Part Eight: Grand Jury Presentment of "Problems in Higher Education"
Portions of the Presentment of the Grand Jury for the Eleventh Judicial District of Iowa follow, with words added for clarification in brackets. Supplemental ideas are italicized.
Most Important Educational Change Needed
1. Regents' policy changes which will sufficiently define and implement the elimination of moral pollution by faculty and paid speakers will by all suitable means encourage "moral… improvement" (Constitution of the State of Iowa, Article IX, 2nd School… Sec. 3).
2. There is a need for increased emphasis on the American ideal at all levels of education. We believe this ideal needs to be a continuing emphasis from kindergarten through maturity. Our revolutionary concepts are a most exciting and important subject.
It seems rather clear that the nerve center for society, the power for social revolution, is inherent in the adult electorate rather than in the schools, and that the radical missionaries should be sent to the electorate, not to the captive audience of youthful minds.
The idea… that the people of this land should not be trusted with the complexities of education is absurd. The greatness of America places the educational and political emphasis under the control of the people. This approach is much safer than providing a haven [tenure guarantees] for… teachers.
Our soldiers have been dying for this ideal. Education, as never before, should clearly teach it. Even in imperfection, it has achieved greatness for Americans unparalleled in history. Every individual is important, and the mature public make the decisions over government--something that atheistic, humanist-based governments do not and cannot provide.
Right of Taxpayers to Control Education Challenged
Who has academic freedom, the parent/taxpayer or the teacher? Is the parent, who once had academic freedom, now to be deprived because a teacher was hired? Most agree that anyone can teach what he pleases on his own, but must not [take advantage of his own] academic freedom by robbing taxpayers of their freedom to direct public education in the public's interest, based upon the learning process and established knowledge.
Problems Compound If Not Corrected
No single level of education should be considered in a vacuum… But it is going on! The students of colleges are, after all, the graduates of American elementary and secondary schools. We, the adults and teachers of today, are the graduates of high schools, colleges, and universities in the recent past. Not only are various levels of American education interrelated, but the problems also feed back upon one another to produce a complex of relationships that affect us all and must be handled wisely. In professions such as medicine or architecture, failures soon become apparent and are corrected. A faulty experiment impacting the socio/political mindset may not be detected for two or three generations, when it is too late to reverse and avoid disaster.
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