A Question of Priorities

In a nation fighting for its life, what is the priority rating of education? U.S. educators pondered that question last week at the 80th annual meeting of the National Education Association in Denver and concluded that education should have a higher priority than it has.

Men and money are being diverted from the schools, rapidly. U.S. Education Commissioner John Ward Studebaker reported that the nation faces a shortage of 50,000 teachers-and the probable closing of many rural schools in the coming year.

He also reported that lack of education has weakened the war effort; 10,000,000 U.S. citizens were lost to the Army and war industry because they were functionally illiterate (i.e., unable to read newspapers or simple printed directions).

Appalled at these reports, N.E.A.'s retiring President Myrtle Hooper Dahl, a plump Minneapolis schoolmarm, spoke warmly of Britain's example. The British school budget this year is the biggest in its history (-L-108,000,000), and the government considers education so important that it has recalled 77,000 teachers from the armed forces.

The convention brought forth some helpful ideas: 1) a plan whereby the U.S.

Employment Service will serve as a national teacher placement agency, steering jobless teachers from glutted areas (e.g., New York City) to the places where shortages exist; 2) a teaching program to salvage the illiterate 10,000,000; 3) a plan to cope with teacher shortages in two critical war subjects-200 colleges and universities will give free courses this summer to convert teachers of other subjects (English, Latin, etc.) into math and physics teachers.

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