0 14 - The Michigan Daily - Orientation Edition 2006 Making Michigan study CHRISTOPHER ZBROZEK BORN IN TIHE, U.S.A. Simply delicious EMILY BEAM LOOKING IOR AMERICA B ack when I started high school, the seniors didn't really have to do anything. My suburban Detroit district required them to take English, gov- ernment and maybe one other class. You could be home before lunch if you felt like it. The school district ended that policy before my class got anywhere near graduation, much to our annoyance. As the strict new high school curriculum standards Gov. Jennifer Granholm signed into law last week take effect, the senior year blow-off schedule will become as much a part of Michigan's past as our global dominance in auto manufacturing. Respectable opinion throughout the state has been strongly behind the new standards, which include requirements that high school students take at least three and a half years of math, three years of science and even two years of a foreign language if they hope to graduate. A Detroit News editorial gushed, "Everyone will have to step up and work harder. And if they do, Michigan will be able to boast of having the highly skilled work force that 21st-century employers demand." Granholm herself boasted, "This new curric- ulum will help give Michigan the best-edu- cated workforce in the nation and bring new jobs and new investment to our state." Maybe I'm just one of those, you know, elitists at that stuck-up school in Ann Arbor, but how is requiring high school students to actually take classes going to give Michigan the nation's best-educated workforce ? Don't get me wrong. Michigan's economy certainly stands to benefit from getting our high-school students to work harder. We keep hearing, after all, the vaguely racial- ized threats that India and China are going to eat America alive unless American kids study more. Michigan's lagging manufactur- ing sector makes the issue of U.S. competi- tiveness particularly salient in this state. The new curriculum standards will help fight at least one nasty trend in education. A study released last week by the nonparti- san Center on Educational Policy found that since the passage of the No Child Left Behind act, 71 percent of the nation's school districts have cut back on other subjects to teach more reading and math - the only subjects cov- ered by the tests that NCLB mandates. The New York Times reported that to boost their test scores, some schools are requiring stu- dents who test poorly to take extra periods of math and reading at the exclusion of all other subjects. I can't think of a single better way to kill any interests kids have and encourage them to drop out than to send them the mes- sage that all school really is about is drill- ing for standardized tests. With Michigan's new curriculum requiring courses in a wide range of subjects, this atrocious trend should be curtailed in the state. The fact is, though, that just getting high school students to work harder won't save Michigan overnight. (Even if it could, the requirements will first apply to students who graduate in 2011, by which time Gen- eral Motors or Ford might not even be around anymore.) If Granholm is intent on Michigan's having the "best-educated work- force in the nation," she - or her successor - will have to do a few more things. For starters, there's getting more people to graduate from college, not just high school. Nolan Finley of The Detroit News pointed out in a recent column that Michigan ranks eighth among the states in high school graduation rates, but 40th in college attendance. One key obstacle to boosting that ranking is state law- makers' unwillingness to pay for higher edu- cation. Though public universities might see a 2-percent funding increase this year, that won't make up for four years of cuts. When state appropriations drop, tuition jumps, and more people find college beyond their means. But as many an English or sociology major graduating this term can attest, simply hav- ing a college degree doesn't necessarily equate to great job prospects. Though liberal arts students (me included) might not like to hear it, Michigan needs to find ways to steer more students toward fields where the state has prospects for economic growth. It also needs to keep more educated young adults in the state after graduation. One way to work toward both goals would be offering targeted student loans to students in tech fields - and paying them off after graduation if students take jobs with Michigan employers. Without such actions, Michigan's new graduation requirements won't accomplish much. Their main effect, indeed, could be increasing the dropout rate as students who hoped to cruise to a high school diploma give up instead. The curriculum standards - and the bipartisan cooperation to pass them - are an encouraging start to address- ing Michigan's crisis, but nothing more. Apr. 6, 2006 Zbrozek is a fall/winter co-editorial page editor. He can be reached at zbro@umich.edu. I __ . . he Washington apples in the University's din- ing halls - those Red Delicious ones that are a little too red and way too shiny - always dis- turbed me. One encoun- ter with their mushy texture and bland flavor left me oddly thirsty and dissatisfied, wondering if perhaps they were the University's way of teaching students that appearances can be deceiving. As far as I'm concerned, Washington Red Deli- cious apples are not food, much less apples. Maybe they're okay in Washington. Maybe they were once edible, even tasty - before they were picked, washed and waxed some 2,500 miles ago. I couldn't say; I've never been to Washington. I do know that Michigan