Opinion


Page 6
The Michigan Daily]
Vol. XCII, No. 24-S
Ninety-two Years of Editorial Freedom
Edited and managed by students
at the University of Michigan
War (cotinued)
B Y LAND, BY SEA, and by air the Israeli
military has invaded Lebanon and wiped
out the last vestiges of the year-old cease-fire.
Thus begins another chapter of the Arab-Israeli
conflict. More dead and more wounded, and
probably no added security for Israel will
result, but war continues.
The.trigger points of violence remain Israel's
anxious desire for secure borders and the
Palestinian's desperate quest for any borders
at all marking their autonomy. Anything less
than a resolution to these problems leaves
millions languishing in periodic wars begun
with each stray gunshot.
An end to the conflict will take years to
negotiate, but in the meantime a more
workable cease-fire agreement must be found.
And the Palestine Liberation Organization
must rein in its forces to prevent further bar-
barous attacks on Israeli diplomats. At the
same time, however, Israel cannot hold the
whole Palestinian and Lebanese population
responsible for one act of murder committed by
a splinter Palestinian group attempting to
foment a larger Arab-Israeli war.
Any path toward a longer term peace still
requires the United States to take the lead. The
Reagan administration, however, has been con-
tent to sell missiles and fighter jets to any
regime who promises to ward off supposed
aggresive Soviet intentions in the area.
The chief threat to stability and the peace it
engenders lies within the Middle East itself, not
from a bearish Russia to the north. And until
the administration realizes that, there will be
little progress toward eliminating the real
causes of a seemingly endless war.
_ GOSH, SON, WE'RE ALL TO6ETHER AGAI"
JAM O

Tuesday, June 8, 1982-

The Michigan Daily

Let them eat chalk

By Rasa Gustaitis
Children all over the outlying,
rural fringes of the Alpena School
District in northern Michigan,
have been on a long recess for the
better part of this school year.
First, the Alpena school, which
serves the entire county, closed
its doors for the two weeks last
fall when the money ran out.
The'. after an emergency
millage vote, the school reopened
- but without buses. Many
children live up to 30 miles from
town, and there is no public tran-
sit.
THE ALPENA school is one of
many in this economically
depressed state teetering on the
brink of collapse because voters
have failed repeatedly to pass
funding tax measures.
The questions raised there are
serious ones, and the issues range
far beyond economically blighted
Michigan to include communities
throughout the North Central
states and as far away as the
Pacific Northwest: Do children
have a right to go to school? If so,
whose responsibility is it to
guarantee and pay for that right?
And whose responsibility is it to
make sure that schools provide
an education?
The whole country was shocked
in 1976 when schools in Toledo,
Ohio, shut down after voters
defeated a tax measure. The
notion of an American com-
munity without public schools
was unthinkable then.
NOW, WITH the economic
depression deepening, literally
scores of schools in small towns
across the country face the
prospect of either having to shut
down or of gutting programs to
the point where the open door
becomes a sham.
In Oregon, 2,500 children in
Escada, near Portland, had no
school from September till
December last year after an
operating funds measure was
defeated for the fifth time. It was
the fourth such school shutdown

in that state since 1976 and "the
tip of the iceberg" ahead, accor-
ding to a spokesman for the state
school superintendent.
In Boston, where public
education began, and in Chicago
school closures for lack of money
loom as real possibilities.
THE U.S. Constitution is silent
on the question of the right to
education, leaving the matter to
the states. Most states have com-
pulsory attendance laws and con-
stitutions that say the states have
an obligation to provide an
education. But the definition of
"education" is often scanty.
School authorities in Oregon
and Michigan say the state
has the power to demand that
communities provide funding to a
certain level and to take
measures to make sure they do
so. One method might be a state-
imposed district income tax, for
instance.
So far, nobody has had to deal
with that question because all
communities where schools have
closed have rescued them
through emergency elections that
provided money - temporarily.
But with the economy continuing
to deteriorate and school budgets
facing increasing hostility, future
prospects are grim.
IN PONTIAC, Micg., where
unemployment is as 26 percent,
the drastic steps taken to keep
the schools open included tem-
porarily closing school libraries,
abolishing elementary school
music, putting counselors into
classrooms and - in the town
that hosted the Super Bowl - en-
ding all sports programs. But
now it must begin to pay back a
deficit that at the end of last year
stood at $3.7 million. It will do so
by cutting still more.
A fund-raising effort to restore
the sports program that in the
past produced Olympic athletes
failed to raise enough. Now bingo
might be tried. On the wall of
Pontiac school superintendent
Odell Mails' office is a sign that

reads: "I hope to see the day
where there is enough money for
education and the Air Force
has to havea bingo game to buy a
bomber."
A suit in behalf of the rural
children without transportation
won a state circuit court ruling
that a fundamental right to
education does exist in Michigan
- a landmark ruling. It added
that buses are needed to exercise
that right in the Alpena district.
But the district has won a stay on
the order to restore the buses,
and while the case winds through
the appeals process the rural
children continue to be dependent
on their parents' resources.
CHILDREN OF poor families
are most affected, said Robert
Hess, an attorney in the suit
seeking to restore the-buses. One
single mother on welfare ferries
three to five children 60 miles
daily in a car with a broken
frame held together with a cable.
Other families must take
children to more than one school,
at different locations and with
different schedules. Many cannot
manage.
There is little chance that state
or federal governments will come
to bail out the financially foun-
dering system. In Michigan, state
spending for schools has dropped
from 29 to 15 percent of the state
budget in the past decade, while
social welfare spending has risen
comparably.
School budgets are about the
only place where voters can say
no to tax spending, and they tend
to express their frustration by
defeating millage measures,
school officials point out. They do
even while state and federal fun-
ds continue to shrink.
Gustaitis is an editor for the
Pacific News Service.

4
4

I

0

LETTERS TO THE DAILY:
No more 'Big Stick'

To the Daily:
On June 12, 1982, at least 500,000
people (possibly 1,000,000) in New
York will march from the United
Nation's to Central Park on the
occasion of the Second United
Nations Disarmament Conferen-
ce. These people and many others
throughout the world want to
make a personal statement to the
world and to our representatives
in Congress: "The arms race
must end!"
These people and I are angry
because our government and

other governments throughout
the world have spent at least 2
trillion dollars ($2,000,000,000) on
various military expenditures
since 1960. This money has not
bought peace nor stability
anywhere in the world. Mean-
while, millions of children are
starving to death each year.
People throughout the world
are tired of the "Big Stick" run-
ning our lives and the lives of
others. We are tired of supporting
repressive regimes against the
will of the indigenous population.
We are tired of inflationary

defense spending and rising
unemployment. We are deman-
ding changes in foreign policy,
and defense priorities. People
must make their voices heard
because the silent only rubber-
stamp current policy. Come to
the mass demonstration at the
U.N. on June 12th. Don't be
placated by Reagan's rhetoric. If
you don't make it to New York,
the rally will be that much
smaller. Call PIRGIM or the In-
terfaith Council for Peace for
carpool information.
-Jonathan Weiland

4

4