4A - Monday, December 6, 2010 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com E-MAIL SIMON AT SIMKAL(d)UMICH.EDU fJ1E 1idil~an &4lbl Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor MI 48109 tothedaily@umich.edu SIMON BORST AXC.T JACOB SMILOVITZ EDITOR IN CHIEF RACHEL VAN GILDER EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR MATT AARONSON MANAGING EDITOR Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily's editorial board. All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors. Saying noto no Republican senators must do their jobs Despite their plans, Democrats may not be able to accom- plish everything on their agenda before Republicans take control of the U.S. House of Representatives on Jan. 1. Last week, all 42 Republican senators decided to block legislative action until Congress extended the Bush-era tax cuts for everyone - a topic that requires debate, not a line drawn in the sand. This rash decision creates gridlock in Congress. It's the job of Congress to create legislation -and Senate Republi- cans have flat-out refused to do their jobs. Republican senators need to stop focusing on party interests and work with Demo- crats to create the best solution for all constituents. The next Michigan Man On Dec. 2, the U.S. House voted to extend the Bush tax cuts for families that make under $250,000 each year. On Sat- urday, Senate Republicans rejected the bill. According to a Dec. 1 New York Times article, Republican senators plan to block all legislation until all of the tax cuts were extended - including those for households that make more than $250,000 each year. This plan was outlined in a letter sent to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D- .Nev.) Wednesday that was signed by all 42 Republicans in the Senate. Later that day, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) gave a speech scolding Democrats and President Barack Obama for "ignoring the midterm election results." The tax cuts Republicans want aren't a good idea given the current economic situa- tion. While the Democrats' proposal would add an additional $3 trillion to the federal deficit over the next 10 years, the Republi- cans' proposal would add $4 trillion. The Republican tax cuts would onlybetter house- holds that can afford to pay greater taxes and would simultaneously hurt the rest of the country's economic standing. The $1 trillion added to the deficit would put further - and unnecessary - pressure on this country's already unmanageable budget. But more disturbing than the cuts is the Republican's attitude. Their approach is frankly disappointing. Members of Con- gress are elected and paid with taxpayer money to pass legislation on behalf of their constituents. Threatening to block all leg- islation is irresponsible, particularly at the end of a session. Other important legislation - like bills pertaining to the ban on LGBT people in the military and the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty - is now at a stand- still as a result of the Republican's childish behavior. The partisan bickering in Washington D.C. is strongly dividing the nation. In rough times, Congress needs to work effi- ciently, compromise and pass comprehen- sive legislation. Americans want and need to see policy made. Members of Congress are elected to help advance the country, not prevent its development. Republican senators are putting their party's interests before the well-being of the nation and its citizens. This open-ended and unproduc- tive threat is unacceptable. The United States is currently plagued by overwhelming unemployment, thousands of troops fighting overseas, schools being closed across the country due to a lack of funding and poor infrastructure. Instead of implementing a petty and juvenile stop- page of all bills, Republican senators need to refocus their attention on writing and pass- ing essential legislation. At the end of the year football banquet last week, belea- guered head coach Rich Rodriguez nearly wept as he said: "I truly want to be a Michigan Man." But does he even know what that is? When Bo Schembechler died more than four years ago, editors from all sections IMRAN of the Daily united SYED to produce a spe- cial edition of this newspaper. In that special edition and on the pages of the regular editions of the Daily that week, thousands of words were spo- ken to celebrate that great Michigan Man. My own contribution to that dis- cussion was a column on this page (The last Michigan Man, 11/20/2006). After discussing Schembechler's unparalleled significance to the University, I concluded that college football and campus dynamics had changed so much over the years that there never would be another great football coach who was also a Univer- sity leader and icon the way that Bo had been. He was, I wrote at the time, the last Michigan Man. Four years later, I see one flaw in that conclusion. Yes, longgone are the days when the football coach ruled campus, when he was a role model even to students he didn't coach and when, regardless of who the presi- dent was, the coach would be the de facto face of the University. That much is true, but I forgot something then that I realize now: Just because the world has moved on from that idyllic time does not mean Michigan football has moved on. However naive an ideal it may be, here at the University, we still want that iconic Michigan Man to lead the troops on Saturday and to lead us all every other day. It doesn't matter where the world may have moved on to - Michigan football answers to only its own gravity. University President Mary Sue Cole- man and former Athletic Director Bill Martin also forgot that crucial little truth when they sought a replacement for the retiring Lloyd Carr three years ago. They chose Rodriguez because he has a brilliant football mind and even his biggest critics have to admit that very few people can build an offense from the ground up like he can. But excellence with X's and O's is second- ary here at Michigan. Yes, Rodriguez has lost far more games than is moral in Ann Arbor. But more wins would not cure his seminal flaw: He has