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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (July 5, 1973)
Page 4 Portland/Observer Thursday, July 5, 1973 Salvation Army Community Center Director Joe Kelleher, in foreground, checks off campers' names as they get on board buses bound for Camp Trestle Glen. Red Shield Youth Center session attracted 140, most of whom attended on campships or partial campships. Session is scheduled June 28 through July 3. SHOP lENOW 'S FOR B R A N D S you kno V A R IE T IE S y o u hl SIZES you w a n t uN.UD G&OCENs K ennedy raps N ix o n (Continued from pg. 1, col. 6) wretched housing. And what has been the response? The declaration of an end to the war on poverty; the mora torium on housing construc tion, and the impoundment of school lunch money. It is the meanest form of deception to compound this tragic r e sponse by providing less than half of the funds we know are needed to meet the educational needs of those children. "Com pensatory education remains the best hope for the children of Appalachia and for the children of the ghetto. But compensatory education does not mean spending more money to buy air condi tioners, or portable swim ming pools or to substitute federal dollars for state dol lars. "The more than 5 millior. public school children from lim ited English speaking backgrounds also demand special federal attention. The Chicano in South Texas, the Puerto Rican in East Harlem the Cuban in Miami, the Alaskan native in Point Bar row, the Navajo in Window Rock - their futures have been disfigured by the fail ure of the educational system to be sensitive to their cul tures and to their identities and to their needs. “By denying a child the freedom to communicate and by denying a child the free dom to participate in the life of the classroom, we turn a classroom into a jail cell. Yet we know this cruelty occurs in a thousand class rooms across this country. We must end that condition and end it now.” A third test faces the educational system and that is whether we can resolve the crisis of school finance. “If we are willing to have the federal government pro vide 90 percent of the cost of highw ays, then surely it makes sense for the Federal government to provide more than 7 percent of the cost of public education. “If we can provide federal subsidies to the Lockheed Corporation and the Penn Central Railroad, then surely we can afford subsidies to upgrade the public schools of this nation. “If we can accept a Federal responsibility to pay two- thirds of the cost of building mass transit in our com munities. then we can afford to pay one-third of the cost of educating the children who live in those communities. “There is a fourth test which is as vital to the future of the nation’s social structure as it is to the future of education, the test of assuring equal educational opportunity. “N early 20 years have passed since the Supreme Court handed down the Brown v. Board of Education decision, yet Black and brown and white children still sit in segregated class rooms. “In much of the South to day, desegregation has to a large extent been completed. The task which now remains is providing quality educa tion. “In the absence of any sign of leadership from the exe cutive branch, the Supreme Court has shouldered the burden again. It's decision this week in the Denver case rejects the view that the less obvious actions of Northern schol boards can escape the command of the Constitution. "I do not propose busing white children to a school that is broken-down, second rate or dangerous; a school w here education has no chance; but I condemn a system that permits Black children to remain in those schools for a single day longer. O ’H a ra Demo Sale Gremlins Ambassadors Hornets SAVE HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS ALL GUARANTEED ALL WITH LOW MILEAGE WENTWORTH & IRWIN H C . (Continued from pg. 1. col. 6) He recommended that edu cators assess the educational system and come up with new ideas for teaching. He advised political acti vity to insure that education receives a fair share of the economic resources. “As long as I can remember, the very same people who have been fighting against aid to education have been busily telling teachers that they ought to stay out of politics.” O'Hara advocates 15 years of free public-supported edu cation. beginning with kinder garten. The first two years of college would be a right for every young person and would be an integral part of the public school system. O’Hara is a member of the House Committee on Educa tion and Labor, the Joint Committee on Congressional Operations, and the Com mittee on Interim and In sular Affairs. 