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PARTISAN REVIEW
will help me and I
think
others better understand some of the effects of scale
of higher education by addressing Kurt Scholz on the issue ofjust how many
graduates of the Austrian secondary system go on to university in Austria,
or abroad, and what percentage do not go on to university. Is there a post–
secondary education for people moving into other walks of life? Does the
Austrian system have enough flexibility built into it to offer a reasonable
preparation for life and for careers with a non-university orientation?
Kurt Scholz:
Three attempts to answer your and others' questions, and
one short story. First: about 70 percent of our high school pupils go on to
university or to academies. But our schools are very selective. Pupils face
the problems in the school system, not that much in the university. This is
the reason why in Austria the universities still don't have anything like
entrance examinations, they simply rely on the school system, which in my
mind is a big compliment to that system. From the moment universities
were to start a conversation about entrance examinations all the alarm
clocks would be ringing. Second: I didn't quote Dewey twice by chance.
Of course he was wrong in some of his writings. Third: I never felt easy
about overall statistics of educational levels, and I never felt easy about
government agencies, universities, think tanks, or quick value judgements
about schools. These organizations are not so quick when it comes to help–
ing schools. What you often experience is a slap on the shoulder, "Go on.
You're marvelous. I won't help you." So school developments at the micro
level, what I.'ve seen in the U.S., sometimes are very impressive even under
very poor circumstances. I don't believe in the grand plan of educational
reform anymore. I think the efforts on the so-called micro level are the
future and must be supported.
Now the story: it's almost impossible to compare school standards, but
I would like to tell you an unofficial story, although I wonder how it could
remain unofficial in front of the camera. I have been in my office now for
over six years, which is traditional, and I'm the sixth president in this cen–
tury. In the last ten years I've seen six school chancellors in New York. In
my second year in office I got a call from the then-U.S. ambassador to
Austria, who told me she had a boy who's seven, and she wanted a school
for
him.
I said, "Your boy goes to the American school in Vienna." "Yes,
but I don't want to leave him in that school. I want
him
to go to an
Austrian school, but he doesn't speak any German," she told me. "It's no
problem, he will learn it," I said, "but you as an ambassador, are you
allowed to take your boy out of the American school and put
him
in an
Austrian school? You're not a millionaire, you're a multi-millionaire, you
could afford any school with all the dozens of brilliant teachers from the
university." I wasn't excited about this idea for reasons of security. But she
