Education / Taxes

["William K. Medlin" <dev-plan@moscow.com>]

Rep. Young: Thanks so much for your legislative up-date and the play 
"by-play" metaphor. As Will Shakespeare said it, "All the world's a 
stage, and the people are its players" (not literal per se).
	I have a comment or two on education reform, having spent the 
better part of my professional career in that sector. We've talked 
about raising standards at least since the first :"Sputnik" in l957, 
when I happened to be serving in federal government in the Eisenhower 
administration. We passed the "National Defense Education Act" to 
improve performances especially in math and sciences. It did some 
good but was not sustainable, given many other priorities and with 
the major pushes during the sixties for civil rights and then 
military spending for Vietnam.
	What we seem to lose sight of is that all valid research on 
pupil performance links it to the quality of instruction and 
specifically to the role of the teacher. Say what they will, that 
linkage and the qualifications of teachers are paramount to improving 
kids' performance. We may alter many other variables, such as time on 
task, electronic software, textbook quality, and so forth. But these 
do not yield their potentials without the added human nurturing 
factor of teaching and role models. Closely related to this is class 
size: If a teacher cannot reach all students adequately, then some 
are "left behind". A class of 20-25 youngsters is fully adequate; but 
even then, class assistants, community resource inputs, and home 
conditions all relate to what can be accomplished by the teacher 
role. Show me some research that rejects this.
	Another area where we seem to encounter almost insurmountable 
interferences with school-based education, is competition from 
influences external to the school: Mass media and its often 
distracting content, peer group forces ("street culture") alien to 
traditional learning, and material gratifications which run counter 
to intellectual, artistic and moral pursuits, not to mention 
religious-spiritual nurturing. The latter in our political system is 
the exclusive domain of the family and religious institutions. But 
public schools can reinforce moral education through many appropriate 
avenues.
	Buttressing these two, to me, cardinal points is the need for 
society to recognize teachers more fully for the professional people 
they are and to compensate them more fairly, in line with those who 
have equal college preparation but earn much more (up to twice the 
amount) than do teachers (engineering, business, legal, health 
professions, etc). Low salaries also depress the academic market and 
do not always attract the best. There are exceptions for those who 
love the field (my granddaughter earned a 4 point all through high 
school AND college, and chose teaching because she loves to work with 
young people). That is not the rule, however.
	We live in a capitalistic, competitive economy, and if you 
want to attract better talent into a field such as human resources 
production (i.e., education), you must provide the incentives, or 
else place people where you want them as do police-dominated 
societies. As both the Idaho and US economies are turning large 
surpluses, it is time to reconsider our public investment strategies 
and move more resources into public education. For the well-to-do, 
they will always do that themselves, through private schooling. But 
that is less than 10% of the education market. What do we do for the 
90% which produces by far most of the nation's future leaders and 
professionals and workers? Market elasticity in employment seems to 
bypass the education profession, which is locked into a mind-set that 
prevents the free play of economic competition.The health, legal and 
technical professions REFUSE to be trapped in this system.
	I hope you and others will give earnest attention to our 
teaching profession. We are watching to see what qualities of 
thinking and social objectives are motivating our representatives, 
the legislator and governor in a wholly republican dominated 
government.What will you do? For whom?

					Regards, W. Ken Medlin














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