Newspapers / North Carolina School of … / March 1, 2004, edition 1 / Page 6
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6 march 2004 oiDled Aneesh Kulkarni This article is a shortened version of the full article, which can be found at: http ://www. geocities, com/csm ml999. O n September 11, 2001, terrorists hit us hard. October 7th of .the same year, we hit back. Our target was the South Asian nation of Afghanistan. We wanted an ally in the region to commit troops and assist the effort against Al-Qaeda. The only two nations with any sig nificant military presence in the area (South Asia) are India and Pakistan. India is a large, economically powerful democracy with a far more powerful military and is the global headquarters for IT (Information Technology). Pakistan is smaller, has a mili tary dictatorship, an economy in shambles, a weak military and is the headquarters for a different kind of IT - International Terrorism. America thought Pakistan was needed to destroy the Taliban, but it was Pakistan who nur tured and supported the Taliban all along. When General Pervez Musharraf (the military dictator of Pakistan) extended the hand of friend ship, George W. Bush blindly grabbed it. And what a mis take that was! Atop a long list of accusa tions is this one: Pakistan is a haven for hardline Islamic mil itants and a center for terror ism. In Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) alone, Indian intelligence knows the loca tions of over 400 terrorist training camps (India Today). Government funded religious schools called madrasas that k n aktstan> AFCHAflUStAM k CH SM A '*>. *>51 \ V % \ ff i ... A # 1 N 0 '1 A ■ T fmt ■ ' y\ J ■ •'Hi*-' ■ xmtdnk 1 http://www.pittstate.edu/isp/mideast/pakistan.jpg On 13 December 2001, a heinous act was committed against the Indian government by Pakistani supported terror ists. Five gunmen entered the Indian parliament complex, and 6 policeman, 1 parliament employee, and the 5 terrorists were killed. In the next few days, it emerged that the 5 ter rorists were Pakistani men who illegally entered India with the help of the Inter- Services Intelligence (ISI; the secretive Pakistani Spy Agency - with direct links to seventeen terrorists groups in Kashmir) and were supported by the Pakistan-based terrorist groups, the Jaish-e- Mohammed (JeM) and the Lakshar-e-Tayiba (LeT). As tions: the dismantling of all terrorist training camps across the border, including those in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir; no arming and abetting of ter rorists; halting all financial assistance to terrorist and jiha- di outfits; the cessation of cross-border terrorism; the extradition of 20 terrorists wanted for terrorist acts in India. To date, Pakistan has met none of them. Pakistan admits offering support to "freedom fighters" and "mujhadeen". It arms militants who run amok in Kashmir and bring death and destruction with them. In 1999, Pakistan-backed groups hijacked a plane to Afghanistan and demanded the stentorian 1 ncssm When Will America Wake Up? A Critical Examination of Pakistan-U.S. Relations teach jihad and hatred of the the year 2001 came to a close huge sums of money and the West show how Pakistan is and troops began to pile up on release of leading Pakistani firmly committed to terrorism both sides of the border, India militants as ransom. The even at the grassroots level. set five demands for negotia- Pakistani ISI also helper Osama bin Laden hide from the American military in 2002. Pakistan recognizes the Taliban government and was actually the essential birth place for the Taliban. The military dictator of Pakistan, President General Pervez Musharraf, claims to be for peace, but cannot hide his militaristic designs: "We are a missile and nuclear power. Not only should we maintain this capability but we should also further reinforce it. Pakistan can never ignore this important asset necessary for national survival. We are proud of our armed forces..." (from a tele vised address on Pakistani TV on 1/17/04). More than just possessing a nuclear arsenal. Pakistan is transferring its nuclear technologies to other countries that also pose a threat to world peace, includ ing Iran, Libya, and North Korea. The govenunent of Pakistan has admitted that some of its nuclear scientists may have transferred knowl edge of nuclear weapons to the three aforementioned rogue states. In his State of the Union speech, U.S. President George W. Bush said "As part of the offensive against terror, we are also confronting the regimes that harbor and support terror ists, and could supply them with nuclear, chemical or bio logical weapons." Despite all this, G. W. Bush calls a Musharraf "true friend" and expresses "full confidence in Musharraf." When Bush named North Korea, Iraq, and Iran as the "axis of evil", he left off the central threatening nation - Pakistan. Iraq is no longer a threat, and the nuclear weapons causing problems in the other two nations were developed with the assistance and material support of Pakistan. Pakistan serves as a headquarters for international terrorism, with over 400 known terrorist camps in Pak- occupied Kashmir and thou sands of madrasas that teach hatred and jihad. When will America wake up? Perhaps the 2004 election will provide answers. Is our children learning? Rebecca Buckwalter W hat alternatives can we offer to our national crutch, the bubble sheet? From the class room to the SAT, we as stu dents have perfected our methods of bubbling - heavy and dark, without stray marks and yet, we have probably reaped little to no benefit from our years of quantitative tests. These familiar exams are heavy on multiple choice and fill in the blank but from ele mentary to exit, our methods of assessment do nothing to answer the most important questions we pose to our nation's students, as President Bush said on January 11, 2000, "Is our children learn ing?" Supplanting standardized testing requires challenging the thought process and cul ture of a nation stuck on quan titative thinking and "objec tive" analysis. Current substi tutes for testing include stu dent portfolios, district-wide "proficiencies", and assess ment teams, as proposed in one article by Bob Peterson and Monty Neill in Rethinking Schools. Of course, grades remain the old stand-by. Scores based on student portfolios reflect overall growth and success in the learning process, unlike the singular nature of testing. The National Assessment of Educational Progress employs The new empasis on standarized testing cause more prep classes such as this one to be the most requested high school courses. www.eece.ksu.edu/vlsi/bluetooth/s01class/cla.ss.jpg a random sampling of student portfolios to determine the status of US students. Performance exams, employed by some Milwaukee schools, require students to execute certain hands-on tasks such as writing an essay or conducting an experiment and often drive the curriculum in a way that includes students in their learning process and necessitates intellectual growth, rather than rote mem orization. Another, more progres sive option allows the exami nation of schools, teachers, and students during a week- long visit by an assessment team, a system already in place in Rhode Island and New York. Each proposed method alternative requires the involvement of many more people from parents to policy makers, drawing more atten tion and community participa tion to education, and the exclusion of current corpora tions profiting from standard ized testing. Is education yet another arena in which big business has won out? Testing is a multi-billion dollar industry. Think back to every advertise ment on a bus, on the internet, or gracing the pages of a mag azine that promises higher test scores. The Texas Education Agency spends 38% of its budged on standardized test ing, and the combined sum of state spending on testing reached S400 million this past year. It has yet to be deter mined how many millions stu dents pour into preparing for See “ Is Our Children Learning?” page 8
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