Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1957-12-05
New-conserv0fives?
Spotlight Turns
On School Group
By Dorothy WaIeski
Staff Reporter

Timely reading for Montgomery residents is
an article in last Mays issue of The Nations
Schools "Neo-C Conservatives are the March
With Sound Education as Battle Cry"
The author Robert A. Skate of the National
Education Association makes interesting
predictions in light of last weeks meeting of the
Montgomery Conservative Club at which Mort
rner Smith executive secretary of the Council of
Basic Education, spoke on Planned Mediocracy
in Our Schools"
Watch out for citizens groups using the
words basic education in their titles" warns
Skate.
with neoconservative movement in edu
cation afoot it will be increasingly difficult
to appraise the activities of newly-forned citizens
groups"
Montgomery Conservatives organized two
months before the article was published state in
their definition of principles the local level
that they flavor curricula that emphasize the
basic disciplines and are opposed to so-called
progressive education"
Splinter Groups
There is nothing wrong per Sc with basic
education" says Skate. He points out that the
files of MEAS Defense, Commission contain many
accounts of splinter citizens groups started by
"politicallymnded individuals with school board
aspirations or with unsubstantated grievances"
who use 'basc education" as their ralying cry
why do such movements begin in good school
systems?" asks the NEA official He then traces
the early development of such movements and
how they are operating today.
Severe criticism of public schools began in
this country at the close of World War II. Some
of the charges have been: failing to teach the
fundamentals, unfolding Deweys progressivism,
advocating socialism, defending Communists, ig-
noring moral and spiritual values, fostering anti
intellectualisIn'
Comparing these with the principles Of the
Montgomery Conservatives, we find that this
group believes that the most important concern
of the local community is the education of its
youth"
Arguments Cited
They oppose attempts to indoctrinate our
youth in moral relatvism welfarsm, one-world-
ism, disrespect for Constitutional government and
other tenets of the Liberal orthodoxy" They want
to encourage respect and devotion for traditional
American institutions and values"
In the early 1950s, the movement crystallized
in national attempt to shake the confidence of
the American public in its schools accuses
Skate, by such groups as the National Council
for American Education, the Conference of Amer.
lean Small Business Organizations and the $50
called" Friends of the Public Schools.
After the climax in 1852 of the Congressional
Investigations into alleged subversive influences
in the educational process Skate says that pub
lie opinion less receptive to extremist propa-
ganda.
But during this period of extreme criticism,
Skate points out that there were repeated out
bursts from critics who identified themselves with
the scholarly point of view.
However, they were not very successful, he
claimed, in attracting many Liberal Arts profess
sors to their ranks
Last weeks speaker, Smith, advocated that
the Liberal Arts people should try to take the
leadership in education away from the "profes-
sonal educators"
Smith was named by Skate as one of the crit
les of public schools during this period He was
linked as one of the founders of the Council of
Basic Education with Arthur E. Bestor, Jr. pro-
lessor of history at the University of Illinois
BestOr is Quoted
ABOUT Bestors writings attacking the public
schools Skate says they biased on a false
nchotomy: Educatonists, are, for the most part
depicted as an inferior group of educators who
have obtained political hold on the educational
structure and debased education in this country:
the professors in liberal arts colleges on the other
hand are portrayed as the intellectually superior
group, the guardian of scholarship who are
flouted by the educationists"
Skate goes on to give the history of the
council Its statement of purpose and its plan of
action.
One of the latter is 'to arrange upon request
of school boards, and other responsible groups.
tor school surveys to be made by properly quail
hed specialists in various subjects of instruction"
About this, Skate says, IF CHE is going to
use positive approach it will have to do
great deal of leg work to keep from algning
itself with local dissident groups whose motives
may be suspect"
III 1t undertakes to investigate local COM
plants and attempts to use its subject matter
experts, presumably liberal arts specialists, to
evaluate school system, the educational fur is
going to fly"
Skai1e leaves no doubt that he feels that the
NEA is the Councils primary target He coun-
terattacks in his final warning that professional
educators will be watching every step the Council
takes"
For All Motorists
No\u IneI,r9n~@ I