Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, July 23, 1990 TAG: 9007230300
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A/6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAVID R. BOBBITT
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
We were invited to come to Washington to receive our awards from President Bush; however, the White House informed us when we arrived on June 17 that the president was otherwise engaged with South African President de Klerk. We scholars are not stupid, and we quickly discovered that de Klerk had moved his visit because of its proximity to Nelson Mandela's visit to the United States. Still, President Bush was incapable of attending the awards ceremony to which he had invited us.
We wanted America to know our annoyance that the "education president" has no use for academic achievement. After a week of being told by the secretaries of energy and education and sundry other officials that we are tomorrow's hope for solving the problems of poverty, totalitarianism, pollution and the deficit, many of us developed a very cynical opinion of this presidential administration, which attempts to solve problems in education by fiat, by the often-quoted Goals for Education developed at the Education Summit in Charlottesville.
Goals are important, but they are only part of a comprehensive plan for our society. The many problems faced by our nation and our world must be solved by all peoples together, with competent leadership and with pragmaticism balancing idealism. The United States will be a poor, backward nation in the future if education is not given a priority today.
Presidential Scholars are among that fortunate group of young people whose achievement is reinforced by the recognition of family, teachers, and peers. Recognition encourages future achievement, in a self-continuing cycle. If Bush feels such disdain for these people who generally do receive recognition, then what does he feel for the underachieving students in our society who need to see a way out of a world of drugs, violence, teen-age pregnancy and economic desperation?
Each scholar designated a teacher who was most influential to his or her development. Teachers are the soldiers on the front lines; they need encouragement as much as the students whom they are shaping, yet they were also rudely snubbed by the president.
There is no way to determine from where the Nobel laureates, leaders and Presidential Scholars of future generations will come. (My great-grandfather was a sharecropper.) So much rises and falls on leadership, and "Education President" should be a title exhibited in actions, not in rhetoric. Indeed, we scholars shall be some of tomorrow's leaders, but we shall also be writing the history books, holding the past justly accountable for what it did wrongly or did not do.
Bush should invite the scholars, their families and their teachers back to Washington to apologize for his incredible rudeness. More importantly, he should make a real commitment to the education of this nation's young people; only through the avenues of human thought and exploration can we find workable solutions for today's and tomorrow's problems.
Secretary of Energy James Watkins said that we scholars are some of President Bush's 1,000 points of light. My calculations suggest we are more than 14 percent of them. Quite a glare to ignore.
by CNB