1005 W. 226-7711 B um iid . America loves w hat the Colonel cooks "It's finger lickin' good? Buy it by the Box B u cket o r Barrel Perfect for P en tes, Picnics, Lunch, o r D in ner 1 ake It Home, Eat It Here, or In Your C ar the 5 P E C H See Yellow Pages for Store N earest You I 4 Mafia in business. To pro vide the sociologists with sufficient data for their re search programs. Manage able voters, manipulatable consumers, and, if need be in the case of war, willing killers. “The innocence of those os us, including myself, who wrote the idealistic books of protest keep on writing them and then sit back and wait for our Utopian notions to be put to application by such folks as Nixorr, Hicks, or Hiakawa. This innocence originates from the classis liberal hesitation and with drawal from strong, honest and sophisticated recognitions of the cold and realistic func tion of the public school. As an English teacher my self I think it is much more interesting to talk about the disguised forms of political indoctrination. To give you a simple example, it's some thing that doesn't look like indoctrination but is, I think. This will be very familiar to many of you: The way grammar is taught. Fearless terror in the public schools, the use of the first person pronoun. We all fear the word “1”. A classic example; A child says something rude, the teacher lifts her eye brows and steps back in horror and says “Is that any way to speak to me?” But instead of saying “me”, typi cally the teacher says “Is that any way to speak to Miss O'Brien?” And the question is “Where is she?" It’s as if she wasn’t there. Not present, pulsating in the classroom. “It's as if she was locked up somehow in the closet with the chalk and chalk erasers. The Albina Youth Oppor tunity School is holding it's third con secu tive summer school for high school stu dents, which began June 18 and continues through Au gust 10. Classes are held Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 12 noon. Courses offered are English, math and his tory on all four high school levels: Senior, junior, sopho more and freshman. Albina Youth Opportunity School, which is funded jointly by Model Cities, School District No. 1 and private donations, offers an informal learning atmosphere for the student. The AYOS instruc tors really care about the student. Also the student teacher ratio is very small which allows the instructor more time for each individual student. Sixty two students are cur rently enrolled in AYOS summer school, 7 of which will receive their GED upon completion August 10. The Albina Youth Opportunity School is quickly becoming one of the most highly ac claimed schools for the indi vidual. If your child is not now attending AYOS, he will have another opportunity to sign up on July 16. Unequaled in all the world « Catcode Mutic Cantar hot available the antoa Iina of Yamaha pianot and organi - e.cluiively m tha Portland arac Yamaha pianot and organi represent tha (matt quality and mtagnty of worlimanthip avodobla anywhere And. whila tha pretent inventory loth, you con purchata ony of thaia eitroordm only fina ■ nttrumanti at a prua greatly below tha onticipotad naw price botad on th « dollar devaluation Won't you let ut damonttrata thaia tuparb mttrumantt for your contidarotion today7 4211 N.I. SANOT-213 M U til TPM-SUNDAY 12 4 1 * Notice The Oregon Chapter of the Arthritis Foundation recently announced that the new book “Beyond the Copper Brace let" may be ordered through the chapter office. "Beyond the Copper Brace let", by Doctors L.A. Healey and Kenneth R. Wilske, is based upon the actual case history of Robert Hansen, and emphasizes treatment, diagnosis, quackery and other aspects of rheumatoid arthn tis, including common sense answers to many questions the patient and his family may have. Inquiries .ud orders ($3.25 per copy) may be addressed to: Oregon Chapter, Arthri tis Foundation, P.O. Box 42067, Portland, Oregon 97242. Caucus Time Kozol JACK’S CHEVRON iÿÿ SS by J etie B. W ild ., J r. (Continued from pg. 1, col. 6) AMERICAN MOTORS CARS and JEEPS SALES & SERVICE “If the schools would deny the chance for quality educa tion to a white child, then they deny it as well to all our children. “If these schools cannot serve for some, then they cannot serve for any. Old schools will have to achieve an excellence that will at tract white students; or new schools will have to be con structed in an area which will not foster new patterns of segregation. ‘ “There are some who chai lenge the benefits of inte gration because the educa tional gains do not measure up to their standards. They say desegregation only di minishes the differential in achievement between white and Black students by 20% to 25%. They say the most a Black student seems to gain is a single year of addi tional schooling. But if that year is the difference be tween a high school diploma and a dropout it is worth the effort. And if desegre gation boosts the achieve ment of the disadvantaged at all, it is worth the effort. “For a society that must learn to live together to sur vive, other gains are equally important, the gains of break ing down racial sterotypes and the gains of establishing a society that respects men as individuals and children of all races as part of the same family of man. “The final test confronting education is a test of whether it