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Show Education Dept. Weeds Skinnier Rule Book: Bell By TOM BUSSELBERG CLEARFIELD A potential Federal Department of Education Educa-tion cabinet member says he doesn't think there are any "immediate plans" to scrap the department but adds he would check the payroll if given the job. SPEAKING TO the monthly Clearfield Job Corps Community Com-munity Relations Council, Tuesday, was Dr. T.H. Bell, Utah Commissioner of Higher Education and Former Granite and Weber school districts superintendent. su-perintendent. A candidate for the top federal fed-eral education post in the upcoming up-coming Reagan Adminstra- tion, Dr. Bell based his remarks re-marks around education for the handicapped and underprivileged underpri-vileged and answered questions ques-tions from the audience made up largely of educators. ASKED IF he thought the Education Department would be scrapped he responded, "I feel there are no immediate plans I don't know I understand there are no immediate im-mediate plans to close down the department. "My concern in the organization organi-zation of the Education department depart-ment was that as part of the Department of Health, Education Educa-tion and Welfare the "Education" "Educa-tion" (part) was in a terrible circumstance." Noting that department was larger than Defense he added, "I think the move made will keep education educa-tion out of a laree monolithic agency." INDICATING he felt the new Administration would take a more "wait and see" attitude Dr. Bell continued, "It's not just the old Office of Education," overseeing overseas over-seas schools, the National Science Sci-ence Foundation and other agencies. Noting the Department has 13,000 employees he said, "I think we're probably not wasting wast-ing a lot more money than other poorly-managed agencies. agen-cies. I contemplate 13,000 employees em-ployees I wonder what all of them do." SPEAKING to concerns that local educational control might be lost with a separate department Dr. Bell commented, com-mented, "I'm worried about that. I'm concerned about the domination the federal govern-ment govern-ment can have on many aspects. I think we need a skinnier skin-nier rule book but I'm not saying we shouldn't operate without any. "1 think we'd still have segregated schools in the South and a lot of handicapped wouldn't be getting the help they now are. The Constitution Constitu-tion says we can't discriminate in providing services. We ought not to abandon that but I think we can eliminate a lot (of regulations and paperwork). If we would move to block grants that would eliminate a lot. "WE NEED to be quite careful care-ful or we'll lose some of the progress we've made. Basing his remarks on the need for educational programs such as the Clearfield Job Corps the Rockland, Ida. native na-tive said, "The Job Corps is an unusual program. When it was established there were many who wondered how it could be successful." BUT HE lauded the results and spoke to the need for more efforts to teach those who either come from environments environ-ments where there is little chance for development or are otherwise handicapped. It's easy for teachers of the gifted and talented to see results re-sults the gifted will teach themselves, he said. "But when they try to teach the hard to educate, the hard to reach this is the real challenge for education." HE COMPARED it to looking look-ing at an athletic team that had won all its games. More than that record is needed to know the team, such as what the DR. T. H. BELL opponents were made of. "It's the same for academia we haven't realized that. "Some who teach college level think they can add to their prestige by seeing how many they can get to enroll and then can't cut it (students) and say you just have to be great to enroll. "I SEE that in higher education educa-tion all the time; it's called academic excellence. Certainly Certain-ly there is a need for a committment committ-ment to that, and not to pass everybody," he added. "We need discipline, we need to advocate that in the schools. "But the great challenge in U.S. education right now is to provide equality of opportunity. opportun-ity. We've been struggling for a long time to provide that. I'm not talking about equalizing when we try to force everyone to equality we get inequality. "BUT WE'RE still not getting get-ting equality of opportunity," the former U.S. Commissioner Commission-er of Education continued. Noting that high-sounding words penned by this country's coun-try's founders have not been met he said, "We've been going for decades without attaining them in actual practice." prac-tice." Citing the Job Corps as an example of successful efforts to meet the challenge of those words Dr. Bell said, "If you have a few youngsters who are having trouble, have lived in a troubled environment and mix them with high achievers, that's a fairly durable situation. situa-tion. But when you concentrate concen-trate all of them in one you really take on the odds. "PROBABLY one of the most successful programs of its type in the U.S. is here." Contrasting students who have achieved a high grade point for consideration to the University of Utah Medical School and the students from troubled, underprivileged environments en-vironments the author of numerous num-erous educational books said, "We all know the difference and the challenge. Only in the last few decades have we gotten got-ten serious about meeting the needs of the underprivileged, to try to make taxpayers out of potential tax -eaters:" "I DON'T know the great scheme of circumstances that caused some to be privileged or underprivileged. As I grew up in a small town with a widowed mother during the Depression, I knew what it was like to be underprivileged," underpri-vileged," he said. "I know millions who still face that. We've discriminated and not all of that with mali cious intent." Speaking ot the "blight upon society" through formerly segregated schools where supposedly equal programs prog-rams were taught in separate schools he said, "All that was part of the effort to quit discriminatory discri-minatory (policies). "WE ALL heard about Abe Lincoln (and how he raised himself from poverty)," Dr. Bell recalled. "So many jil-lions jil-lions didn't have that opportunity. oppor-tunity. It's those committed to education to that end that I respect. re-spect. It's institutions like this (Job Corps) that 1 respect. "It's the youngsters who are hard-to-like that we need to be reaching for. "I'D SAY some of us were jarred into the compensatory education (underprivileged) crusade a bit late." The so-called so-called Great Society that President Presi-dent Johnson spoke about can come, he said, "when we get rid of all the biases and prejudices pre-judices and make a full committment com-mittment to what we all believe in (equal opportunity). "I wouldn't say we're there and I don't know how long it will take but we're moving," he added. Among those in attendance were Job Corps and Davis, Weber, Salt Lake and Ogden school district counselors. |