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SONYA RUDIKOFF
structure, especially "the white power structure," community control, par–
ticipatory democracy, the assumptions about education as a weapon of instant
social change, the ideas about giving power to the poor? Indeed, that whole
masquerade party of the middle and late '60's could be examined for useful
clues.
In
all the disturbed and disturbing events of these school wars, especially
in the most recent, the schools themselves tend to recede from scrutiny. What
sort of education is now being provided?
It
seems hard to find out, except for
the frequently publicized evidence that reading is becoming a lost art, and the
equally troubling sanction for bilingualism and for a misguided cultural
pluralism. Those who do not have children in the New York public schools
may see only the power struggles, and , during the 1968 strike, some found
the teachers' position as repellent as they found the confrontations exhilarat–
ing. Everybody behaved badly. Are things any better now?
It
would be ex–
tremely interesting to have the whole matter reviewed by a French educa–
tional administrator, perhaps even the chief of a school system in a former
French colony. Have the momentou conflagrations really established certain
principles, accelerated political and moral refinement in the way great events
in history do, or has the cost been too oppressive for what was achieved?
Sonya Rudikoff
