EDUCATION BEYOND POLITICS
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everybody's interest to hold on to standards.
Back in '69, less than a year after the teacher strikes, there was an
election among paraprofessionals in New York City. They were basically
welfare mothers, high school drop-outs who were hired to help teachers
in classrooms. At the time it was an anti-poverty program, and we com–
peted with another union to represent them.
At first, the majority of blacks and Hispanics (about ninety-five per–
cent) voted for us. But soon we had a problem, because each white
teacher now had a black or Hispanic paraprofessional in the classroom -
it looked like they each had a "maid." Because that was not a tolerable
situation, we negotiated to provide paraprofessionals with the ability to
get a college education. A committee of these paraprofessionals then
asked to get credits for life experience. I told them that those credits
would not count anywhere else. They bought it. Six thousand out of
ten thousand went to college, three thousand graduated and became
teachers by meeting regular standards, not special standards.
I think we ought to try to sell the idea that youngsters who are
building up large debts and remaining in college for six years are not
getting anything marketable out of it. If we look at other societies, it's
not a question of bringing some people into the university and keeping
others out. The issue is to look to alternative provisions for continuing
education that would add marketable educational value. This issue has to
be addressed by students, facu lty, and parents. It goes beyond the value of
maintaining standards. We need also to deal with all the audiences that
have an interest in what we're doing, and to show that what the other
side is proposing is destructive. We should appeal
to
all groups and not
just to the elite.
c.
Vann Woodward: I'd like to make another point. It was said that
women have come into society only recently. It seems to me that
women have been in society in the most important positions for thou–
sands of years, and they've just found that out. Is being a wife being out
of society?
Heather MacDonald: Obviously it's just a matter of semantics. What
you call society is a system of economics. Is it a society of economics or
is it domestic society?
Jean Eishtain: I think it's fair to say that women's contribu ti ons often
went unrecognized.
Digby
Baltzell: I feel as bad about it as you do . But walking around
the square all day with children on ropes, what kind of society is that?
