Re: Education Initiatives

[Ken Medlin <dev-plan@moscow.com>]

>major issues confronting states and local school 
>districts."
Comment:  I spent 40 years in our nation's - states' - communites' 
schools, and at all levels. I participated as a young Federal official in 
debate of the l958 Eisenhower "National Defense Education Act" 
(post-sputnik); later, I studied and observed a series of private 
foundation (Rockefeller, Carnegie, Ford) initiatives aimed at alerting 
the Nation's school authorities to a decline across the board in 
children's educational achievements. Over a 30 year period, conditions 
continuted to deteriorate. Where was our leadership to stem the tide? Who 
should act, who DID act? Where do the funds come from? Was Head Start a 
Federal mistake? Are gauranteed student loans a mistake? Was the G.I. 
Bill a mistake? Are school lunches a mistake? Was CA Prop 213 (eliminate 
school property tax) a mistake? It is very easy to call State and Federal 
initiatives to save public education -- the greatest achievement for 
children in the Western World -- wrong and threatening to local controls. 
But it has proved much, much more difficult for our communities to muster 
the courage and funds and accountability essential to secure our 
children's future. It seems impossible for us to attract and pay teachers 
a living wage (entry level around $22 - 25 K in most states, compared to 
business and technology jobs of $35 - 50K), to educate the Nation's youth 
on whom the future depends. It's really time that we begin to act in 
mature ways about education and other social issues facing us. The 
continual bitter rivalries among competing political parties will 
ultimately do us in. Let's examine the issues, the outcomes, the quality 
aspects of policies, and not personalities. I served inWorld War II to 
secure, not to undermine, our freedom of choice. Contemporary politics 
erodes that freedom and threatens our sustainability as a society. 

------------------------
William K. Medlin
Dev-plan associates
930 Kenneth Street
Moscow ID 83843
208/892-0148
dev-plan@moscow.com