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Vol. 94, No. 128 (USPS 650-640)
Tuesday morning, April 3, 1984
Education students face critical public, tougher curriculum
Staff Reporter
By GRETCHEN DAY Staff Reporter
Three years ago, hundreds of anxious KU freshmen made a commitment.
They wanted to be teachers.
They signed the right forms, picked the right classes, got their dean's stamps and looked five years down the road when they would build young minds.
About the same time, parents across the nation were horrified to learn that their children were not getting the same education that youngsters in the 1950s got. Reports with weighty titles like "A Nation at Risk" sought to explain why Johnny and Jane couldn't read as well as they should.
Most of the blame fell on teachers.
And the teachers retaliated with complaints about working conditions and demands for more respectable wages. Educators insisted that they were aware of problems before those reports came out and that they had been quietly doing what they could to make things better.
At the University of Kansas, the School of Education was taking steps to improve the quality of its graduating teachers. The freshmen of 1881, the first students to enroll in the new five-year program, held onto their dreams amid the public outcry while struggling through the stiffer requirements, which at times were confusing and ill-defined.
But they wanted to be teachers. The reason, some of them who have lasted said recently, is simple. They love kids.
Many educators say that unless teacher salaries are improved, teachers will continue to leave the profession, and the most qualified college students will not be attracted into teacher education programs.
In Kansas, graduates of teacher education programs last year earned
According to the Carnegie Foundation Report on education, completed
Forced exodus
beginning salary nationwide for a teacher with a bachelor's degree was
"You can almost do that well sacking groceries," said Robert Haderline, a member of the national mission that compiled the Nation at Hisk report.
Low teacher salaries fail to create the incentive needed to draw good students into teaching, he said, and the teachers are not opting for careers with better pay.
The Carnegie report showed that at the same time a first-year teacher was making $12,800, a business-school graduate was making $16,000, and a beginning computer scientist was making $20,000 or more.
The Kansas National Education Association wants to raise the average teacher salary in Kansas to the national average in three years. A teacher's salary level generally has a master's degree and 10 to 12 years experience.
In the 1982-83 school year, the average teacher salary in Kansas was $18,231 without fringe benefits, ranking Kansas 36th in the nation. The national average for teachers that year was $20,603
This year the average Kansas teacher salary without fringe benefits is $19,368 — 5.67 percent more than last year, and the national average is $22,091. Kansas' rank for this year is not yet known.
The average teacher salary this year in Lawrence is $2,463 without fringe benefits, according to the state Department of Education.
At the urging of Gov. John Carlin, who during his State of the State address in January called education in Kansas a "quiet crisis", the Legislature this year passed a school-finance bill that could potentially increase the average teacher salary in the state 9.1 percent.
State Sen. Wint Wint Jr., R- Lawrence, said that although he
Carlin is expected to sign the bill this week. It calls for a total of $37 million in new state aid for the state's public school districts for the 1984-85 school
First-year teacher gets an education
By GRETCHEN DAY Staff Represent
Staff Reporter
TOPEKA — A year ago, Loren Shinn was just like every other KU senior — concerned about graduating, finding a job and facing the real world.
Now he's“™ Shimn,” the source of grueling homework assignments and tests. And, whether they admit it or not, he has always seventh and eighth graders’ respect.
It has been a year of learning, of adjusting and of adapting to a new
Since graduating in May 1983 from the KU School of Education, Shinn has been teaching seventh and eighth grade math and science for almost a year at two Topeka middle schools.
lifestyle and new responsibilities, he said read more from classes at D. Eisenberg's University of Iowa.
Last Thursday was no different as he attempted to enlighten a restless bunch of eight graders about sine, cosine and tangent.
"Mr. Shinn — I don't get none of this math."
Only a special kind of person could be a teacher. Shinn said, someone who cares about kids, who is patient and who likes to work with other people.
Teachers have to be able to feel the intrinsic rewards of working with youngsters, he said, because low salaries and crowded classrooms are
it worth it? " he said. "But you look beyond one bad day."
Shinn doesn't know exactly what it is that makes the problems in education tolerable, he said, but the students keep him going.
"THERE ARE DAYS when I say, 'Is
"It's hard to say what makes or breaks your day," he said. "But someone is going to do something to make your day."
When students who have been having trouble understanding a problem or a concept finally catch on, he or she can make up for all the frustrations.
"We have so few successes." he said. "to see them have one is a neat feeling."
See TEACHER, p. 9, col. 3
Judge frees 11 districts from desegregation lawsuit
From Staff and Wire Reports
A federal judge yesterday dramatically modified Kansas City's metropolitan school desegregation suit by freeing 11 predominantly white suburban school districts as defendants in
George Feldmiller, liaison counsel for the 11 districts said. "It wasn't a surprise in the sense of it being well deserved, but it is somewhat a surprise. I don't want to do what he should have, based on the evidence."
The decision left only the predominantly black Kansas City, Mo., School District, the state of Missouri and the federal government as defendants in the trial, which began four months ago.
THE PLAINTIFFS' ATTORNEYS, represen.
long some black students and some white students, had argued that the defendants, including the 11 school districts, had a legal obligation to erase the effects of the allegedly segregated school system and cited a recent 8th Circuit decision upholding a similar case in St. Louis. They had also asked that the district not be compelled to be mediated for the Kansas City School District and for the 11 other school districts named in the suit.
Arthur Benson II, attorney for the plaintiffs, said that although the decision came somewhat as a surprise, he was happy that the judge left the state as a defendant.
"We are disappointed but not at all chagrined." Beenson said. "The state of Missouri has been our biggest disappointment."
