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amass or
covssuoa PARRIS sauna
'ro
panama EDUCATION ASSOCIATION
MIAMI asses, FLORIDA
APRIL 27. 1962
(FOR RELEASE ama 8:00 rm.)
I am grateful that you have afforded me this opportunity of
visiting with you and discussing with you some of the factors affect-
ing education in Florida as we view then from the Capitol.
Although during the course of the year I have the opportunity
to see and visit with many of you on matters affecting your particular
areas and individual schools, I wish that we might have more frequent
opportunities to meet in the relationship which exists here tonight --
as partners working for the progress of education in our state;
partners in a quest for quality.
There seems to be a trend -- and to me it is an slamming
one -- which in the mind of the people of Florida is casting us (you,
the educators of Florida on the one hand, and those of us in government
on the other) as protagsnists in some bitter battle over dollars or
as opponents in a continuing debate over the quality of our
educational system.
We cannot -- indeed we must not -~ allow such an appearance
to become reality. I have been disturbed in recent weeks by the great
volume of publicity given to some statistical Jousting which has
occurred between educators, legislators and administrators. When we
appear before the public in heated dispute over whether or not our
educational expenditures rank us hath or sixth among the states we
are doing a disservice to the principles and objectives for which we
should be irrevocably united and, more important, we are doing a
disservice to the future of Florida which lies in the hands of those
million and eighty thousand young people who have been entrusted to
your tutelage.
I do not suggest by these remarks that you should stand mute
on a subject about which you are the best informed in the state. I
do suggest that you. and we, must actively seek to find new and
better ways to coordinate our interests and our efforts that a program
beneficial to Florida education may grow with broad and strong support
from both legislative and executive branches of government.
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If ever a time cried out for efforts to be unified, it is
this time. If ever an opportunity existed for a state to assume
leadership in the education of its young citizens, it exists for this
state at this time. Florida, with its rapid growth surging it to
ninth largest among the states, has experienced an inmigraticn of
parents and students who have brought with them to Florida the
experiences and expectations which parents across the nation have for
their schools. Similarly, our teachers, drawn from nearly every state,
grant to Florida the benefits of a cross section of American educa-
tional experience and the ideas gained from knowledge of approaches
to parallel problems to those we face as they are applied in dozens
of our sister states.
Education in our nation -- reflecting our times -- is in
torment. Unprecedented problems of quantity and quality call for
unprecedented solutions. In 1961, 35.3 million boys and girls were
registered in the public elementary and secondary schools of America.
Their education was handicapped by a shortage of almost 200 thousand
teachers and thousands of classrooms. To compound this national
dilemma, about 11 per cent of the teachers of the nation leave their
profession each year (and here I might note, and proudly so, that
Florida ranks below the national average.)
The space age -- in which Florida plays such a dominant
role -- has raised many questions concerning the conduct and the
quality of our educational system. In the sciences new emphasis and
new methods of instruction have blossomed forth the success of
which for Florida was reflected recently when Florida students ranked
first and fourth among the first five winners in the annual science
talent program in Washington. But even as the interest in science
has grown and the emphasis on technology has increased in our schools,
there has grown space a concern, which I share, lest we fail to give
broader education in the humanities and social sciences as much
priority in the schools as the exploration of outer space.
You know far better than I -- and are far more critical than
I -- or the defects which exist in a system which while pricing itself
on a democratic character fails to educate youngsters to their fullest
capacity. That three of every 10 boys and four of every 10 girls in
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the upper fourth of our high school graduates do not enter college
is a national tragedy whose full preportions we have yet to comprehend.
And then,tco, it is obvious that the floodtides of science,
social change and world upheaval have had little perceptible effect
on the American school system. With a few notable and laudable
exceptions -- some here in Florida -- at the age of six youngsters
begin an educational march that moves them forward uniformly year
after year with little distinction as to differences of ability. In
near identical classrooms our children sit in uniform groups of 25 to
35. They receive their lessons from the same teacher regardless of
her strengths or weaknesses. With equal disregard for varying
abilities each teacher receives essentially the same salary as all
others in the school. The contacts of the teacher with others in
the teaching profession are limited, for although he or she may serve
an eight-hour day at school it is rare to have an opportunity for
observing other instructors in action.
A part -- too great a part -- of the teacher's day is wasted
on non-professional or clerical chores. The creative opportunities
of the teacher are confined to a single room and a single class, the
boundaries of which can hide ability as well as inability from the
gaze of supervisors.
I cite this drab picture because I hope it will emphasize to
you the awareness which we feel for the necessity of working closely
with you to assure that elementary and secondary instruction slips
no further toward a second-class status in the world of education.
You are the foundation ~- the bedrock and the keystone -- upon which
each child will build and upon which rests the future of us all.
