Gripe number one:
When Congress decided to federalize the nation's airport security personnel, there was a briefly heated debate about whether "federalizing" was synonymous with improving, or whether it would mean nothing more than adding 28,000 people to the federal workforce with additional job protections for the workers but no additional security for passengers. During the debate, we were assured by our elected representatives that those who worked in sensitive positions in the airports would have to meet higher standards than are currently in place.
Surprise: the nation's airport security personnel will be, apparently, exactly the same as those who were on the job (or not on the job) on September 11. To make matters worse, the Department of Transportation is rapidly dropping or diluting or forgetting about the "standards" that the public thought had been adopted in the legislation. After an outcry from places like California, it turns out that security personnel will NOT have to be American citizens. It seems that a large number of these workers are not American citizens, even though they have lived in the United States (in some cases) for years (certainly enough years to apply for and receive their citizenship papers).
Worse yet: those people who are our nation's first line of defense, screening air passengers and their possessions, will not need to be high school graduates. At a time when nearly 90% of all young people are getting high school diplomas, this move is outrageous. It suggests that screeners will be drawn from the pool of the poorest educated and least motivated individuals, those who lacked the minimal persistence needed to complete a high school diploma. Instead of a high school degree, screeners need have only "one year of work experience," which is about as minimal as one could get, save for no work experience at all. This is the kind of policy that sends a very negative message to students and teachers about the importance of having a high school education.
This dumbing down of qualifications suggest that our nation is still not serious about air security. The message that we are all getting through these decisions is that worker job security counts for a lot more than passengers' lives and safety.
My friend Checker is currently en route to Mexico, but I suggest that the rest of us stay home or drive until there is some clear signal that our government intends to put our safety first.
Gripe number two:
Recently the President of Yale University revealed that he was reconsidering the practice of early decisions for students applying for admission. Immediately came an outcry from a variety of admissions officers in defense of early decisions. It was good, they said, for high school seniors to make their choice of college in the fall of their last high school year and to get an answer in December. I forget all the reasons they set forth about the importance of early decisions. Not one of them mentioned, however, that early decisions have a devastating impact on the senior year in high school. When students know that they have already been admitted to the college of their choice, they have no reason to work hard. When they know that their hard work has no bearing on their future, it is devalued. Teachers have been complaining for years that senior year has become a joke. Are our students so well educated that we can be content with only three years of high school instead of four? Why throw away the senior year? The truth is that the only good case for early admission is the convenience of college administrators, who like to know well in advance that they have lined up their top choices. From the point of view of students and high schools, early admissions is a disaster. Yale is right, and I hope the university sticks to its guns on this one.