Without comment, the judge also deferred ruling on separate motions for dismissing the state
and the federal government from the suit.
Missouri Attorney General John Ashcroft immediately called the ruling by U.S. District Judge Russell Clark a "major victory" for the state and its taxpayers.
FELDMILLER SAID, "Not very many federal judges would see that," and the common opinion is that Judge Clark
Benson said that if he appealed Clark's final decision in the case to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, he would seek a remedy from the court that would reinstate the 11 districts as defendants
Feldmiller said that Benson was counting on the appeals court to grant Benson's appeal, but said, "The 8th circuit court is a fair court, and any fair court wouldn't do that."
plented recently in St. Louis — involving magnet schools and use of busing across district lines — is expected to cost the state as much as $72 million during the 1984-85 school year.
Clark declined to discuss what effect his ruling would have on the trial itself but said the dismissal of the suburban districts as defendants would cut as much as six to eight weeks off the length of the trial. The judge said he now expected the trial could conclude within six weeks.
A similar metropolitan desegregation plan im-
Clark said he would not comment on the effect the ruling would have on the rest of the trial because the case was not yet finished.
"WE STILL HAVE the state and federal governments as defendants," he said.
See SCHOOLS, p. 5, col. 1
Arabs fire on Israelis during raid
Gunmen's attack in Jerusalem injures 48 people
By United Press International
JERUSALEM — Three Arab gunmen wildly sprayed West Jerusalem's main intersection yesterday with submachine gunfire and grenades, wounding 48 people. A bystander shot one officer in the crowd shouted "Kill him, kill him."
Two Damascus-based Palestinian groups claimed responsibility for the attack in the heart of the Jewish sector of the disputed city. Interior Minister Josef Burg said the assailants came across the border from Lebanon.
ONE OF THE attackants was killed by an Israeli civilian who dashed from a coffee shop, seized a rifle from a police officer and took hostages. The two other attackers were captured.
As the gunman crumpled on the sidewalk, bleeding from a stomach wound, Israelis rushed from coffee and stores, yelling "kill him. Kill him."
Forty-eight people were wounded in the attack, three of them seriously, from either bullets or shrapnel from the grenades, which the terrorists lobbed from multicolored nylon bags, police and witnesses said.
After the attack, Israel sent warplanes roaring over the Syrian-occupied mountains west of Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, where Israeli gunners had bombarded suspected Palestinian militants' command posts" the day before.
It was the boldest attack in Jerusalem in years and the most serious in the city since Dec. 6 when six Israelis were killed by a bomb planted on a bus. At the end of February, 21 Israelis were involved in an attack near the same area.
THE THREE GUNNEN drove up King George Street shortly before 10 a.m. in a rented car, police said. Two got out and went into a sportswear store, asked to try on jeans and used the gloves they wore themselves. The third waited outside.
They emerged with submachine guns and began firing and hurling grenades at pedestrians and a bus on King George Street near the Jaffa Road intersection — the main crossroads in the Jewish sector of the city.
In a statement released in Damascus and carried by the Kuwaiti news
"I just couldn't believe such a thing, that you look out and someone is shooting on the street in front of your eyes," said Shoshna Cohen, 49, owner of a clothing shop. "He shot like a crazy man."
See MIDEAST, p. 5, col. 4
The gray, damp days of late winter seem unwilling to leave as the cold, rainy weather lingers these first days of spring.
X-rated shows will go on despite the recent protests
By JENNY BARKER Staff Reporter
The University Film Society will continue to show X-rated movies despite the controversy that arose after the recent showing of "Emmanuelle," the president of UFS said yesterday.
Tim DePape, UFS president and Emporia sophomore, said UFS would continue to show X-rated films because such films attracted large audiences that helped UFS navy its bill.
DePaepe said that he was surprised that "Emmanuelle" had attracted about 15 protesters at its March 24 showing. Most of the protesters then said they opposed the film because it contained a rape scene and promoted violence against women.
"It WAN't MEANT to hurt anybody." DePapee said. "It that type of X-rated film that doesn't offend anybody — or shouldn't offend anybody."
but two KU students last week sent letters to the Student Senate Finance Committee, which is now conducting hearings to determine allocations to student organizations for fiscal 1985, protesting the use of Student Senate funds for X-rated movies.
The Student Senate allocated only $100 to UF$ for its fiscal year 1984 budget of $16,852.
Kent Ward, a Lawrence graduate student who wrote one of the letters, said that he did not want
the Student Senate to contribute to the showing of neroarhoxy on campus.
"A majority of X-rated films tend to intermingle violence and sexuality," Ward said. "It is very difficult to be entertained by something that perpetrates violence against women."
DePeape said that a member of the finance committee had asked him to promise that UFS would be able to provide cash.
He said UFS would continue to show X-rated films but wrote a letter to the finance committee stating that no Student Senate funds would be used to purchase or promote an X-rated film
UFS HAS ASKED the finance committee for $899 for fiscal year 1985. The rest of the money for the UFS budget would be financed through movie ticket sales. DePae said.
He said that proceeds from X-rated movies helped UF'S nav for classic films.
"We showed a Marx Brothers film and "It Happened One Night" recently — those are classic films — but neither had an audience large enough to pay for it," he said.
"We have to cover ourselves. We have to exhibit films that have a large audience appeal. There's an audience out there for an X-rated, adult-type film. We tried to provide a film not only for men to come to see alone, but for women, too.
"Emmanuelle" demonstrated that there's a large audience on this campus for this type of film," he said. "A large audience of men and women."
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