Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, June 21, 1993                   TAG: 9306280266
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BETTY G. PRICE
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

ARE SCHOOLS ASYLUMS RUN BY INMATES?

The public-school educational establishment needs to come to grips with the fact that, painful though it may be, it is herding its countrymen down the road toward third-world classification, just as fast as it can push. We are bent on self-destruction!

There is nothing that is going to turn around this country's education system until we first institute overall discipline in our classrooms and let teachers teach, principals police and patrol the halls, and secretaries do the infernal paperwork. Then let the chips fall where they may. If children do not bring in homework, perform up to their abilities in the classroom and behave and not create disturbances, then out they go to the parent or parents who have been called from job or home to handle their responsibility.

Teachers and principals have been dogged unreasonably for so long by eager, legal-beagles rushing to the scene to sue or suspend an authoritarian for picayunish tripe that now schools, in many instances, are asylums run by the inmates.

Demanding and challenging curricula needs to be established and put into place, and when requirements are not met, no passing grade and no advancement. Simple. We must bring our children up to standard instead of continually spiraling down toward the lowest common denominator: mediocrity.

Since when is an elementary child able to set "goals" for himself? How can one write stories and "invent" spelling to the accolades of proud bystanders, yet leave the graduation stage with a diploma in hand that he cannot read, a sensible, coherent paper he cannot write, full of words he cannot spell, and speaking in a grammar (if one dares call it that) that leaves a language lover shivering with distaste and distress: "I done a paper on AIDS, but I don't got time to go to those liberries to look up all those 'stistics. Yuh know! OK?"

Most of us who grew up during the Depression learned to work and study hard, appreciate opportunities, become good citizens, honest business leaders and careful spenders. Our hearts break as we helplessly witness the deterioration of the very fibers that wove this country into the most coveted of all nations.

Often, parents are only as good, successful, serious or capable as is the school system that educated them. Therefore, do not totally blame parents for ignorant, misbehaving, incorrigible brats who bring stark terror to the lives of dedicated teachers - teachers who are not permitted to demand control of the classroom.

Schools need to recognize, once and for all, that they are not the guardians, the truant officers, the substitute baby sitter, the surrogate granny. They are the educators who need to teach our children the mother tongue, the difference between arithmetic and mathematics, and how to reason and communicate in acceptable, preferred English! And, that is just for starters. How to get along with one's peers and fit into society is the omega of education, not the alpha of it!

If solid, effective, challenging and caring teaching go on, children can override inept parents. This is our only hope. American families are so fragmented, the social system so insecure, and the future seemingly so uncertain that if schools do not regroup - and fast!- America does not stand a prayer. Oops! Delete "prayer." America does not stand a chance.

(Oh, Lord, privately, I pray I'm wrong!)

\ AUTHOR Betty G. Price has a masters degree in linguistics and is director of Professional Reading Services in Roanoke.