ustxtxb_obs_1983_10_14_50_00022-00000_000.pdf

OPEN NI ON DAY SATURDAY I 0 6 AND OPEN SI ‘N DAY I 0 WATSON & COMPANY BOOKS Life Insurance and Annuities Martin Elfant, CLU 4223 Richmond, Suite 213, Houston, TX 77027 Sw ANLife DIALOGUE Huck says no to Perot As chairperson of the Huckleberry Finn Committee for Curricula Improvement, I must protest Ross Perot’s suggestion that the school children of Texas oneup the school children of Japan and Europe by attending classes year round. Mothers, Sunday school superintendents and snooty aunts may applaud Mr. Perot’s dastardly appeal to remove young citizens from backyards, back alleys, apple trees, basements, toy closets, air conditioned TV rooms, swimming pools, mud holes and summer recreation programs, and stick them in sticky summer classrooms. Huck, Tom, Jim, Becky and even Indian Joe would throw up at the idea. I wouldn’t be surprised if Socrates and Pascal didn’t join them. Books and desks and boring old ladies in flowered dresses have their place in the But so do worms, creeks, bikes, bamboo thickets and vacant lots. You can’t tell me a two-year old feedlot steer knows quite as much about life as an eight-year-old longhorn out kicking around the plains, or a salmon in a Seattle hatchery as much as one in Reveley Memorial Services Simple Funerals Austin Information: 441-7500 Good books in every field JENKINS PUBLISHING CO. The Pemberton Press John H. Jenkins, Publisher Box 2085 010 Austin 78768 the Pacific, or a hatchery chick as much as its barnyard cousin. The main thing about hatchery and feed lot fauna is they’re a lot easier to box, ship and generally control. Is this really what we want for kids? I suspect people like Ross Perot think so. And maybe he’s right. If they lock you up in classrooms from the age of four on up, you’re not going to miss the outdoors much when you spend the rest of your life boxed up in a factory or office. Just feed ’em a little Muzak, Ross, it makes the employees set better. I have a hard time believing schools that can’t do the job in nine months should be given the rest of the year to inflict the same mediocre system on innocent little minds. It’s kind of like thinking if two-year sentence won’t “cure” a pick pocket, give him 50 years. Sorry, Ross, but I can’t forget that lazy slobs like me learned a lot more lying around the house all summer reading 1/ Apparently Governor Mark White is having some difficulty reining in dynamo H. Ross Perot, who has been saying it may be six or eight months before his Select Committee on Public Education issues its final report. With House Speaker Gib Lewis saying he thinks a special session should be held in May or June of 1984, White has appealed to Lieutenant Governor Hobby to help him convince Perot to come up with some kind of report soon so that a special session could be called by the end of this year. Teachers associations and community organizations have let it be known to the governor that they expect him to make good on his promises of a teacher pay raise and education equalization aid, and they expect this soon. At the same time, the highway lobbyists have issued a report that claims that the current condition of our roads is a threat to the safety of all drivers in Texas. This is a new tack in their continuing campaign for increased gasoline taxes in a special library books we picked out ourselves than in Miss Whosits 7th grade health class. And I remember all those times in elementary school I got in trouble for the heinous crime of “reading ahead,” i.e., being halfway through the book while the teacher forced the rest of the class to plod through chapters two and three at the speed of ox-drawn wagons. If I hadn’t had the summer to make up for what the educators were doing to me the rest of the year, I’d probably be sorting mail instead of writing crabby letters to the editor. Perot’s ideas aren’t all bad of course, especially the one that “anything that interferes with learning has to be moved off the campus.” That would take care of a lot of school board members and football coaches charged with teaching history or government. But in that case, how would his committee get on campus in the first place to continue its “investigations” of the system? Mary Lenz, 1101 Pacific, Dallas Tx. session to fund more highway construction and repair. Meanwhile, the special task force commissioned to investigate workers’ compensation for farmworkers holds its final hearings in Austin on October 13-14 and will soon thereafter be ready to recommend legislation on the issue for a special session. What really has White and other incumbents worried, however, is the possibility that a special session in raised to fund teachers and highways would be followed too closely by the 1984 elections. Anything later than a late December 1983 date for a special session would, they fear, produce unkind thoughts among the electorate about those sitting in office. POLITICAL INTELLIGENCE 22 OCTOBER 14, 1983