Despite the fact that we often paint things with a very wide brush, not taking into consideration there were extenuating circumstances around any given issue, the one fact that remains true in America is that, even in 1969 our educational system was failing and had been on a continuous trajectory downward for the better part of the 20th century.
The ability to read has been a constant throughout the entire argument over Education. Some factors that contributed hadn’t fully been arrived at yet in 1969, the date this discussion program took place. The Developmentally disabled was a new concept – so was Attention Deficit Disorder, Dyslexia and numerous other issues which were legitimate causes to hinder getting an adequate education.
But it doesn’t dismiss Americas lack of educational ranking in the world, which was ironic because America in the post-World War 2 period was at the forefront of considerable technological and medical advancements whose key ingredient could only have been a sophisticated educational system.
It was a puzzle; Johnny couldn’t read, but Johnny could put somebody on the Moon.
But perhaps it was starting to ask questions over the inequality of access to adequate education – how education, though accessible to all was not equal to all. And that this program, an episode from the long-running Telephone Call in Radio Program Night Call, asks if access to adequate education was really determined along socio-economic-racial lines than anything else.
In the 1950s and 1960s a major component of the Civil Rights Movement was about Schools and Education – Brown vs. Board Of Education was about unequal education standards and segregated schools, primarily in the South, but was in fact far reaching and a growing problem for cities in the North.
If anything, the issue of education has become worse – despite all the innovations and access. We’re at a point in time where fingers are still being pointed rather than solutions being arrived at – satisfactory education appears to be a further distant achievement than it ever was and money is playing a bigger role than ever in building those walls of separation.
In 1969 the issue was about an education based on race and economic access. Today it’s that and so much more.
To get an idea where we were in 1969, here is that episode of Night Call as it was broadcast live on the night of June 10, 1969.
