The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1944-06-16

Washington, d. G.
Recently, the fate of the Churchill
government hung on school teach
ers' salaries. The opposition threat
ened to defeat a government-spol-
sored measure because 1t didn't pro-
vide for making women teachers
salaries equal to mems. The opposi-
ton finally yielded for the sake Of
harmony but the issue is not dead.
Today a report outlining what are
described as Revolutionary changes
to raise the social status of teachers
in Great Britain and make their
profession attractive" is before Par
Lament.
Any informed Englishman admits
that the American public school sys-
tenn offers far more to the general
public than the British system. AT
the same time, our own school
system faces one of the greatest
crises in its history and, likewise,
some Of the greatest changes. One
simple reason for the crisis can be
stated in a sentence: American
schools have lost 200, 900 competent,
well-prepared teachers since Pearl
Harbor.
Selective service and voluntary
enlistment have made heavy draft
on the men, and you have no idea
how many WACs and WAVES, Ma
rines and SPARS stepped out Of the
schoolroom into their natty uni
forms.
OF course, high wages in industry
lured many teacher from the three
Rs, too. And why not? The aver
age teachers salary is only about
81 $50 year.
This year $4,000 teachers were
paid less than $3.50 a year. That
wouldn't buy Stacks and "old fash
ioneds" for a new-fashioned lady
war-worker.
Two hundred fifty-four thousand
teachers received under hundred
dollars a month. My figures are
from the Journal Of the National
Education association.
ALREADY many classrooms have
been closed" says this periodical,
land thousands Of others are so
overcrowded that effective teach
ing is impossible" II these trends
continue much longer, the magazine
predicts, education will be cut off
at its source right at a time when
it has a tremendous job ahead re-
educating a generation which has
been subjected to highly abnormal
surroundings and educating another
which will have to help recreate a
normal, If a somewhat altered,
world.
Higher Salaries Needed
In this country, as in England,
the first step in the solution Of the
problem is higher salaries, the next
is better working conditions, the
third is an active campaign to at
tract young people to the profess
sion.
But before these steps are accom-
plished, an interim effort is neces-
sary, and it has already begun
an organized effort urging capable
high school seniors to prepare for
the teaching profession.
Many state groups have be-
gun campaigns Of various kinds,
and the National Education associ-
alton, itself, has appropriated $500
for this purpose. Hundreds Of thou
sands of pamphlets and leaflets
have been prepared and distributed.
Realizing that those attractive post
ers of girls in uniforms had a lot
to do with recruiting women for the
armed services, one of the artists
who helped lure private, sergeant
or lieutenant Smith out of the school
house, has been hired to try to lure
her back when the war is over, or
attract her young civilian sister.
I haven't seen one of these posters
yet, but I hope they do the job, for
the task ahead for the teacher and
the opportunities that the profess
sion will offer are both bound to
expand tremendously due to the
situation which will follow the war.
This will spring from two causes.
The first is a part Of universal
demand which is already being
heard abroad as well as at home,
when any group, formal or informal,
gets together to talk over postwar
conditions. Plenty of ridicule is
hurled by the so-called hard-headed
citizens at the postwar planners
whose name is legion. But congress
has already learned that there is
one brass-tacks phase of war-plan-
ming that can't be labelled as
amiable day-dreaming and ignored.
That is exemplified In the so-called