4 - The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, May 27, 2003 420 MAYNARD STREET ANN ARBOR, MI 48109 SRAVYA CHIRUMAMILLA JASON PESICK letters@michigandaily.com Editor in Chief Editorial Page Editor + fJtU] EDITED AND MANAGED BY UH Unless otherise noted, unsigned editorils reflect the opinion of AZVSTUDENTS AT THE Unesohrientd nindeioil elc h pno f UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN the majority of the Daily's editorial board. All other pieces do not SINCE 1890 necessarily reflect the opinion of The Michigan Daily. ending almost certain approval by a valuable strength now that the Lecturers the University Board of Regents in W elCOm e iean s Employee Organization has formed. June, current Interim Dean McDonald has also received much Terrence McDonald will be appointed to be dedicatedts rrecognition both outside the University and the permanent position of dean of LSA Deans must to students and transparency internally for his dedication to undergradu- beginning this July. This is welcome good ate education, including his appointment as news given the importance of the posi- This and the lack of transparency in the and financial flexibility loom large as full- the Arthur F. Thurnau Professor. The year's tion, and as far as the student body is con- selection process are symptoms of a more fledged crises in the face of state budget service as interim LSA dean has given cerned, it is good to get any news on mat- fundamental problem, which is the admin- cuts. McDonald will have to work hard to McDonald time to become acquainted with ters of this source at all. The events lead- istration's drift away from a student- ensure that these budget cuts do not erode the issues that he will be facing. ing up to the appointment of individuals focused agenda. The charges that under- the quality of undergraduate education. When the search for the law school dean to prominent posts, such as University graduate education at the University is And it is likely that the U.S. Supreme has concluded, hopefully the chosen candi- president, are routinely obscure. The compromised in favor of research and that Court's upcoming decision concerning the date will be as qualified and dedicated to process of selecting the law school dean, despite high levels of spending on gradu- use of race conscious admissions policies students as McDonald has proven to be. another high-profile position, continues ate programs, graduate students them- will force abrupt and major changes in the The law school also faces a legal challenge to be a secretive affair. A single press selves receive inadequate support and college's admissions policies and proce- to its admissions policy, and the new dean release announced the final six candi- health benefits, are familiar to anyone fol- dures. McDonald must be an advocate for will have to be as articulate a spokesman dates for the position. lowing campus politics. The task of shift- diversity and must be prepared to find for affirmative action as the man who will Impeccable credentials are not suffi- ing the focus back to serving students rests ways of maintaining a diverse student be replaced, Dean Jeffrey Lehman. cient to prove a candidate's fitness for ser- upon the new appointees. body if the college's admissions policy is During such a pivotal time for the vice to the University's students, and this Interim Dean McDonald, whose posi- deemed unconstitutional. University, the deans of its most prestigious is evidenced by the fact that many high- tion as LSA dean will directly impact 77 In his earlier position as associate dean schools will face great challenges, but these profile positions at the University are most percent of undergraduates, takes the reins for academic appointments, McDonald challenges will provide them with equally notorious for their roles as launch pads to of the college at a particularly challenging showed skill and a sincere dedication to fac- great opportunities to make tremendous bright administrative careers elsewhere. time. The perennial concerns of budget ulty and to non-tenure faculty in particular, strides for the University and its students. I Foggy test logic School drug tests should cease in light of new data More fruitless testing New federal education policies ineffective at best t seems that the newest target of America's "war on drugs" will be logic. That is, if policymakers and school administrators ignore evidence from the University's newly completed study on the efficacy of drug testing students involved in extra-curricular activities in schools. About eight years ago, on the front lines of this particular U.S. war, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that was so important to prevent high school athletes from using drugs that side-stepping the Fourth Amendment was permissible. Actually, according to the Supreme Court, enforcing mandatory drug tests is not an invasion of privacy because it will get kids off drugs. It seems what they meant to say was, drug testing is worth the infringements on the Fourth Amendment because it will have such positive consequences. In 1995, when the Supreme Court spoke on this issue, Justice Antonin Scalia, said the "efficacy of this means for addressing the problem" of student drug use is "self-evident." The University study, however, debunks this argument by ques- tioning the "efficacy" of drug testing. The study, authored by Ryoko Yamaguchi, Lloyd D. Johnston and Patrick