Schools at the Turn

(See front cover)

P:Four thousand youngsters in Old Forge, Pa. shuffled into their schools one morning last week, romped out five minutes later. Unpaid for six months, their teachers were on strike.

P: In New York City some 1,100,000 children registered and entered school. For them the Board of Education has approved a budget of 130-odd million dollars, $2,000,000 higher than last year despite Mayor John Patrick O'Brien's requests to prune. The Board plans to fill two vacant superintendencies despite his orders not to. P: In North Carolina rural youngsters learned they might have to go to school six days a week, the Legislature having raised the State-supported school term (by which every school board gets a minimum grant) from six months to eight. To enable farm children to work in the fields their school terms must be telescoped. P: To save fuel, schools were opened early in Michigan and Indiana (TIME, Sept. 4). In Chicago, where the teachers have not yet been paid in full for last term, the schools were to open two weeks late, saving $2,000,000. In Toledo they were to open three weeks late. Elsewhere in Ohio, one-third of the schools had no money to open. Last week the Legislature was considering means of raising $8,700,000 for the schools. It was also faced with a proposal to allot $3,000,000 in State aid to Roman Catholic parochial schools, the Catholics holding that they are entitled to aid since they pay taxes for public schools. Aid failing, they predict that Ohio's public schools will be swamped with 171,305 Catholic children. P: Last Spring, with U. S. city school costs deflated by $73,000,000 and rural schools by $39,000,000, some 2,500 schools were closed early to 290,000 children. At the same time total enrollments had increased by 385,000. Last week the National Education Association reported that U. S. teachers are owed nearly $37,000,000 in back salaries. Many a school stayed closed, notably in the South and Southwest. Elsewhere many a school opened on a limited budget, prepared to stick it out as long as money lasted. Arkansas and Oklahoma were planning to keep going on beer tax receipts. Louisiana could manage for seven or eight months, then perhaps save the schools with a liquor tax.

Thus the current state of Education, involving 30,000,000 pupils and 1,000,000 teachers. For two years pedagogs have bemoaned their slow but steady deflation. Last week as the schools opened many of them felt more bitter than ever. U. S. Industry seemed headed briskly into the stretch. U. S. Education was still at the turn, far in the rear. Who would help it catch up?

