America's Crises; 9; Education: The Teacher Gap

The following program is from NET, the National Educational Television Network. So I want to talk to you today about three places where we began to build the great society. In our cities, in our countryside, and in our classroom. And if we cannot educate today's youth, what will we do in 1970? When elementary school enrollment will be 5 million greater than 1960. But more classrooms and more teachers are not enough. We must seek an educational system which grows in excellence as it grows in size. Some of these first graders at the Underwood School in Newton, Massachusetts want to be teachers when they grow up.

Most of them will change their minds. By the time their children are in the first grade, there may not be enough teachers to go around. For the time being, Newton has no teacher shortage. But in many places, there is a growing gap between the demand for and the supply of teachers. In Washington, at the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Commissioner of Education, Francis Kepple, measures the teacher gap. Shortage really is of qualified men and women to teach the subjects as they are now being learned in the United States today. And in that sense, there's a shortage. My school has been a shortage since the beginning of the nation and maybe since the beginning of time. The rough figures are, I've got them here, that there are now about 1,650,000 teachers in the classroom.

And we'll probably have to increase that number, 23% by 1973, let's say. Now, remember, there's a pretty rapid turnover rate inevitably in any profession. And this means, in fact, between now and 1973, we'll have to find two million new teachers between now and 1973. And if we're talking quality, that's obviously a big job. The National Educational Association hopes to close the gap with this recruiting film. A teacher's world. No beginning and no end. A part of today reaching far into tomorrow. The frontier of life. A wonderful, exciting place to be. Henry Adams said a teacher affects eternity.

He can never tell where his influence stops. If you are interested in a career in teaching, write for free information to teaching NEA Washington DC. Whatever your reason for going into teaching, you should be prepared to face the fact that you're not going to have too much money. And you certainly aren't going to have any status in your community. Garage and classroom are a necessary combination for Robert Kraus, a Brooklyn teacher who has been moonlighting for 20 years. And I'm afraid that most of the public view the school teacher as a young girl in an elementary school situation. Very busy with small children and small things. And this, I'm sure, has carried over as the public image all the way through, which isn't quite true.

There are those of us who are heads of family. Who are adults. They're all families working at a very high level of competency. The specific skills. Training the students in these skills. And this is the image that we would prefer the public hat. We've had more or less several careers. And I enjoy the teaching the most. Either in spite of all the troubles, in spite of the aggravation, in spite of the necessity for doing this on the outside. I think it's a wonderful job. Enjoy every minute of it. And it never gets too difficult. I really enjoy it. But again, physically, I'm getting a little too old to keep up with school's job. The time that we got down to one job. Keep this up as long as I can, that's all.

But the reason I'm doing it is to make a little bit of supplementary money. The teaching profession doesn't pay as well as it should. And my expenses are very high. Originally, when I started teaching, I started raising a family. And I needed a lot of money to raise. The youngsters get a place to live. Now that the big boys have grown up. I find I still need a lot of money to send them through college. My second son, Chuck, is up in Oswego State. He's preparing for a career as a teacher. There are rewards in teaching. In the future, I'm sure that the salaries will come up to a point where they are at a professional level. These are the things we're hoping for. In Breyer Cliff, New York, Howard Rullen teaches high school English. He does it for much less money than he earned as an advertising executive in New York City four years ago. I find teaching far more fulfilling than working in an advertising agency,

even as an assistant account executive or as I was a vice president of an agency. Simply because, for the first time, I'm involved in something that I think is really important. When his device of a student panel provokes an animated discussion of the novel Aerosmith, Howard Rullen knows his decision to become a teacher was right. In this one-to-one relationship between student and teacher, he is always fulfilled, usually creative, and sometimes inspiring. Why are there so few like Howard Rullen in our public schools? Why do some communities attract and keep many good teachers? Why does Newton Massachusetts? The excellence of the schools in this city of 94,000 attracts teachers who find the community attitude as appealing as the pay. 11 villages covering 18 square miles, combined as a city 92 years ago, but still maintain separate characters. Most of Newton's high average income is earned in Boston seven miles away.