I have read with great interest your program action
committee report on priority items and was delighted to see how many
aspirations for education we share. You are conscious, of course, of
my responsibility to lay before the Legislature a balanced program
which meets to the highest degree possible within existing and
anticipated resources the needs of the citizens of Florida in every
area of concern, and neither those total needs nor those total
resources are yet known. I am anxious to make some of the progress
h
in the field of public school education that we have been making in
the field of higher education. Parenthetically, let me say that in
that field, far though we may be from ideal standards, we have made
a greater advance in 18 months in professional salaries than has
previously been made in any 10 year period -- and we are not yet
finished.
As we approach the time of the Legislature I will welcome
your advice and consultation and be grateful for an opportunity to
benefit from the information you develop in support of your requests
for action and assistance from your state government. It has already
been my pleasure to consult with representative groups, and each
contact increases my awareness of our problems and elevates my goals.
As we reach conclusions on dollar problems, we must also
tackle others, and I would like to review in capsule form some of the
concepts I hold on Florida education which guide my decisions.
First, I recognise that there exists an interdependency of
Florida's economy and Florida's educational system. We know that
education is as important an investment as exists within our state
and that a system of true educational quality -- from the elementary
school through the post-graduate levels of the universities -- is
demanded by the economy of the new Florida. Conversely, the expanding
economy -- the increasing per capita income of our state -- will
enable more dollars to be dedicated to the support of education.
Then, I believe firmly, as I think most of you do, that we
must be firm in our determination to make a maximum local effort to
support our schools. Not alone to protect ourselves from "outside
interference," with all that term implies, as to assure that we, at
the state and local levels and in the classroom, maintain our
initiative and independence. It should be a matter of pride to all
of us that since 1955 total assessed valuations of preperty in our
counties has increased 173 per cent.
I have spoken in several talks of late of the future I
foresee for year-round operation of our schools. Let me make it
abundantly clear that my enthusiasm in this regard stems not primarily
from thoughts of acceleration of the learning process or of economy in
operation, but from the conviction that such a system will better
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enable us to develop our human resources our greatest resources.
That some 50 per cent of our students are now returning to the
schoolhouse and classroom during the summer months to participate in
academic or summer enrichment programs is evidence of the need to know
which I believe characterizes the young people of Florida in these
exciting times. I can foresee a deepening and a broadening of the
opportunities in education we offer our young stemming from year
round operations, but I know that for any such concept to be success-
ful it must be blessed with your backing. I urge you to look with us
to the future that we may today plan for tomorrow's action.
The increased professionalisation of teachers deserves
strong support from government and from citizens generally. We have
a responsibility to attract greater numbers of our able young people
to teaching as a profession. Raving attracted them, we must develop
in our colleges and universities, challenging and realistic programs
or teacher education. we must then do those things that will retain
and reward the teacher of demonstrated ability. Some of our concerns
here relate to the matter or income and seasonal security, and to the
reception of the teacher in the community so a professional.
Except in an emergency we should no more expect a teacher to
have to "double" as secretary, clerk and Janitor than we would expect
our physician to serve as nurse, technician and orderly. We must save
the teacher's energies for the performance of professional duties and
responsibilities and make provision for adequate supporting personnel.
There must, as you have pointed out, be developed more
acceptable and more effective evaluative instruments and procedures
to measure competence. Just as I respect the opposition which has
been raised within this organization to the current merit plan, I hepe
that you will recognize the need for continuing and increasing
insistence upon minimum competency coupled with intensive efforts to
encourage and reward the attainment of maximum competence. Toward
this and those instruments which do not differentiate properly must
not be used. for the resultant unfair evaluations will destroy con-
Pldence not only in the particular means at hand, but in the concept
itself.
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we must, and we do, look to the teaching profession, working
through its professional associations, for leadership in developing
those facets of the program for education in Florida which will
result in the professionalization of teaching to the end that the
image of the teaching as a profession will be held up and looked up
to by our citizens as a proven fact.
I know that it must at times seem to you that in our head-
long rush into this era of Florida's industrial and technological
advances and in the great weight we are placing upon the advancement
of our system of higher education, that you, your problems, your needs
and your accomplish-ants are standing in shadow, forgotten for the
moment by the budgeteers and policy makers.
This is not so - and it would not be so if for no other
reason than that you have an able advocate in the person of Super-
intendent Bailey constantly working in your behalf at the Cabinet
level of our gOVernment. But it is not so because we all are aware
of your importance. A review of the budget will show that education,
with state expenditures of $h07,000,000 in 1958-59, was easily, as it
should be, the most expensive function of Florida government. It was
30.7 per cent of the total, almost as much as highways, health,
hospitals, and welfare put together.
Let me close with this one caution: the quality -- the
excellence -- we seek is not free neither can it be bought -- not
for one, two or two hundred million. The excellence we seek will
grow from the contagious desire which is manifested here tonight. The
quality we attain will be a by-product of a positive attitude on the
part of those who teach, the inspiration they feel and the inspiration
they impart to their students. It will result from a world-view
rather than a subject View, from freedom from methodology and from
the constant awareness by us all that the aim of education is to make
men wise -- a goal toward which we move in harmony and partnership.
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