Uncle. The U. S. Government is not in loco parentis to Education, nor is it likely to be. Yet pedagogs who have been begging for Federal aid took hope when the New Deal came in. Last June they began looking anxiously towards the white Department of the Interior Building in Washington, wherein is housed the U. S. Office of Education. Secretary Ickes had appointed a committee to canvass the nation for the ablest possible successor to U. S. Commissioner of Education William John Cooper. The committee picked George Frederick Zook, 48, president of the University of Akron (TIME, July 3). Satisfied with his educational record (after working his way through the University of Kansas by driving a hearse he had taught modern European history at Kansas, Cornell and Penn State), they were impressed by his having been a Wartime propagandist under George Creel, a division chief in the Office of Education be fore he went to Akron. Methodist and Rotarian, Dr. Zook kept more free of local politics than most municipal university presidents. Because he never told how he voted, he was called "Poker Face'' by his professors and by Akron politicians. Dr. Zook did not seek his U. S. job, nor did his friends seek it for him. Dr. Zook moved with his wife and adopted son to Wesley Heights, Washing ton suburb. He plays golf twice a week, is noted for length off the tee. Daily he steers his Buick to the office where he works at a desk usually clear of papers. Dr. Zook knows President Roosevelt, but not as yet very well. Since he took office in July it has become apparent to him as much as to anyone that the New Deal has scarcely touched Education. Last month Commissioner Zook went up to New York, told a Teachers College conference not to expect Federal funds for teachers' salaries (TIME, Aug. 14). Recently he wrote in the Washington Star: "The Depression hit schools later than it did the business community. It will linger with schools longer than with business and trade. This year, therefore, will probably be the most difficult year of the Depression as far as schools are concerned." Though many a conference has voted to urge Federal aid--notably one at Teachers College which went so far as to advocate a dole for all pupils until they find employment--the U. S. Government regards the difficulties of the schools as purely local problems. Commissioner Zook can offer no cash help. But, like a kindly, keen-eyed, plump-faced uncle, he may give advice, put at Education's disposal a vast amount of statistics. Dr. Zook said on taking office: "We have a product to sell to the people. If we are successful, it must be so organized and so displayed as to make the people desire it more than some ephemeral pleasure done up in a tinseled package." Commissioner Zook has gone about organizing his product as follows: Liaison. Dr. Zook would gear the Office of Education to be a powerful liaison service between the schools and the new agencies of the Government. This month the Office's School Life (paid circulation 10,000--largest of any Government organ) describes for teachers the "Children's Code" (child labor ban), tells how school districts may apply for Public Works funds for building. School Life asks: "Can you name the ten new Federal agencies whose long names have shrunk to initial letters? Do you know the purpose of each of these ten weapons Congress has given to the President to fight the recovery campaign?" As an aid to teachers in telling their pupils about them it presents "thumbnail sketches" of NRA, AAA, PWA, CCC. FCOT, FERA, TVA, RFC, FFCA, HOLC, with a map of Washington showing their locations. NRA. A code for teachers was submitted to NRA last month by the American Federation of Teachers. It was rejected on the ground that teachers are government employes. Nevertheless Commissioner Zook cautiously announced that the Office of Education is studying the "implications" of a code, with some recommendations to NRA in view. Meanwhile pedagogs were ostentatiously anxious to help NRA by expounding it in the classrooms. The National Education Association, which works hand-in-glove with the Office of Education, announced a program by which teachers would re-interpret textbooks, explaining to children why such maxims as "Competition is the life of trade" and "A penny saved is a penny earned" are at present invalid. Whether or not NRA is of immediate benefit to Education, Dr. Zook predicts it will widen Education's bounds. The child labor ban will put 100,000 new pupils in the high schools. And the increase of leisure will increase the demand for adult education, by which teachers may "interpret social trends and . . . re-emphasize the fundamental significance of education in our social development." Further, NRA should bring an increased interest in, and revaluation of, history, civics, government and economics (at present studied by only 3% of all high-school students). Relief. When Dr. Zook became Commissioner he announced he wished to bring experts frequently to Washington, to confer and make available to all the nation their combined ideas. Exclaimed he: "I would like to see our conference room occupied by one such conference every week!" Since then Commissioner Zook has sponsored three gatherings. One had to do with plans for a study of methods for evaluating the work of high schools. Of much more immediate interest to educators was a conference at which schoolmen told Administration officials how bad things are in their districts. Result of this was that Federal Relief Administrator Harry L. Hopkins announced that relief funds would henceforth be allotted to rural districts whose schools might otherwise be closed, and to rural and city schools for the education of illiterate adults (TIME, Sept. 4). Chicago and New York have made plans for adult courses. But the Relief Administration would not tell last week to what localities it was giving money, or how much.

This week Commissioner Zook was to hold his third conference, a gathering of the National Council of State Superintendents and Commissioners of Education. Ordinarily they would not have met until December. Commissioner Zook invited them to convene in emergency session to present their case to the Public Works administration (Secretary Ickes, chairman) as well as to the NRA.

Not to be confused with the National Education Association or its Department of Superintendence, the council of State Superintendents and Commissioners is composed of the men who stand up for public education when Legislatures are voting budgets. This week they were to discuss "Meeting the Emergency." President of the council is State Superintendent Charles Albert Lee of Missouri. Once a rural school teacher, he is painfully aware that at a recent meeting of rural Missouri teachers the question was asked: "How many of you will receive more than $600 this year?" Not a hand was raised. Superintendent Lee points out that the U. S. Government has designated $750 as the minimum per year for unskilled labor.

To the superintendents in Washington this week Commissioner Zook was prepared to say:

"Out of the rapid procession of events it is difficult for anyone to select those which mean little and those which have significance for the long future. Whatever may be the direction in which they point, they are bound to effect vitally the conduct of our educational system. . . . Let us resolve not to make the children pay for the Depression!"

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