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Show LOOKING I FederalAk! IEI By GEORGE S. BENSON MX 'fit AHEAD President of Harding Collegs H. V Searcy, Arkansas XKW ANY POLITICIAN could cut quite a splash if only he could line up all the teachers behind him. The idea is not new. Plans to halter the public schools of America in a bureaucratic treadmill tread-mill have come before Congress four times since 1937. They have failed every time but each new attempt shows more strength. The most recent one gained enough momentum to get talked about from Bangor to Burbank. This latest sally on the public school system was led by Senator Lister Hill of Alabama, helping Senator Elbert D. Thomas of Utah. This bill, (S.367) as finally final-ly rejected by the 78th Congress, is dead but the senators' ambitions ambi-tions can still wiggle. Hill is . campaigning now for re-election on a platform of "federal aid to education," and that's been a hobby hob-by of Thomas' for a long time. Teachers THE ISSUE will be Underpaid revived. Political problems have a way of coming to life repeatedly until un-til they are solved, and this one is not solved. Teachers have a right to earn as much in the classroom as they might get. for manual labor in a factory and, until teachers' pay is adjusted, state school authorities will have their troubles born of somebody's mistakes; maybe their own. Federal aid to education, if it comes, will be federal control of schools eventually, whether the author of the bill wants it or not. Whoever signs the checks can compel obedience to orders, even from teachers. Obviously most public school systems need, not federal support, but better state support. There are at least six good reasons. Three are plain and practical, the others basic. Six Good FIRST: Federal con-Reasons con-Reasons trol would cost taxpayers tax-payers more for the same results than state control. (2) Federal control of schools would make one more huge bureau bur-eau with a maze of pyramiding salaries. (3) Federal control will ride down traditions. How the South will bristle at the first effort ef-fort to seat white and colored children together at school. It mi; lit easily result in wide-spread violence. . The foregoing objections are practical ones. But it is wrong in principle to rob parents of their influence in public schools. (4) Concentrating school funds in the hands of far-away strangers is saying to all parents, "Hands off school!" (5) It is also fruitful of racketeering. (6) Worse yet, it violates the principle of state sovereignty which is the backbone of American freedom. Any time rich Washington sets up a W.P.A. for teachers, local school revenue will start drying up. Soon the U. S. Treasury will be footing all school bills and expenses ex-penses for education will climb needlessly. In many states teachers teach-ers need and deserve more pay. If it comes the people will pay it and they'd better handle it locally. local-ly. A local solution to the problem prob-lem is possible anywhere. |