It is a city that is one third Protestant, one third Catholic, one third Jewish. But it has a common religion, education, and there are enough true believers to support one of the nation's most respected school systems. Newton devotes almost half of its tax money, over $12 million this year, to education. As a result, three out of four graduates seek education beyond high school. The drop-out rate for Newton's 18,000 students is less than one per se a year. The schools are run by a committee of eight elected unpaid citizens who could be voted out of office every two years, the current committee has an average length of service of over eight years. It is respected for a practice which is not as common as it should be, the committee outlines broad policy and then allows the professional staff to run the schools. In Bay City, Michigan, the members of the school board are good citizens dedicated to good education, but they must operate a school system as large as Newton's with half the money. This city in Northeastern Michigan is like Newton in many ways, in land area, total population, and economically.

And Bay City like Newton has single family homes for the most part, including impressive mentions built when it was a lusty lumber town. Bay City has more snow and more industry than Newton, but the big difference recently has been the attitude toward education. In Bay City, only one third of the tax money goes to the schools. In the past three years, tax increases were defeated twice, forcing a cut in the teaching staff, elimination of some subjects, a shorter high school day, a period of austerity. Recently, voters finally approved a slight increase. Superintendent of schools, Elwin Bodley, discusses why it took Bay City so long to act. Really, the period of austerity started the Bay City schools on a downhill slide from a rather good program. These things, at least in Bay City, come on us rather insidiously.

The first cuts are not noticed and then it progresses and progresses, and it's not like a sudden and serious amputation. And so consequently, as the community accepted these things, and then all at once woke up and discovered that they were in serious difficulty. We certainly made every effort to have the public understand what was happening. But as long as the public sees building programs going along and many of the manifestations that folks think are a good school system athletic programs and this sort of thing, they felt schools must be doing all right. And because of this, they, even though we were putting out material, even though we were trying to communicate with the community, the community wasn't receiving. And they didn't get on the receiving end of this until things got serious. Director of elementary and intermediate schools, James Finney, had difficulty as a recruiter closing the teacher gap with a low salary schedule that was frozen during austerity. The big concern that I've had over these past three years especially is that in any recruitment, that it's always the real concern of the recruiter that possibly we have to take what is left over.

And this part, I think, that would be the thing that would disturb me mostly is that if someone can outbid me from a salary standpoint and I would be very concerned if I were to lose an excellent person. We are in a very highly competitive market. And unless we are able to come up with a decent salary schedule, we are, of course, we have to take what is left over and we don't like to do this in Bay City. A number of Bay City schools are impressively new. And it was difficult for some voters to see the need for additional funds. The pay as you go building program, for example, had produced such well-designed modern schools as the Washington Intermediate School. The teacher training program continued with students from the University of Michigan and Central Michigan. For them, austerity meant compromising and improvising. One young teacher viewed the circumstances two ways. The austerity program caused me a great deal of concern, not only as a teacher, but as a parent. And possibly, more so as a parent, because as a teacher, of course, I could compensate in my classroom.

I mean, I could make the necessary improvisions that were needed to teach what I had to teach. But then, of course, as far as my own children, one who will be going to high school next year, our system, the high school program, to half days, I was concerned about my son's education, whether he would be acceptable at college by the time he finished. And then, on the other hand, our elementary schools had been hurt by this austerity program sooner than the high schools. And I brought this out at a PTA meeting. The parents there were concerned, of course, with the high school. Would it be accredited? Would our children be ready for college? But I felt that this was much deeper in the question I asked, and I posed to the parents, is actually, would our children be ready for high school? I think the morale, the teacher morale here in Bay City, has been extremely high. But I think a teacher who is effective can work, you can capitalize on many things.

Of course, we lost a good music coordinator. Our coordinator, someone to work with the teachers in teaching art. These people came in once a month, which is, of course, not a very effective means of trying to teach teachers, to teach a subject. And once a month, these people just don't have the time to work with you and to really be effective. Of course, this goes back to the question, as teachers, we are professional. And is it safe to say, then, as a doctor, if I don't have an operating room to operate in, then I let my patient die. And this is a boils down to this question of being professional. And it's our job as teachers, whether the system has the money or not to do a job of teaching.

And this was the attitude of the people of the building that I worked with. During austerity, textbooks were not replaced. Washington Intermediate School principal, Earl LaVoy, talked about the long range effective old books. One of the things that influences a child's educational experience, of course, is that old, basic thing, the textbook. We've noticed, of course, and this is perhaps an obvious truism, that the youngsters' reactions to his educational experience can be determined to a great length by the textbook. Unfortunately, we've been working with books that are outdated and overused. Many of the books are torn. They're put together again with tape or binding. And we do the best to get what you tell it to you. We can't out of them. We can't motivate him when he's working with worn out tools. When the pictures do not correlate with what is going on in today's world, we sometimes reach a vicious cycle in this respect.

