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Show fc ppT pL ppppppL WT prpph n I Cyclops By BRYAN GRAY Pretty good isn 't good enough In response to a recent column on an "illiterate" who received an "A" in her English class, a reader sent in the following poem. "There once was a pretty good student stu-dent Who sat in a pretty good class Who was taught by a pretty good teacher Who always let pretty good pass. He wasn't terrific at readingt And he wasn't a whiz-bang at math; But for him education was leading Straight down a pretty good path. He didn't find school too exciting, But he wanted to do pretty well, And he did have some trouble with writing. And nobody had taught him to spell. When doing arithmetic problems, Pretty good was regarded as fine; Five and five needn't always equal ten, A pretty good answer was nine. The pretty good student was happy With the standards that were in effect, And nobody thought it was sappy If his answers were not quite correct The pretty good class that he sat in Was part of a pretty good school, And the student was not an exception. excep-tion. On the contrary, he was the rule. The pretty good school that he went to Was right there in a pretty good town. And nobody there ever noticed He could not tell a verb from a noun. The pretty good town in our story Was part of a pretty good state Which had pretty good aspirations And prayed for a pretty good fate. i- ph m p t pfap hhj.. t r- pbp - j t k mrm There was once a pretty good nation Pretty proud of the greatness it had, But which learned much too late, If you want to be great. Pretty good is, in fact, pretty bad. The reader who sent in the poem said she did not know the authorship author-ship of the poem. But it does sound something like the material CBS Radio's Charles Osgood creates-and creates-and if he didn't write it, he should have. Teachers can learn from itParents can learn from it... Even more importantly, the Utah Legislature can learn from it After all, a pretty great state can do better than pretty good funding. A " ' |