Page 3
It Looks This Way...
The Kansas school consolidation problem came back into the news last week when Ness County District Judge Lorin T. Peters ruled the 1961 unification law unconstitutional.
THIS RULING IS A BLOW to those who favor school consolidation but it could work to their advantage if it stimulates discussion of the problem and hastens passage of a consolidation law with teeth.
The law ruled unconstitutional was a watered-down compromise measure. Originally, Gov. John Anderson proposed the withholding of state aid if schools did not consolidate at least to the extent that elementary schools would enroll 20 students and high schools 50.
This amounts to economic pressure, which is not the fairest way to get something accomplished. However, better education affects the entire state, not just one locality, and the attitude of many people makes this type of law necessary.
IT IS UNDERSTANDABLE that people in small communities oppose school consolidation. There are sentimental attachments. Parents graduated from the school, or one like it, and want their children or grandchildren to do the same. In addition, the school is often the center of the town's social life.
But these reasons must be overlooked when they harm the education of the community's children. College students often can see vividly how they were handicapped by their high school. This handicap may result from a lack of courses offered, poor instruction, or outdated, insufficient, or nonexistent equipment. Nobody will claim all small schools have these faults and all large schools do not, but it is obvious most small schools could be improved by consolidation.
ARGUMENTS IN FAVOR OF CONSOLIDATION include these:
There are also civic and economic reasons. In many cases, the loss of the school would be a severe blow to the town's economy. Many communities have been declining, and the school is often the only institution that keeps a community on the map.
- First, consolidation would mean a greater economy of operation. Two hundred students in one building can be educated more economically than fifty students in four buildings. Costly equipment will be used by more students, reducing the cost per student. Costs are reduced by centralizing administrative functions and maintaining only one building. One cafeteria, one gymnasium, one library, one science laboratory, or one industrial arts shop can be maintained less expensive than four.
- Second, consolidation would mean better teachers. The unified school district would be able to offer better pay and working conditions to attract the better instructors. In addition, the teachers could do a better job because they would probably teach only one or two subjects instead of three or four.
- Third, consolidation would mean that a larger variety of courses could be offered. A larger school can offer certain courses because enough students will take them, but a small school cannot offer courses which would be taken by only one or two students.
These advantages often are not seen by the people who vote on school consolidation. More often, however, the sentimental, civic, and economic reasons outweigh the advantages.
FOR THIS REASON, WE HOPE THE STATE LEGISLATURE will pass a stricter consolidation law, whether or not Judge Peters' declaration is overruled. The legislators won't pass such a law, however, until it has the backing of the majority of the people of the state.
This is where college students may be able to help. They are aware, from their own experiences or from the experiences of their friends from small schools, of the advantages of school consolidation. They can discuss the problem in their home town and perhaps change the attitude of many people. The "boy next door" is often listened to where the professional educator is not.
Clayton Keller
Daily Hansan
Founded 1889, became biweekly 1904, triweekly 1908, daily Jan. 16, 1912.
University of Kansas student newspaper
Telephone VIking 3-2700 Extension 711, news room Extension 376, business office
Member Inland Daily Press Association. Associated Collegiate Press. Represented by National Advertising Service, 18 East 50 St., New York 22, N.Y. News service: United Press International. Mail subscription rates: $3 a semester or $5 a year. Published in Lawrence, Kan., every afternoon during the University year except Saturdays and Sundays, University holidays and examination periods. Second class postage paid at Lawrence, Kansas.
NEWS DEPARTMENT
Managing Editor
Tom Turner
Linda Swander, Fred Zimmerman, Assistant Managing Editors; Kelly Smith, City Editor; Bill Sheldon, Sports Editor; Barbara Howell, Society Editor.
Thursday, October 19, 1961 University Daily Kansan
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
Editorial Editor
Bon Gallagher ... Editorial Editor
Bill Mullins and Carrie Merryfield, Assistant Editorial Editors.
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Tom Brown
Don Gergick, Advertising Manager; Bonnie McCullough, Circulation Manager; David Weins, National Advertising Manager; Charles Martinache, Classified Advertising Manager; Hal Smith, Promotion Manager.
Business Manager
Letters Editorial Criticized
Once again we are told that there is only one solution to the world's population problem. Not only is birth control itself proposed as the answer to all the world's ills, but **one specific method** of birth control is presented as the cure—the **only cure!**
SURELY SUCH AN APPROACH to a problem as vast and as controversial as "population explosion" is a gross oversimplification. An oral contraceptive would present several serious problems, both in distribution and in cost. Who, for example, is going to undertake the tremendous task of distributing the pills and instructing the recipients in their use? Who is going to pay the bills generated by this distribution and instruction? Will the people who are to use the pills be able to afford them, or will they be distributed free of charge? If they will not or cannot pay for them, who will?
Editor:
If the governments involved are to pay the expenses, the cost could well negate any benefits which could conceivably result from the program. If the United States, on the other hand, is to pay the entire cost of development and distribution, the bill could be staggering. Yet if the pills are too expensive for the people to use, the whole program is virtually useless and we end where we began.
NONETHELESS, ARE THERE not other approaches to the problem? The editorial mentions research on the food supply, but then seems to cast this suggestion aside in its conclusion that an oral contraceptive is the only answer. There are several other techniques of birth control which could be perfected, including the rhythm method. A bit of research in these areas could result in approaches which would be at least as inexpensive, if not cheaper, and equally as effective. If the problem is so great, why sidestep all other possibilities in favor of one?
The question is further complicated as a moral issue. I will not belabor the question with moral arguments. Let it suffice to say that there are very strongly held moral views against artificial birth control in any form. Whether or not one regards artificial birth control as sinful, it must nonetheless be recognized that a large block of the American people, notably Catholics, do oppose it. To force birth control on these people, through the back door, by using their taxes to pay for such a program is directly contradictory to justice and to our traditional approach to religious matters.
THEE IS A CONSISTENT and loud outcry against proposals such as federal aid to parochial schools, sending an ambassador to the Vatican, and others, which are viewed as aiding Catholicism. That those who oppose such proposals as unjust are sincere I neither doubt nor contest. Yet in the reverse situation, the imposition of programs which are morally unacceptable to Catholics, there is barely a murmur of protest. On the contrary, they are regarded as not only just but as vitally necessary! Why the difference?
If those who advocate a program of research and distribution of birth control materials and information are sincere in their belief that such a program is the only answer or that they will even partially solve the problem, let them use private agencies and private funds to carry out their program. There are many such agencies which can adequately do this.
There are many areas which are better left out of the hands of the government. Morals compose one such area. To give governmental sanction to a moral viewpoint which is objectionable to as large a segment of the population as is the question of birth control is to undercut the very religious freedom which the adherents of the program wish to protect. Our forefathers drew a line between Church and State. Attempts to erase this line can come from more than one direction.
John R. Swanson Baldwin senior
Take "TIME OUT" and THINK A MINUTE!
Want the Best Service?
Want Fair Prices?
Want Quality Merchandise?
Then take your car to
Patronize Your Kansan Advertisers
surrey... with the fringe on top
Black or Brown Calf, Black, Grey and Cinnamon Suede. Sizes to 10.
813 Mass. McCoy's Phone VI 3-2091