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Show Know Your Schools .... The White House Conference . . . Education in our district, in our state and throughout the entire nation na-tion is being confronted with unusual un-usual problems. Rapidly changing enrollments have created critical problems of housing and finance. The school curriculum has been under attack and needs to be studied to determine its effectiveness effective-ness in meeting our changing social so-cial and economic conditions. The quality, as well as the quantity, of the total educational experience should be examined. There is a shortage of qualified teachers. Property Pro-perty taxes are alarmingly high and adequate finance for the schools is not available. These problems point up the fact that education in America is in difficulty. To those who understand under-stand the close relationship be- I tween a strong public school system sys-tem and a strong America, these problems become serious. The Congress of the United States fore-saw the implications of America's present educational, problems when they passed Public Law 530. This law invited every state in the union, through its governor, gov-ernor, to initiate a study of its educational problems. This study was to be made first of all on a local and state basis by "educators and other interested citizens." Eighteen people from our county attended a regional conference in Heber, August 22. We have been invited to send six delegates to the State Conference on Education to be held about the middle of October. During the latter part of November, state delegates are to "report to the President of the United States on significant and pressing problems in the field of education" at a White House con-ferense con-ferense in Washington. President Dwight G. Eisenhower stated, "The proposed national conference and preparatory state conferences will be most important steps toward obtaining effective nation-wide recognition of these problems and toward recommending recommend-ing the best solutions and remedies. reme-dies. . . ." We cannot afford to be apathetic to these problems here in Duchesne County. It was difficult to get eighteeen people to attend the regional reg-ional conference. We as yet do not have our six delegates to the State conference. (If you are in-continued in-continued on Back Page) KNOW YOUR SCHOOLS . . . (Continued from Page One) terested contact Supt. Stutz). Surveys show that most school problems can be reduced to six major areas of concern. These six areas will make up the agenda of the White House Conference on Education in November. These six questions are: What should schools accomplish? accom-plish? In what ways can we organize organ-ize our schools more efficiently efficient-ly and economically? How can we finance enough good teachers and keep them? How can we finance our schools - build and operate them? How can we obtain a continuing continu-ing public interest in education? educa-tion? The answers to these questions are not easy. We need all the information in-formation we can obtain. We need the thinking of every citizen. If these questions are to be answered for Duchesne County, they will have to be answered by the people of Duchesne County. What our schools are today will determine, in large measure, what America will be tomorrow. And the course our schools follow depends de-pends upon decisions the people make, in their role as citizens. If an apathetic public refuses to concern itself with school affairs, it jeopardizes the welfare of our whole educational institution. Only an interested and informed citizenry citizen-ry can keep our schools vital and sensitive to the changing needs of our changing society. The peo- pie of Duchesne County and of America as a whole, face no more important responsibility. Subsequent articles in this column col-umn will analyze each of the six questions which will be on the White House Conference agenda. |