never wanted to be - and never could be - the consummate, all-around campus leader that this University needs its football coach to be. He's simply not of that breed. He's not the type to push academics as Joe Paterno did at Penn State, to push for social progress like Bear Bryant did at Alabama or to engage and involve stu- dents from all walks of campus life as Schembechler did. Regardless of what he says, Rodri- guez came here to coach football, not to be a Michigan Man. That will never be good enough, and that's why Rodriguez will never be left alone to coach in peace. The image and destiny of the Uni- versityhas always beentied tothe state that gave it its name. For the state of Michigan, the University has always been a crown jewel - an indelible part of the very identity of this state - along with things like the assembly line, labor unions and the Great Lakes. As Michigan has suffered in recent decades, it has lost the cornerstones of its once enviable "middle class for everyone" economy. The assembly , lines lie in ruins while thousands of unemployed auto workers can find nothing else to do. Labor unions now take the brunt of the national criti- cism of the American auto industry's recent failures. The Great Lakes have dropped, dried, been polluted and now stand at the brink of an invasion by some Asian killer fish. Yeah, it's gotten pretty bad. Being Michigan's head coach goes far beyond football. Until three years ago, all was well with the state's great University and its football team. But the more you lose, the more you begin to realize the significance of what you have. This University, this state and its people, regardless of which team they cheer for, can't afford the loss of yet another Michigan brand. We need Michigan football to rise again to be .the silver bullet for this state's national reputation that it has always been. Four years after the last one died, we need to find the next Michigan Man to pull us up again - and I don't just mean getting nine wins and a trip to Pasadena. Knowing all that it entails, does Rodriguez still want tobe a Michigan Man? Probably not. But there's a man in Palo Alto who does. And he is per- haps the only one who could. - wmran Syed can be reached at galad@umich.edu. SETH SODERBORG I Taking account of tax cuts -the podium The Complete Spectrum: Christopher Dyer is pleased that the new "Archie" character Kevin Keller, who is gay, is an encouraging icon for the LGBT community. Go to michigandaily.com/blogs/The Podium. 0 The federal budget deficit for 2010 is $1.47 trillion. That's approximately 9.1 percent of the United States's total economic output for the year. Since 2001, the Bush tax cuts have cost the federal government $1.7 trillion. These tax cuts will expire at the end of the year unless Congress votes to extend them. According to the federal office of Management and Bud- get, if these tax cuts remain in place over the next decade, they will cost the United States an additional $3.3 trillion. If that seems unafford- able, it is. But does this matter to our elected leaders? Apparently not. Democrats and Republicans in Congress are debating whether the Bush tax cuts should be extended in full or extended only for those households making less than $250,000 per year. No one is asking whether it makes sense to extend them at all. No one, that is, except the bipartisan deficit commission appointed to plug that nearly tril- lion-and-a-half dollar budget hole. The com- mission came to the sensible conclusion that spending trillions of dollars to extend tax cuts already set to expire was, overall, an unproduc- tive use of government resources. The budget deficit was one of the biggest issues in the mid- term elections. Does anyone in Congress actu- ally care about the deficit? If they do, they sure have a funny way of showing it. It would be tempting to blame it all on the Republicans. When all 42 Republican senators signed a pledge to block all legislation until Democrats agree to include tax extensions for those making more than $250,000 per year, the Republican Party once again proved its dedica- tion to improving the lives of America's wealth- iest citizens. With their pledge, Republicans declared that stopping a marginal tax increase on 1 percent of Americans is more important than anything else on the federal agenda. The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia: less impor- tant. Plugging the budget deficit: less impor- tant. Remember that after the last stimulus bill passed, Republicans declared that the budget deficit threatened national security. Now they support a multi-trillion dollar deficit expansion. But if the Republicans are misguided, the Democrats aren't much better. They argue that the Bush tax cuts should be extended for every household with a yearly income of $249,999.99 or less. Over the next 10 years, this plan would save the government $700 billion relative to what it would have lost by extending tax cuts for the richest 1 percent of Americans. If the Democrats have their way and extend tax cuts for 99 percent of Americans, the government would lose out on $2.6 trillion between now and 2020. The recession complicates the tax cut equa- tion. Economic theory holds that an effective recovery is possible only when lots of money is available in the economy. Tax cuts, increased government spending and inflation are three ways to increase money supply. Together, these three activities stimulate demand in the econ- omy and begin a self-reinforcing cycle of eco- nomic growth and job creation. Tax increases remove some money from the general-economy. Therefore, during a recession, a tax increase could put a crimp on economic growth and slowdown the recovery. Many argue that the Bush tax cuts should be extended to avoid this kind of crippling tax increase. Peter Orszag, former director of the Office of Management and Budget under Presi- dent Obama, has suggested that the tax cuts should remain in place temporarily for some income levels. His plan would limit the tax increase to those people least likely to spend their money -that richest1percent - and would also be