Because as these future citizens leave the school and are asked to vote on a millage supporting school activities, if they've had limited experiences, then, of course, they're going to have limited judgments. And perhaps their millage response will be not what is desired for their children and for the welfare of our school, our community, or our country. Ethman Borjoli, the dynamic principle of cold school, talked about the effective austerity on teachers and the community. He was almost alone in his evaluation of Moral. Now, as far as teacher Moral was concerned, in the city of Bay City itself, the teacher Moral did suffer. Not only because of the fact that the teachers were not able to gain increment wise annually, which was a thing necessary to happen since the money wasn't available. And this is all due to money. The philosophy of education, I become stagnant when I feel when a community or a group of teachers Moral is solo, that they have other things that are of an immediate pressure to worry about and be concerned about such as their family's parents.

I think that lack of funds does deter creativity in a community. I think it deters and you lose good personnel. You lose personnel, for instance, which is creative, which is progressive, which is omniscient as far as the educational background is concerned and what they want for youngsters in the set of communities. And when you lose these people, you're very apt to attract a less desirable element into your teaching personnel, which under the various laws and so forth. So I was very hard to dislodge it when the money does come back. One of Bay City's major losses was the gain of the neighboring Essexville Hampton School District. Douglas Campbell, a product of Bay City Schools, was named Teacher of the Year by Bay City students in 1963. Now he teaches in a new non-graded school system next door to his native Bay City.

I swear there's a French horn playing, but I can't hear it. It was a Cornette thing, so I like a guy that raps on his foot. I didn't notice. Cornettes ready? Two minutes before something. Ready? One, two, ready, go. Four. Greatest factor under the austerity, other than the fact that there was no money, was that things had to continue exactly the same way. And any new ideas that would come up from a faculty member or anyone interested in changing something was always met with a no because under austerity you just simply can't change. Most people usually think that changes cost money. There are many fine teachers in Bay City, but in a situation like this generally things tend to get very standardized and teachers work from 830 to 430. Of course there are always those that are dedicated people who must work evenings, which as time goes on it occurs to many teachers.

Why should so many people work 8 hours a day and a teacher worked 14 hours a day under very poor working conditions? Here teachers are given time to not only plan and study, but to they are given time to write such as curriculums which in Bay City it was always an extra thing which was done in the evenings by those teachers who were interested in changing the curriculum. In addition to music, Doug Campbell teaches social studies in Essexville, Hamden. It is the humanities curriculum he wrote in Bay City which could not afford to keep the course or Campbell. In a way, what would be greater saying that school is nothing I like better to do than to get rid of the students that are a bother, you know. But all the other countries they don't do is they keep them. They send away the neat students. And what kind of a system do these nobles set up wherever they went generally, yes?

These people came over as feudal landholders holding larger states. And this is how we got slavery. These people bought slaves. This was a big business. If you saw a map of feudal estate you'd see property extending from the Atlantic Ocean back 400 miles and this belonged to someone's nephew in France or something. All right, strong leaders must be plentiful and supplied. Now how in the world can you get strong leaders other than just some miracle that some guy had to be a sharp cooking all of a sudden. Fortunately for Bay City some smart cookies did come along and when they were most needed and a PTA Founders Day dinner early this year grateful citizens honored William Boutel for his direction of the successful campaign for a tax increase. It was not an easy fight nor an easy job, but committee members have strong memories. Before we started on this study I think many of us were anxious only to have our services restored that had been cut through this process.

And then after we made this study we found there were so many things in education that were just completely beyond us that we didn't even know about. That those that worked on the study now wanted to dig deeper and maybe reach a little higher. When the people did begin to know really that we weren't kidding we weren't crying wolf we really met every single thing. And when a teacher said I don't know I'm doing the best I can but I just can't do anymore there's only so many hours today and that everyone began to talk that a lot of people let awaken and they said we need these things we've got to have. The reason and teacher salaries that's right we actually worded our SOS pamphlet in a very delicate manner when we came to teachers raises. I've forgotten the exact terminology we use is what was it?

