UB needs your support

In last month’s issue, I wrote an article on the fading future of Upward Bound.

For those of you who did not get a chance to pick up a copy, the federal government is attempting to cut the financial support for this beneficial program.

Upward Bound has been reaching out to minorities and financially disadvantaged students for the past three decades. If this course of action succeeds, it would be quite possibly, in my opinion, be one of the worst decisions made by the Bush administration.

North Lake College would lose a handful of employees as a direct effect of the legislative endeavor. Upward Bound provides its services to students on a one-on-one basis, and the students involved in the program receive a monthly stipend.

To pull money from the program is also pulling money out of the pockets of NLC’s own staff and Dallas County students.

The funding taken from Upward Bound would be absorbed into the budget for the No Child Left Behind Act.

It seems twistedly ironic that Bush’s new budget would not only be leaving one child behind, but instead, all of those whose future could be greatly impacted by Upward Bound.

A major aspect of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is mainstreaming, the integration of special needs students into general population classrooms. Another part of NCLB adopts incentives for schools that meet performance standards.

Stripping money from a program like Upward Bound, whose success has been proven on an individual basis, and having it allocated to incentives for a group setting makes little sense.

Currently, schools are seeing more and more teachers who are simply individuals with a bachelor‘s degree who have been certified to teach.

Having a degree does not necessarily dictate that a person has had any training in the art of teaching.

It is, therefore, hard to imagine many of these new teachers capable enough to handle all of the needs of so many different types of students on their own, at the same time.

Educating the future leaders of America is essential to the success of the country. We cannot sit idly by any longer while our children’s opportunities are continually thrown by the wayside.

Upward Bound is one of the few programs in existence that aims to level the playing field of economic difference for students who want to go to college.

When the majority of a nation does not vote or voice its opinion, the political reigns of the government are left by default to those people who do and those they choose to place in power.

There is still time to contact Pete Sessions and Kay Bailey Hutchison (http://hutchison.senate.gov/e-mail.htm; petes@mail.house.gov).

I would like to encourage readers to write these members of the House and Senate. Ultimately, a letter from any one of us could be enough to spark concern.

Every child in this country deserves the opportunity to go to college, and every child should be given the confidence to try.

If Upward Bound is eliminated nationwide, there will be a significant number of students missing from college campuses — all of those who never knew that they, too, could rise above their income-bracket.

-- Kim Brewer is a staff writer for the News-Register and a journalism major.