M. O'Malley, social scientists at the Institute for Social Research, disput- ed the "self-evident" efficacy of drug testing as a preventative method with cold hard facts. This federally funded study surveyed over 76,000 students nationwide. In the end, the authors con- cluded that there is no difference between the percentage of drug users in schools which conduct drug tests com- pared to those who do not. The study found that in schools that do not test stu- dents for use of marijuana and other illicit drugs, 36 percent of students had used such drugs within the previous 12- month period. The number was 37 per- cent in schools that do conduct testing. In other words, testing for drugs is not an effective deterrent. In addition, it seems that the tests are easy to fool. The urinalysis is not as accu- rate as a blood test, and students have found techniques which turn the task of passing the tests into a game of sorts. Resorting to testing students' blood seems a far too invasive step for public schools to take in order to ensure that the members of their debate teams are not smoking marijuana in their free time. This information was not available to the Supreme Court eight years ago. Now that it is, by the court's own logic, manda- tory drug tests can only be viewed as unconstitutional; however, it is currently legal to administer drug tests to any stu- dent who is involved in any extracurricular activity, not just to athletes. During a time when state and local governments are facing tremendous fis- cal crises as the economy remains sour, it seems illogical to send tax dollars toward drug tests which have been proven to be ineffective. Surely the country's schools have more pressing needs to spend covet- ed money on than drug tests, especially in light of these data. Because it has been shown that these drug tests are ineffective, violating stu- dents' rights by testing their own bodies without a warrant and probable cause is not only futile, but unconstitutional as well. This study is yet another nail in the coffin of this country's feckless and at times com- ical war on drugs. The No Child Left Behind Act is just not measuring up. This year marks the first full school year that this legislation, passed in 2002, has been in place, and instead of improving public schools, states are already lower- ing their testing standards in order to avoid the heavy penalties that the law imposes on failing schools. The state of Texas recently changed the number of correct answers needed to pass the state's standardized test from 24 out of 36 to 20. In Michigan, where standards were the highest in the nation, No Child Left Behind labeled 1,513 schools as inefficient. Thus, Michigan officials lowered the per- centage of students who must pass the stan- dardized test. The adjustment decreased the inefficient number of schools to 216. The law, which easily sailed through Congress with bipartisan support, will never achieve the higher level of educa- tion it has set out to because, states are able to formulate their own definitions of success. In order to avoid loss of funding, states will simply continue to readjust their levels of proficiency, allowing stu- dent performance to stagnate or even decline. While some officials are making assurances that checks are in place to ensure states cannot lower their standards significantly, the bar measuring success does not seem to be very high. The state of Michigan, for example, was allowed to lower the number of high school students who must passthe English exam from 75 percent to 45 percent. In Colorado, the grading of tests has been altogether over- hauled and educators are lumping stu- dents who scored in the "partially profi- cient" realm with those who were "profi- cient." It is estimated that it would cost between $1.9 and $5.3 billion to eliminate the discrepancies between states, yet Congress has not appropriated enough money to schools to cover these costs. The new law is also a double-edged sword for some schools. Poor rural schools that barely have enough money for new library books and have a majority of students failing to reach existing state testing standards risk losing even more money. Great losses will only further damage their education systems. No Child Left Behind set itself up for failure when it demanded that all schools be 100 percent proficient in reading and math by 2014. This will prove to be nearly impos- sible for some schools to meet as many currently are only 50 to 60 percent profi- cient. Most are simply marking time, hop- ing that legislation will surface that allows states to back out of the bill. This manipulation of the law's intent makes a mockery of the president's oft- heralded education strategy. The president received praise as a candidate for suppos- edly turning around the Texas public edu- cation system with these get-tough poli- cies. While experts have debunked the assertion that such a transformation ever took place in Texas, it is ironic that this new no-nonsense strategy to reform the public school system would allow such shenanigans. Not only does the No Child Left Behind Act provide members of Congress, the president and the U.S. pub- lic with the false notion that positive action is being taken on the education front, but these latest revelations are fur- ther evidence that despite the hype, stan- dardized tests are not the silver bullet for the country's education problems that their supporters incessantly claim.