Competitive salaries. That's right but if you say related in another way if you related the amount of money each child receives from his local area to be educated with. In comparison what they're paying to educate their children. I've forgotten exactly the dollar values now William but you said yes a kit from Baker City can be real proud. His parents in this community provides $128 for him for every school year but over in Saginaw they provide what was it? $240 for money. $220. I think that there's a growing awareness in the part of many citizens that maybe we are not getting what we think we should. That maybe the ratios are out of balance as to what the school system should receive and what the city should receive in the county. Now the school board must decide how best to answer old problems with new funds. Well going back to full day sessions at a handy high school it becomes necessary for us to put that petition in.

Last year the bid for the petition alone was $1,770. So it's costing us around $500 extra to put the added exit in that the state financial required. The second item we had on our agenda is the matter of the bus bids and I believe there are seven vehicles involved here. And the bids were opened on Thursday and I think Trustee Glaza has this information. When I had a session with Mr. Brown yesterday and after the comparison it was decided that the day city school board these days deals mostly with money matters. The question is how to use most effectively the additional funds recently approved by the voters. Much of the money will be needed just to restore services that were cut. A most pleasant chore for Superintendent Bodley is making the announcement that a trip to Lansing, Michigan uncovered some federal funds that are available to Bay City. And I find that we are eligible to put in a bid for a supplementary appropriation under Title III of the NDEA.

We will be able to get about 50% reimbursement from NDEA funds which means that instead of doing only $12,000 of the improvement here we will have funds to do 18 county. In Newton, Massachusetts no shortage of money or teachers. Superintendent Charles Brown is grateful for a state law which school committees in Newton have made the city live by. This law states that the school system shall receive from local taxes whatever the committee decides is needed. Not all school committees in Massachusetts use that law. Probably the single thing which makes most evident this community support is the long and continued tradition of first ray school committees that we have had to work with. There is a slight error.

I think one of our critical needs in education is to identify outstanding teachers and then to find ways of using their talents. Without taking them, always taking them away from children. Without any more introduction Dorothy, will you and Harold take over? Ellipse magnifying, subatomic particles, ions, proto cells. Dorothy White is a talented teacher who has been freed by the Newton system to try a new reading course with first and second graders. She is reading with pride from a list of words that her students have learned as a result of the program she devised. A shooting star, telescope, tracking, attracts, predict, accurate, fraction, centrifugal, centripetal. These are the words.

I really feel that Newton is making a service not only to the children of Newton but I think they're making a service to the children of this whole country. One of the expenditures the school committee has asked to approve is $500 for traveling expenses for a junior high school group called the troubadours. If they get the money, they will accept an invitation to appear at the world's fair in New York City. It is a difficult request to turn down. The group figures it will be tougher to turn down after they sing. The group figures it will be tougher to turn down after they sing. The group figures it will be tougher to turn down after they sing. The group figures it will be tougher to turn down after they sing.

The group figures it will be tougher to turn down after they sing. The group figures it will be tougher to turn down after they sing. It is about good luck. Pleasant waste for appropriating money. On the same night that the school committee is pleasantly appropriating money, the lights burn late at Wayne Altree's house, the high school social studies department is discussing curriculum at the home of the department head.

The excitement of these teachers is contagious. We all know what we are talking about and I think we all agree on this, but there are different things primary source of doom. There is a question to assume that the kid could do for summer, which is, you know, the way fall out. What we know he can do for Newton 1965. Of all the things in which people in Newton become involved, certainly the most important thing that we do is our search for good teachers. We do this on a nationwide basis. We look for people wherever and whenever we can find them. We also are willing to look outside of the usual pattern of teacher preparation. We are willing to appoint people whose background is not cast in the usual mold. Well, I had two children in the Newton schools and the Puthi wrote in the Harvard, some speech you made at Harvard said he needed lots more teachers. So I got my marks from wealthy and went over with the newspaper article and they said they couldn't think of any reason why not to accept me.

So I went in the middle of the year and I took the courses and about a year and a half I got my degree and then I came and taught Newton. And they said to me, well, you were an old hand and it worked. So I really think I started that what they now more politely call mature women's program. At Newton High School, a number of teachers are not cast in the usual mold. You can find one in room 1304. He supervises the intern teacher training program. It's a big job, but Henry Bissex, in the Newton tradition, also teaches. Well, don't go in there. That he has a lot of papers in there. He doesn't want us to musk them out. Louisa and the guests went back to the garden. See, Kron, trainer, he's taken all my papers with him. It was like a mortal blow to death.

