Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, May 1, 1990 TAG: 9005010218
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: PATRICIA LOPEZ BADEN EDUCATION WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"The obligation on the part of the state to equalize spending is very great," said Geiger, who was in Roanoke to address the state school superintendents conference being held today and Wednesday.
"The state does not have to make spending exactly even, but it must be fair," he said.
In Virginia, there is a gap of nearly $3,500 per student in funding between the richest and poorest school districts, and in Southwest Virginia, several rural districts already have threatened a lawsuit unless changes are made.
Geiger said schools also will have to radically restructure the way they educate children, emphasizing reasoning skills over rote learning.
"We are still teaching in many schools as if this were still the Agricultural Age, or the Industrial Age, when in truth, we have passed both of those," he said.
"It was fine to teach children basic math, science, reading and how to take orders," he said, "because when they got out of school, they'd punch a clock and spend eight hours a day taking orders and doing `cog' jobs."
Now, he said, such menial-labor jobs "don't exist."
To keep pace, he said, "we have to teach children to reason."
And contrary to what Bush administration officials have preached, "we will have to spend more money to do it."
Unlike other industrialized nations, Geiger said, the United States has not invested in its schools or its children. In fact, he said, "we treat children like crap in this country.
"A nation that will spend billions and billions to rescue our savings and loans ought to be able to find the money to rescue our children who are at risk," he said. "A nation that will not cut its financial ties to South Africa but will cut financial support for child nutrition is a government out of touch with the American people and with reality."
In his speech Monday to the state's superintendents, Geiger said recent studies show that up to 40 percent of learning disabilities can be traced to poor prenatal and early childhood care.
"We'll spend $100,000 to keep a premature infant alive," he said, "but we won't spend $1,000 to make sure the mother has decent prenatal care. We have to rethink our priorities.
Part of the answer, he said, is to scale back military spending and put the money into schools and early childhood care.
Al Shanker, head of the American Federation of Teachers, also talked to the superintendents about the need for better preschool education, prenatal care and restructuring of the way schools teach.
"In 1950, 3.5 percent of all children in this country were born out of wedlock to women in their 20s and 30s," he said.
Last year, he said, that figure had climbed to 24.5 percent, and the age of the mothers had dropped considerably with many of them ranging in age from 10 1/2 years to 16 years old.
"We had 400,000 youngsters born addicted to crack," he said. "A lot of these kids believe they are not going anywhere. We have to change that, or we will pay heavily."
Describing his own childhood education in New York City during the '30s and '40s, Shanker said that many illusions are fostered about the virtues of schooling back then.
"I didn't know of any broken homes or broken families, in this very poor working class neighborhood," he said. "I never heard of drugs all the years I went to school. There was a standard curriculum, lots of homework, and if you didn't pass, you got left back.
"If you went home and complained about the school or your teachers to your mother or father you got a beating," he said. "It was a great education."
Then, he said, he decided to look back and see what percentage of children graduated from high school during that time.
"It was 20 percent," he said. "Twenty percent and that was the highest ever in this country. People were asking `do we need that many educated people?' "
"Nobody asks that question now," he said. "The world has changed."
by CNB