an important step toward reining in the budget deficit. Unfortunately, Republicans have outright rejected this sensible proposal. Tax cuts are a form of stimulus. Both par- ties are in favor of the Bush tax cut stimulus program, but their divide over the $250,000 bracket can tell us a lot about each party's priori- ties. Republicans want to keep giving stimulus money to the wealthiest Americans, while Dem- ocrats support stimulus cash for everyone up to and including the slightly-less-than extremely wealthy Americans. Neither party is willing to address the budget deficit. The Bush tax cuts are a huge drain on the federal budget. Allowing them to continue in any form for more than two years would be truly irresponsible. Seth Soderborg is an LSA junior. Teacher examination 'm certain that you have had some terrible teachers. Teachers can be awful for a lot of reasons: they're confus- ing, they write bad- tests and quizzes, they give miser- able lectures, they pontificate for 20 minutes about . something com- t pletely unrelated i to the class's sub- ject or they're just RACHEL plain mean. I haveV experienced all VAN GILDER of these things at least once during my time here at the University and some when I was in high school. The state legislature is working on a way to find those bad teachers more quickly and get them out of the class- room. But it's anyone's guess if the method they've proposed will work. On Dec. 1, the Michigan Senate passed a bill to alter the way teach- ers are evaluated. If passed, 45 per- cent of a teacher's evaluation would be based upon student achievement in the form of performance on statewide standardized tests and school-spe- cific assessments, according to a Dec. 2 report by The Detroit News. The legislation now goes before the state House of Representatives and might make it to a vote before the lame duck session ends on Friday. But that seems unlikely considering the objections of powerful teachers' unions like the Michigan Education Association. Maybe Michigan tenure needs reform - it takes a fair amount of time and effort to remove tenured teachers unless they do something blatantly egregious. On one hand, that prevents adequate teachers from being forced out of a district simply because they ticked off a parent, stu- dent or administrator. On the other hand, it also protects teachers who have never done well even though they have been granted tenure. Here in Michigan, we have fairly good teachers overall because we have a lot of strong teaching programs. Michigan State University, Grand Val- ley State University and, of course, the University of Michigan have great teacher education programs. And Michigan certification is among the most difficult to obtain in the nation. Michigan certification will transfer to a lot of other states fairly easily. It's muchmore difficult to transfer out-of- state certification to Michigan. But that's not to say that every single Michigan teacher is awesome. Despite the quality of Michigan teaching programs, there are always going to be some poor teachers. And they shouldn't retain their positions if they're doing a bad job. . The problem is figuring out what "doing a bad job" means - and what it means to do a good job. That's because everyone likes teachers for different reasons. For kids, a lot of it has to do with personality. For par- ents, a lot of it has to do with helping their kid get into college. For the gov- ernment (and school administrations focused on funding), it's all about the standardized test results. Teachers, meanwhile, often just want to help students learn. And though all of those things are connected, they are never the same thing. In the School of Education here at the University, we talk a lot about grades, testing and learning. Some- times, learning can't be effectively measured in an empirical way. Some- times, the best teacher is the one that helps a troubled kid find peace in the classroom. These students may not learn anything about geometry or Shakespeare - but maybe that's okay if they feel like, for the first time, they're in a safe, caring environment. But students obviously need to know about obtuse angles and "Romeo and Juliet." Teachers have a responsibility to present informa- tion in interesting and varied ways to appeal to the broadest possible range of learners. They have a responsibil- ity to help students understand that learning is a life-long process, not just something that happens for the seven hours a day that the students are in school. And sometimes, even if students apply themselves, they still won't get an 'A+'. If teachers teach material specifically related to stan- dardized tests in an effort to increase students' scores, they're often teach- ing test-taking skills instead of con- tent knowledge. Test-taking skills can be important, but shouldn't be overvalued. Learning often * can't be measured by a grade. Sometimes, it's obvious that a teacher is inadequate. Students don't respond to these teachers, grades remain low and there's no evidence that students are progressing. But because everyone has a different perspective on what a good teacher is, these teachers are few and far between. Less effective teachers are hard to point out. The consensus among a lot of edu- cators is that learning often can't be measured by a grade. It can only be measured by a student's attitude. At the end of the day, it's a student's * responsibility to apply themself. It's the teacher's job to show them how. I don't know everything that makes a good teacher. I don't know if it's possible to know. But what I do know is that students' performance on tests shouldn't be the determining factor. - Rachel Van Gilder is the Daily's editorial page editor. She can be reached at rachelvg@umich.edu EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS: Aida Ali, Jordan Birnholtz, Will Butler, Eaghan Davis, Michelle DeWitt, Ashley Griesshammer, Will Grundler, Jeremy Levy, Erika Mayer, Harsha Nahata, Emily Orley, Harsha Panduranga, Teddy Papes, Tommaso Pavone, Leah Potkin, Roger Sauerhaft, Seth Soderborg, Asa Smith, Julian Toles, Laura Veith, Andrew Weiner t