When the women came up, their eyes fell on the disordered roof. All the drawers have been overturned on the floor. At this point, Agostino came in. He did not know what had happened yet. Sylvia stood staring at her father in Agostino as if all this was some kind of play which they were putting on for her benefit. No, no, she won't. It's not true. It's all a joke. Agostino, for heaven's sake, tell me it's not true. It's very important to have a variety of teacher education programs and not to spend enormous energy looking for the best program and then then junking all the rest. This leads to faddism. You ride one horse for a while and then you switch to one of another color. The important thing, I think, is to have a number of ways of allowing people who are able, intelligent, interested. A number of ways of these people entering a profession. A person like Gathair Warshoff, for example, who entered our school system

as a beginning teacher after 20 years or more and the automobile business would not have been attracted to teaching if he had had to go to school for a full year to take 18 hours worth of education costs. The unusual teacher like Thayer Warshoff finds an appealing climate at Newton. Warshoff feels free to teach the Bible as part of his high school English horse. That's all that pertains to David on that particular recording. We are looking at the Bible merely as background for literature, culture, and our daily living.

What else do you have? David, just in a raincoat. I don't know how many of you can see this. David modeling an Italian raincoat, imported, and this is called Italian renaissance. And down the bottom it says model Michelangelo's David. There's always that. If you know what's in the Bible, then you know why the man is using this kind of elevation and you can bring that to bear on what it is that he's written or painted or sculpted. You see what happens if you study the Bible at Newton High School? You are dismissed. I went back to Harvard and picked up an undergraduate major in English and a graduate degree in education, the Master of Arts in Teaching.

I was generally older than most of my professors and the fellow students were about the same age as my daughter. As a matter of fact, we got our degrees from college the same way. Then I went on to do my practice teaching here at Newton and I have been here since. I feel that what I did before made it a little easier for me to become a better teacher sooner. I think I made all the mistakes that every new teacher does but I made them only once, whereas perhaps a younger person makes them more often. We have an elementary school principal who came to us later in life and is usual after having had a successful career in business with aluminium limited I believe it was. Decided that this was not the way he wanted to spend the rest of his life came into elementary education as a sixth grade teacher.

After two years in the classroom proved to be so successful that we named him a principal and he has more than married this appointment. I think that Newton is certainly a good place to teach. There is no doubt in my mind about that. The reasons for it I think are quite clear. One is that Newton is the kind of community where the parents are interested in education and where the parents back up the teacher. This is extremely important. The parents feel that what you are doing with their children is important. Secondly, the philosophy of the Newton school system, which is a philosophy of delegating authority, educational authority, right down into the classroom teacher and promoting creativity and giving a teacher a full scope to use her talents is exactly what the creative teacher is looking for.

We have had a kind of involvement on the part of the parents and the non-parents in this city, in the schools, that has, I am sure, contributed to the strength of the schools. How many sickest of the junior college women sell last year do you remember? They may have only $50. I think they sold about four or five hundred tickets. And the total house is about twenty-five hundred. I would like to, if we do have Newtonites at parks, to suggest that we have just the floor and the tables. This PTA group is discussing whether to buy out symphony hall for the week of the art festival or just sell tickets. They have invited David Suskind, Martha Gray, Arthur Feeler, and the Boston Pops to take part. And it's likely that all will accept. The feeling about the dinner is that it is in Newton and it does bring teachers and parents together that might not necessarily get to know each other if there is a choice between pops or the dinner.

And it's a little warmer and more personal than pops, which symphony is very useful. When they are not teaching, Newton's teachers are learning. Newton's elementary students are dismissed on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. And that's when their teachers are catching up on the latest in teaching tools and methods. In these regularly scheduled social studies workshops, all grade one teachers will examine the use of photographic masterpieces in a slide presentation. Grade six teachers will examine some new films. Grade four will share a recent trip to Japan with a curator from the Fine Arts Museum in Boston. I know. I know. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, that's stupid. Newton high school students for the past five years have been divided into houses within the schools they attend. Because it was felt that school population had grown too large for the personal contact and guidance that today's high school student needs, it has worked. There are commons rooms for each house where students can take a break or discuss a problem in a corner with a teacher.