apples, when pur- chased in Michigan, are quite tasty. Even typically bland Red Delicious apples aren't that bad when they have been spared the up to eight-month-long wait in a temperature-controlled warehouse that Washington's exports endure. Beginning a few years ago, the University started serving Michigan apples in the residence halls during the fall. It's not part of a campus- wide movement to satiate students' appetites - or maybe just my appetite - for Michigan McIntosh and Empire apples. Rather, it's just one aspect of efforts to include more locally grown foods in campus dining hall offerings. Why care? Buying more local foods will increase menu variety, cut down on the air and water pollu- tion inherent in shipping foods across the country and help out the local economy. Besides making the hippies happy, using locally grown foods increases the quality of cafeteria fare, perhaps leaving students a little less tired of dorm food come spring. University dining hallsserveroughly 10,000meals a day. Following the lead of tiny, private liberal arts colleges like Sterling College of Virginia - where students produce most of their own food, or at least purchase it locally - would be an outright bad idea. I can't see University students raising enough cattle, making enough maple syrup or pickling enough beans and beets - as Sterling students do - to feed any significant number of their classmates. But what the University can realistically do is significantly expand its offering of locally grown foods. It's doing a better job than just a few years ago - all the tofu and dairy served in University dining halls now is from Michigan - but we could be doing a lot more. Even working within the often cumbersome framework of vendor contracts and standardized menus, University Dining Services can work with farmers in the county and the state to expand its cafeteria offerings. Asking the University to shell out food pric- es comparable to the "Yuppie tax" that Whole Foods shoppers pay is unnecessary. Buying more local foods may often be slightly more expensive - students at Northland College in Wisconsin agreed to a six-cent per-meal price increase to pay for local potatoes and onions - but that is not always the case. Switching from packaged California tofu to bulk organic Michigan tofu has saved the University thousands of dollars annually. Although these tofu savings don't even make a dent in the University's nearly $6-million annual food budget, the switch demonstrates that using locally grown produce is not necessarily a luxury. There are certainly obstacles. According to nutri- tion specialist Ruth Blackburn of University Dining Services, the University requires that food vendors possess expensive liability insurance which most small produce farmers lack, and individual farms often cannot produce large quantities on their own. Working with individual farmers and local groups to create distribution cooperatives can help resolve these challenges and bridge the gap between local farms and students' cafeteria trays. But any major new effort - whether trying to get the University to serve more Washtenaw County-grown squash or converting an entire dining hall to serve locally grown produce, as Blackburn hopes could one day be accomplished - will take pressure from students. It's not that hard of a fight - if activism on campus is strong enough to wear down the University's reluctance to take action against the Coca-Cola Company, it's certainly capable of giving the University the shove necessary to make locally grown foods a larger part of cafeteria menus. What could seem like a marginal cause to some is quickly spreading nationwide - even The New York Times last week declared the terms "local" and "sustainable" the latest "culinary buzzwords" That settles it: Everybody's doing it. As more students become aware of the benefits of locally grown food and the realistic measures the University can take, it will likely require little more than a dedicated student organization and a whole lot of dining room comment cards to get things moving. The University has already made limited progress, and students would benefit from the efforts already underway to forge partnerships between University chefs and local groups like the Food System Economic Partnership. By the time students finally take notice, they may be jump- ing on the student activist bandwagon, but there's no harm in reaping these delicious and socially responsible rewards. Jan. 6, 2006 Beam is a falllwinter co-editorial page editor. She can be reached at ebeam@umich.edu. I 6 I I -- -- Enroll On-Line and get Health Insurance coverage at www.chickering.com The Plan may be obtained by enroling from the convenience of your computer. No Stamps, no envelopes. Confirmation of enrollment received via email inminutes. Visit the Student Connection of wwwchickering.com, click on "FindYourSchool," and enter 711146 or look up University of Michigan and begintoenroll The Chickering Group" The Univmnity of Michigan is offerig a sudnthealthinsurnan planino studnensand their depen- ndorsedbyte Miciguan Stuent Plan highlights include; - Cvae for medical services tut- sideof UiniversiyHealihtSerice laUHS) wih redcd c-pament. - Atfordable co-pay'ment orpr- scripiondruat UiHS, loal, and ntional pharmacie. -Traellassisitnwn traveinnidg or t-iuying at chool orabroad. -Hospialzatinand Emergency Roostervice. - White'sitteniare encouragedo beacoveredandera pivatehealth Smnt raapttia IAnate N.r a Michigan welchomes students with the _____ Arts Adventure Series 2006 - 2007 SIX shows f5daaf & cWS- 'imusic- a pizza dinner for only$ Check it out: www.arts.umich.edu 0