the proposal is the red-herring argu-
ment that equates funding with academic success.
Detroit Public Schools spend almost exactly the
same amount per student as Ann Arbor Public
Schools, and yet results are disparate. There are
far more factors at work in stimulating students'
academic success.
This proposal also relieves Michigan schools of
any responsibility whatsoever to rein in spending.
What incentive would any school district have to
curtail expenses when a guaranteed increase is on
the horizon?
We would be more receptive to mandatory
funding increases if such increases were a golden
solution for public schools. But take, for example,
Urban Preparatory Academy in Detroit. This cen-
tral Detroit charter school is on pace to record a
90-percent graduation rate and send 90 percent of
its graduates on to college. Not only does Urban
Prep achieve far greater success drawing from
the same pool of students as DPS, but it spends
$2,000 per pupil less than the Detroit school sys-
tem. It saves money by offering a college-oriented

curriculum, opting for community internships
rather than elective classes, bargaining individu-
ally with teachers instead of a union and contract-
ing out non-essential services.
Detroit Urban Prep Academy - a cost-efficient
charter school - works for students and taxpay-
ers. The same can't be said for teachers unions.
Proposal 5 would eliminate any incentive public
schools may have to adopt such an efficient, effec-
tive model.
If Proposal 5 passes, it would tie the hands of
the state, leaving it more impotent to handle edu-
cational policy than ever before. The proposal
would stifle any innovation or reprioritization
in funding. If the state wanted to invest in cut-
ting-edge charter schools that were better tailored
to students' needs in lieu of traditional public
schooling, it would be powerless to do so. In addi-
tion, it would radically change funding structures
by throwing any incentive systems for success out
the window and disallow tailoring funding for
successful or lagging schools.
Finally, it is worth questioning whether students
will see the most benefit from funding increases
if Proposal 5 passes. It may well be sopped up by
the looming pension and benefit liabilities public
school systems across the state of Michigan will
incur in coming years.
In short, to act like Proposal 5 would be a pana-
cea for spending cuts or failing schools is to adopt
a simplistic approach toward complex educational
problems. Good intentions do not always equate to
sound public policy - and voting - decisions.
O'Brien is an LSA junior and the executive
editor of The Michigan Review.

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