Because I don't have the tools to express my ideas. I don't know when you put a work on it. What are you afraid of when you show me this piece of writing? I don't know if I should ask. Okay, can you try and write part of this with intention of not showing it to me? And once you've written it, let's discuss whether you can show it to me or not. Realize that I'm being dishonest. I am trying to get this out of you. Yeah, and then it's going to be impossible for me to actually write this thing without you know. I can't just take myself away from the whole situation. I shall not give you an ass if you don't show it to me. Some of the individual attention which the house system permits is very little guidance and a great measure of discipline. If I look through here, wouldn't I find your name every day?

I'll see you at 245. I was roomy every one too because I don't want you to miss class. You're going to gym now. And I'm going to write on here detention assigned so that your gym teacher will know. Superintendent Brown explains why in his judgment administrators should teach. I believe that all administrators should teach. I found this rather difficult to arrange in the Newton schools. I would refer to teaching in the schools in Newton probably at the high school level because of the nature of the demands on my time and the fact that high school classes meet for five times a week. I found it easier to teach over at Harvard where the classes meet twice a week and at a time in the day that's more convenient for me. It's very easy for an administrator who's been away from teaching for a while and whose daily job does not make it possible for him to get into the classroom. To forget just what it's like to be a teacher, to forget what the problems are, to forget the difficult task of developing ideas with kids.

The twice a week class at Harvard is the problems of modern education. Students reaction to the lack of freedom to teach underscores one reason for the teacher gap. To me, the central issue here has to do with the role of the teacher, whether because we are teachers. We must assume some particular unique posture that differs from other people who operate in society around us. Unlike many other occupations, I think that one of the things that the teacher is doing is carrying our society on. And one of the things that I think at school board not only has a right to require these things, it has an obligation to require. In terms of the fact, maybe my basic conservatism coming out, I never knew I had it before. That a teacher is carrying his transmitting society to those who make up society later and society has a right to be assured that he will not be trying to subvert this society.

And I think that the teacher has been can't stand alone in this type of situation. That's what scares me. He must have somebody bigger than the local school board. The local school board, they like them to be local so that they can decide on small issues like this. County-wide issues if the rest of the state doesn't agree with them. And the teacher has a responsibility to go it alone, but he needs some sort of help. When you talk about education, that pragmatism just spells status quo. And if you dealt in purely pragmatic matters, progress just wouldn't exist. And every type of progress that you can point to is developed because some damn fool just wasn't pragmatic. And if you continue to be pragmatic, you just remain exactly where you are.

Let's take it out of that context for a moment and talk about, well, the freedom to teach a particular book, which was acceptable from the literary point of view of the fact that this is an honest portrayal of a certain either group in our society or a period in history or whatever. But which a particular community did not fail was something that should be taught in that particular school. What is the school committee's responsibility here? The school committee has more to do with the community. That's who it should protect. Because that's who it really represents. And it goes out and finds an employee to do something for the community. And it's the one who does. But I think one of the things that would help certainly would be more relations between the school committee as such and the teachers. But the teachers don't even know who's on the school committee.

School committee certainly doesn't know any of the teachers unless something outstanding happens. It seems that that's where the link has to be. Well, last year when I was teaching in Newton, I agreed that I didn't know anybody on the school committee. I'm sure they knew nothing about me. And if I were to teach a book in history, whatever it might be another country or anything, which the citizens might have been aroused about, and perhaps rightly, I think, I would certainly not have expected the school committee to come to my rescue. And I don't think I should have expected them. I don't think that their responsibility is to me or to the public instead. But I do think that I should have been defended. And I think that the people who should defend me are primarily the principal and then the superintendent of the school system. I think this is the professional people who are to defend the professional educators. School committee certainly is not in touch enough with education. This is the group to which an aroused citizen would go, isn't it? And now we're a question about the use of a particular book.

