The times-news. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1927-current, 1933-05-27
NEWSPAPERS OPINIONS
THE CASE OF THE SCHOOLS

Hickory people who have studied the new school
machinery act as it applies to our own local sys-
tenn certainly realize that unless our people rise
to the emergency and vote supplemental tax levy
with which to augment the state funds that Will
be apportioned to US, our school standards VIII De
lowered far more than they have been advanced
within the past decade.
As we think of the desperate situation faced by
superintendent R. w. Carver and the city school
board, the words of Governor Ehringhaus to the
new school commission as that body was being
sworn in Tuesday, sound very ironical.
81 am stalking the success or failure of my adj
mnstraton on the success or failure of this board
and am not afraid" the governor said, and con-
tinued: ''We've got to efficient eight months
school on the appropriation which has been made.
This job will demand courage economy, and tax
your ingenuity"
In the light of the necessity for employing
school teachers at average salary that Is less
than cooks in the highway prison camps receive
Mr. Ehringhaus must be relying upon faith to sup
ply financial deficiencies if he hopes to maintain
the efficiency of the school system,
One cannot repress the thought that if this same
degree of faith had been manifest with reference
to the remainder of the state government as rep
resented by the bureaus, boards and commissions
that have not been forced to take anything like
the drastic cuts which have been handed public
education, the plight of our schools would not be
so hopeless.
The Greensboro News, noting the news that pri-
vate schools are making preparations to take ad-
vantage of the fact that public school standards
will of necessity have to be lowered throughout
the state, inquiries pertinently:
zone question, to which no one expects an an
swer, does intrude. however, with a perSistency
which demands expression: How many of those
citizens. who individually or afilates of inter
ests and organizations tugged so nightly and sue
cessfully at the legislature for educational re-
trenchment. will be among those sending their chill
dren, at a cost which must be considerably higher
than the average tax bill, to private schools next
year? Or for that matter, already have them
there?
"a Janus-like liberalism, which preached educa-
tional leveling in the name of equality, chew
on that indefinitely
The Raleigh News & Observer, giving editorial
recognition to the fact that the Raleigh Times sis
beginning, if belatedy to see the light" asserts;
eve venture to think that its (The Times) disap-
pontment will multiply as the humbuggery of the
new school program is uncovered to actual opera
ton" Further, The News & Observer declares;
'The public schools of North Carolina are being
reduced to basis of uniform mediocrity."
The Record modestly refrains from any Il told
you so" taunts at this late day, but we cannot
withhold the comment that had the press of North
Carolina seen the handwriting and joined with this
newspaper when the legislature was formulating
its ruinous educational program as blind to shield
from public view the real intent of the maneuVer-
ing by which the special interests were taken care
of, enough pressure might have been brought to
defeat the little game of what has been described
as "the most powerful lobby that ever camped IN
Raleigh"
Newspapers of the state now are awakening to
the realization that the school system-partlcu-
larly the city schools-have been dealt blow
which will crumble their standards to the very
foundation The Durham Herald, the Ashevile
Citizen, and the Winston-Salem Journal have been
among those which saw the menace long before
the legislature completed its destructive work
People will more and more come to see that the
so-called eight months school provision purely
a ''leveling down" move, which viewed from the
heights to which scores of special charter districts
had risen through the initiative and support of
their several communities, is thoroughly disheart-
ening.-The Hickory Record.