Show nation suffers scarcity of competent compete n t teachers by news analyst md and corn rn en fator service iola 1610 eye street NW washington D 0 washington D C less than a year and a half after the question of which would triumph or democracy 7 t aps as settled the kilt united states Is being forced to meet a crisis in it struggle ruggle to main tain its way of life two years ago the prediction based on an trends of that tha moment LOW was made that ba 0 a kaage our school system by faces one of the greatest crises in its american schools have last competent well prepared pie pared fea peachers chers since pearl harbor 11 that was ili june 1044 at that time only one out of a hundred dred school teachers held emergency issued to persons admittedly not in the je competent well prepared class class today according to an estimate made in an article in the october issue of coronet magazine one out of every eight hold such certificates and out of the teachers lost to war industries the draft and other wartime activities coronet finds at least of those teachers lost tor for good stuart chase economist sets as the number needed before the present teaching staff of the nation Is brought up to what he calls adequate 1 aalph mcdonald executive secretary of national educational no ae in washington who has keen busy I 1 trying to wake tho the educational cat ional world worl d to its ito danger quotes W reports that russia today is spend nd 2 lag 20 per cent of her comparatively i low national income ark on education awhile we spend two per cent of 61 ours rr for uie the same burpo purpose m and nd not with wh ahat nt la io now tavin done the soviets are demand ring ang suu still higher standards tan dards of edco k or otheir teachers the party ys announced in a recent recen tart tie ile that students from arid other arle bing being brought in of mo moscow leningrad and other eltie catesi ct esi s I 1 the ol of education eda edw cation of the united states government Is fully aware of the danger facing our public ile sf As functions are strict jy ly limit limited pd however to tho talo acquis i r tion mn and distribution of information inform ayon i actual promotional activities are forbidden forbidden and improvement of con rests fundamentally with th jhb sand and local the office of education is doing all it 1 can full operation cooperation co in the gath of data is provided and nd for thelast Uhe last six weeks or so special ef forts have been made to bobring bring information tor matlon oil ahl subject up to date for or distribution actual of the varying needs of various som dom iu now are being compiled national Edil education dation a association which began an intensive campaign two years yeara ago to assist in th tha recruitment cruit ment teachers often of chers improvement of working conditions and higher salaries has renewed its efforts coorts as a result of action taken at af the organizations I 1 convention thas july A slogan which they havo have adopted i runs we must have hav e federal ad be forene can have n of op port unity 11 dut but federal Inter interieri ferI enco ence in americas school system i has always been a bogey I 1 t 1 cheat pupils out of proper education I 1 meanwhile as charles harris gays ays in the previously quoted coro net article we are cheating aurl our boys and girls of their right to them the kind bilan they desire by permitting this teacher short shori age which has hap closed more than class rooms and over expanded classes so that individual 1 attention to td pupils pubs has virtually vanished many vital subjects have been dropped Tha worst phase of the situation is the turn turnover ovir As is evidenced by the number of emergency bertill i cates issued the standard has hascall haaf fall all i en sharply harris mentions one school which permitted a convict 1 i io ao be released from jail Jall because no one else could be found to teach the pupils pupil s I 1 was told of a case where 0 teacher teaching sixth grade d pu put t rills had never had more than thana a fourth grade education herself low pay Is as 03 it has always been one of the chief difficulties difficult les it Is a strange paradox that the business and industrial groups who are arc most anxious that the principles of democracy and free enterprise bo be thoroughly taught tire are the greatest competitors of the schoolhouse here in washington the minimum wage of teachers Is below that of lower grade clerical assistants and file clerks clerics in the government in industrial du strInI centers the gap Is wider in business there Is i nore more of a demand today for college trained personnel many teachers both malo and fern female ale who went into the services held college degrees and whon when discharged were eagerly snapped up by businesses requiring higher i education chambers Cham beis of commerce disturbed by the threat of untrained minds in their have appealed to the government to promote special teachers programs ns as a part of the veterans re training programs but here again the federal era government would be treading on thin ice that in the law private institutions and the community itself are responsible for this type of effort and congress congress always puts its foot down when there is anything that oven even hints at at federal activity in connection with the public school system tho the 0 oance M ca of ed education loans leans over backward to keep away from anything that might be labeled inter renee No not tonly only poor pay but also alio lack of social life drives many prospective teachers into other fields that la Js sm something ethIng that only tho the community can change if the teachers position is 19 not changed forthe for the better and the public I 1 1 a school system ignot Is not restored to 1 its to normal place in our democracy cewill we will have lost the one without which democracy cannot grow cannot renew itself it iti mut be renewed in an the hearts of each new generation otherwise s e wee weeds dt aplenty will take akelis ltv place sao over fast fait one on censor one of left to tod a news pancy correspondent tn in one of tho foreign cities here censorship still prevails is trying to io beat the censor one of the most amusing bents beats of this kind was scored by drew mid bleton writing from moscow for the 0 new york times perhaps it tooled many american americ n readers too it reads ilya ehrenburg writing wilting in ili ilves ila continued his hl long series of articles aloson on the united knifed states a group of articled which for foi depth and uh understanding der standing ore are superior to anything written on on these lines since tho the works of charles dodgson the dispatch was passed by the censor who know that tha dodgson dodgeon V was the real name of lewis carroll who ao wrote e alice in n wonderland dc rland some soma of the most delightful nonsense ever penned I 1 do not know whether ehren ehrck burgs articles as published in mos cow differed from those which hot hei published in the united states but I 1 must say that some of them reflected life in america as truly no as the scene at the mud mad hatters tea party followed the pattern of df an ordinary tea ten party in england you remember that there wa was 3 a table set t under a tree irce in fro front nt of th the e house c and the march haro hard and the hatter were having tea at it a dormouse was asleep and the other two were using himas him ns a cushion resting their elbows on it and talking ovir over its head very uncomfortable tor for tho the dormouse thought alice only its asleep I 1 suppose it mind the hatter w was as the first to break the silence what day of the month Is it he said turning to alice ile ha had taken his ls watch out of his pocket and As Ws looking at it uneasily shaking it every now and then end and putting it to his ear car alice considered a little and slid tho the fourth two days sighed the matter 1 I told you butter suit tho the works angrily looking lookin g at the march hare i it was the best of butter the march hare meekly replied 1 although Middle middletons tons comparison between dodgson and ehrenburg was mas probably well chosen I 1 doubt if the censor would have passed the comment had he ever read alice in wonderland |