can d em onstrate the capacity for change and in novation. “When one quarter of all our students in the suburbs as well as in the cities con tinue to have reading prob lems. when children leave school unable to read and write and when 18 million adults cannot grasp the meaning of the morning newspaper, then we must change the way today's schools are teaching reading." Senator Kennedy advised the NEA members to use their power in the political process. "It must not be politically safe to vote against the needs of the nation's children.” AYOS Holds summer school Chairman. Oregon Black Caucus “There is a method in the seem ing m adness of our public schools. Ethicial re volutions are not made by those who speak and breathe in the third person. Exhor tations are not verbalized in the subjunctive. Statements of conscience are not con ditionally posed or indirectly stated. School is not mind les, idotic or inept. The bias against the use of the first person is a well-planted vac- ine against ethical infection. It is only one of many ways in which the school serves the flag which it flies and labors to defend those values and deceptions it exists to foster. Kozol’s alternative to the public school is the Free School concept, those schools that have taken students who were drop outs or were expelled from the public schools and have been suc cessful in teaching them. Kozol advocates financing the Free Schools through a voucher system, where the school would be paid by the state to educate the child. Kozol, a Harvard graduate and Rhodes Scholar, has lived for many years in the Black and Puerto Rican neighbor hoods of Boston. He was terminated from his teaching position in the Boston Public Schools for reading a [King ston Hughes poem to his all Black fourth grade class. Kozol's book about his ex periences in the gh etto school. Death at an Early Age, is now in it's 15th printing, is published in five languages, and has sold over a million copies in the United States. His latest book is “Free Schools". i t There are those among us who deem it necessary to look beyond Portland and beyond Oregon to determine what Portland Oregon are all about. It seems like a sound practice as long as we continue to examine from within also. The N ational Education Association met in Portland this week and one of the things that was addressed by this group is what the public schools are doing to children, all children. Everybody seems to agree that there should be quality education for all kids. Beyond the general controversy about educational methodology is a specific one about the edu cating of Black children. The question that is being raised speaks to the point of whether Black children are suffering psychologically in many hostile white environ ments. There is also the question of whether sitting next to white folks in subur ban schools will eradicate poverty, poor housing, lack of jobs and racism. Cer tainly, one must admit that sitting next to Black folks, i.e. Albina, does not neces sarily eradicate the same ills either. The issue then be comes whether sitting next to Black folks is better than sitting next to white folks? That question has to be answered by each of us indi vidually. For the middle class Black child, there is a possibility that the suburban schools may be more beneficial be cause they have the oppor tunity for those all important after school experiences. I’m using the term middle-class to encompass more than the annual salary element be cause that could be achieved by individuals working two jobs and not having time to share experiences with the youngsters. For the many millions of Blacks struggling to just survive economically, the suburban educational ex perience is questionable. It seems important to ex amine the merits of im proving the schools in the neighborhood where the chil dren live. This improvement does not mean just making it more like the suburban white school. Certainly one must acquire those skills that are presently necessary in order to function in today's society. However, one has to recog nize that suburban schools are not trying to increase the students' proficiency at serv ing the present system. It seems then that you're hexed if you do and hexed if you don’t. There is some hope however in strategy of improving the schools of the neighborhood where Black children live; and where Black parents could exercise some controls if they choose to do so. Each of us must think about this as some among us quietly encourage parents to sign away the lives of their kids in ex change for suburban schools. Improving the schools in Albina seems to be a more reasonable alternative than supporting the busing of Black children to suburbia so that they can learn how to rationalize the present sys tern of subjugation, especially when they are the ones being subjugated. The car doctor of Portland Specializing in brake adjustment and tune ups 329 N. E. Broadway at Union 7380 N C HANDY BV An Equal Opportunity Employer All used makes sold and repaired. I