I would ask that the chairman of the school committee, though, one day to walk into my classroom analysis and say, you're teaching dirty books. I assume that he would come to you first or to another superintendent and say, he's teaching dirty books. Well, you know, like there's no place you can go and, you know, if you want to teach communism as such and really get into it, there's no place you can go in this country. I say that we might have many different sort of local places, but they're all the same. And when you sort of put this together with the general sort of anti-intellectualism in this country, it's got to be the teachers who are going to change. The change is going to come from nowhere else. And therefore, we must have something of this sort of idea. There must be some organization, some sort of protection for the individual teachers. We're sort of losing too many individual teachers who, if they got together, might be able to do something. Would it be fair to suggest that the typical teacher in America is like this? You know, that is such a victim of his environment, that he's so much concerned about being comfortable

with the community in which he teaches, being sensitive to their way of thinking, that he's almost afraid to hold into it. I mean, if it came to an issue, if it came to an issue, will I hold a position contrary to my community or not? Then you've got a problem, and I couldn't answer that. I guess it depends on the individual, as the average teacher probably wouldn't. But I think when a teacher settles down into a nice little community, he gets very conservative and just likes his little job, and likes what he's doing, and doesn't want to change it then. This judgment is not restrictive to students taking their masters at Harvard, former advertising executive Howard Ralland on teacher dedication. Dedication is something which is no more prevalent in teaching than it is in other fields. They're interested in money, and they're interested in homes and cars.

And when you do find it, it's a very wonderful thing. And much more can be done with a dedicated teacher than the dedicated advertising vet, and that's why it's so terribly important that we have more dedicated teachers. This concept of dedication needs a little bit of defying it also. That is the grossest will not sell us milk on the basis of dedication. The same with everything else, you buy a home, you can't buy it on dedication, you have to make the down payment, you have to make the mortgage payments. And the bank doesn't think much of dedication. So while it's necessary to get good teachers that are dedicated, we also have to remember that the teacher himself has to be given some sort of compensation, other than the word dedication. I knew that we wouldn't have the economic wear with all that we enjoyed in that field. And I knew that teaching would also bring with it all kinds of penalties,

one of them certainly being that our status would no longer be what it was. This is something intangible, it's hard to measure, and we weren't prepared really for the extent of the penalty. The one problem that we haven't been able to reconcile ourselves to or at least get over, is this problem of proving that we are still worthwhile, intelligent, alert people in a community which refuses to believe that the teacher who enjoys a very limited salary could possibly be anything but an unambitious security seeking, perhaps not terribly alert individual, who is simply trying to get by and uses this as a retreat from a busy, exciting, commercial life. Representative John Bradamus of Indiana is a leading member of the House Education and Labor Committee. He is the son of a teacher and taught briefly himself after he completed his studies as a road scum. I think that we need to pay the schoolteacher even more,

not only because the schoolteacher needs to have a decent salary just as other professional people do in the United States, but also because in a society like ours, a salary is to some extent a mark of the status and prestige of the particular person. Nonetheless, it's not only a question of improving teacher salaries, it's also a question of providing to young citizens a sense of dignity, a sense of status, a sense of contribution to their society that I think is most important to emphasize if we want to lure more people into the teaching profession. Representative Edith Green of Oregon also is a member of the Education and Labor Committee, the author of several education bills and a former teacher. I think that the image of the teacher could be improved a great deal. And I think again that the American public is responsible for this kind of an image. We have, through the years, refused to pay the high qualified teacher, the salary that that teacher deserves.

It would be pretty hard for a teacher in a high school to learn or to earn the respect of all of the students. If on Saturday night he has to work the filling station, but too many of the American people have ignored the educational detours and the educational ruts. They simply have been ignorant of the true state of affairs in our educational programs. And for this reason, the children of the country I think have suffered. United States Commissioner of Education, Francis Kepple, thinks it is in the national interest to spend more money for schools. There is quite clearly in the economy doing as well as ours, at least in my judgment, it is quite clear. Rome for further investments in education and training, if it is thought to be in the national interest, not quite clearly. I think it is to be in the national interest. But I should point out that this is not a matter of investment of funds alone granted that they are necessary. It is also a matter of how you invest the funds and whether those funds are consciously invested in methods of change

and improvement. That is a proportion of the funds quite clearly should be invested in research and development. It is not money alone. It is the quality of the people and the quality of the ideas that are put to work. Associated press education editor G.K. Huttonfield has run into much apathy in his research for his articles. I spoke to a man who is a cab driver and he was home during the day. The reason I found in there in the late afternoon was getting ready to go to work. He invited me in and he said, yes, he had voted all four times against these bond issues and he would do it again. I said, would you mind telling me why you voted against them? He said, yes, and I will show you why I voted against them. He went over to his desk and did something that very few people can do. He had in one envelope his personal property tax receipts for 10 years past. He showed them to him and he said, now look, 10 years ago when I bought this house, I paid $49 in property tax.

