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Show Weston Requests Modification of School Board Rules "Federal laws must be modified modi-fied to permit local school boards to organize systems of apprenticeship appren-ticeship training where those students stu-dents who can learn best by using us-ing their hands and by working on the job can go directly into business and trades and earn a certificate or diploma while at work," Joseph H. Weston, Democratic Demo-cratic candidate for the United States Senate, told leaders and workers of the Democratic party in a bulletin this yeek. "As all teachers know, all students stu-dents are not prepared in their early teens, or some even in their late teens, for the kind of exacting study that is required for excellence in scholarly work. These young men and women rebel at being forced by our stupid set of laws to study books that are dull and meaningless to them, so they drop out and become be-come problems in delinquency. The fault is not with them but with us because we have failed to provide for their orderly progress pro-gress and advancement through a system of apprenticeship, or of direct work and study in business or at a trade where they can be immediately earning yat least a part of their way in life. They would thereby be able to hold up their heads in pride. "Such school supervised systems sys-tems of apprenticeship were doing do-ing well in many cities of the nation until they were stopped by our present federal laws on child labor and minimum wages. These laws are much too strict and are a means by which the federal government imposes a straight jacket upon educators, parents and businessmen. These laws must be modified to permit a teenager to work in business during school hours with at least a once a week checkup by educational edu-cational authorities. The teenagers teen-agers must be paid for the work, but businesses must be permitted to pay them a comparatively low wage rate during their learning years or time of apprenticeship. "This is a very clear example of one of the many ways in which we have too much federal regulation of our lives, stifling our initiative, suppressing local authority, wasting brains and ability of our leaders, educators, businessmen, on the local level. If these federal laws were relaxed re-laxed then local educational authorities, families and businessmen busi-nessmen could once more assume as-sume their proper share of the burden of training our young men and women to become useful use-ful citizens. "Apprenticeship is the oldest method of organized education known to man, and for many students it still is the most effective ef-fective of all methods of education. edu-cation. The businessman and the mechanic, in effect, once more become teachers, just as many generations of their forebears have been teachers for years. "With a good apprenticeship program taking a large number of teenagers out of the crowded classrooms, many of our other educational problems will be somewhat solved. Fewer classrooms class-rooms will be needed. Many students stu-dents who are now delinquency problems will be earning the money they need to begin to assert their own personalities, and would also be studying under un-der guidance in a program designed de-signed to accredit them at graduation gradu-ation time." |