He left it to him and he said, now this year I am paying $100 and $8 in property tax. He said, this is more than double. What do they think I can pay on this house? They have doubled my taxes already. When he invited me into the room, he had left the television on and it was going away in the corner. And while we were talking, four school-aged children kind of sneaked in the door and said down on the floor and were watching the television set. And he saw them out of the corner of his eye and he turned to them and said, now look, few kids get upstairs. I bought you your own TV so that you wouldn't be down here cluttering up the living room. Well, here was a man who could afford $150, $180, I don't know what he paid for a second television set. But decided he couldn't afford $5 a year in increased taxes for the schools. And he had four children going to the public schools.

And this is why I say that whatever the people decide they want, usually they can get the money up for it. But we haven't convinced them yet that education is the best investment they can make. I don't know how we go about this, but some way the people have got to be convinced that this is an urgent need in our country to upgrade our schools. And when they are convinced, I'm convinced in turn that we'll have much less problem in raising the money at the local level. We're getting to the point now where we have two cars in every garage, two TVs in every home, and two stations in every classroom. I'm not against two cars in every garage and I'm certainly not against two television sets in every home. But I am very much against two stations in every classroom. And I think we're going to have to educate the people that we're putting the emphasis on the wrong things. We don't have a teacher shortage.

We have hundreds of thousands of excellent, well-qualified teachers. The trouble is that we don't have them in the classroom. Either they don't go into the classroom originally after they're prepared for this profession. Or they very soon leave it because of the conditions they find there, the working conditions primarily. And we're going to have a shortage of teachers in the classroom, I believe, until the day that we give teachers the respect, the salaries, and the working conditions that they truly deserve. There are some people outside the field of education who do have a genuine respect for the teacher. Most of them are in the first grade and most of them will change their minds. A teacher, a school teacher. Why? Because I like to teach kids. Eric, what would you like to be to you? Baseball player. Why? Why? I just want to.

You like to play baseball? What's your favorite baseball team? Red, red soccer. What do you have to do? I'm sorry. I got it. I don't want to let anybody just feel he's going to be well. I want you to like to be Ray. I want you to. A school teacher. Why? Because I want you to. Yeah. You want to work with you, Ray? Yeah. What would you like to be, David? A boy. I know. That's easy to guess why, David, isn't it? I know what I'm going to do for a hobby. For a hobby? What do you do for a hobby, David? Well, um... I'm in Paris and I'm playing. Robin, what would you like to be dear? Go to the teacher. Go to the teacher. You make such a happy one. You're always smiling. Those dimples. My teacher, Jill, we're going to be lucky. Teaching is a wonderful feel to go into. If you're not terribly concerned about money. Teachers, just generally,

it always seems to me you've been second-class citizens. One has to start with the assumption that not very much that's exciting and worthwhile happens to a student, except through a good teacher. The teacher who inspires may turn up in Bay City, Michigan, Newton, Massachusetts, Breyer, Clip, New York, or Brooklyn. Newton stands a better chance than Bay City of attracting and keeping such teachers. Bay City stands a better chance than communities which have not been shocked out of apathy toward education. We want every teacher to be a combination of Socrates and Mr. Chips with a touch of the miracle worker and some knowledge of the new math. But we give the teacher little money and less respect. We do not agree on how the teacher should be trained, how the teacher should be certified, what he should teach, or how he should be paid.

And while even educators differ, a gap between teacher supply and demand will increase. Between now and 1973, we will need to find two million new teachers just to fill the space in front of a classroom. Who will heed the desperate cry? Who will heed the desperate cry? Who will heed the desperate cry? Who will heed the desperate cry? Who will heed the desperate cry? Who will heed the desperate cry? Who will heed the desperate cry? Who will heed the desperate cry? Who will heed the desperate cry? Who will heed the desperate cry? Who will heed the desperate cry? Who will heed the desperate cry? Who will heed the desperate cry? Who will heed the desperate cry?

Who will heed the desperate cry? Who will heed the desperate cry? Who will heed the desperate cry? This is NET, the National Educational Television Network.