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but boards, administrators and commissions
are but the instruments to achieve our
goals; and they are not entitled to a higher
priority or a greater indulgence than the
students themselves. The system and those
who keeep its hierarchy are not our first
consideration. The preservation of the sys-
tem is but secondary to the achievement
and the opportunity for continuing im-
provement.
My objection, therefore, is against the
constitutional language of the majority,
which is rigid and detailed rather than
flexible and brief. My objection is directed
against the philosophy which would make
a matter of constitutional language that
which has heretofore been statutory, when
the entire thrust of this Convention is to
render statutory that which has in earlier
times been constitutional.
What the majority seeks is to calcify
constitutionally the system or the super-
structure, but improvement, expansion and
a seal for the excellence nowhere here finds
the same mantle of constitutional protec-
tion which the inhabitants of the system
would have for it.
Now, the attempt to reflect geographical
diversity in the composition of the Board
of Education is one which was discarded
sixty-three years ago. The suggestion
strangely is that the school board is to
serve the land area, rather than the
population.
Finally, in providing for constitutional
appointment of the superintendent of
schools, the majority is adopting language
which has served in statutory form for well
over five decades.
If there has ever been an attempt to
legislate where a few brief sentences would
suffice for constitutional purposes, the Ma-
jority Report is the most extreme example.
It is an attempt to enshrine the status quo,
when the entire history of public education
demonstrates that experimentation, inno-
vation and flexibility, have been the true
tools of progress.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Wheatley,
you have three and a half minutes remain-
ing to allot.
DELEGATE WHEATLEY: Mr. Chair-
man, I yield three minutes to Delegate
Kirkland.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Kirkland.
DELEGATE KIRKLAND: Mr. Chair-
man, may I ask a parliamentary inquiry,
please?
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THE CHAIRMAN: State the inquiry.
DELEGATE KIRKLAND: When is it
possible to amend this amendment, if it is?
THE CHAIRMAN: Submit an amend-
ment to the amendment?
DELEGATE KIRKLAND: May we?
THE CHAIRMAN: This will be in order
at the end of the controlled period.
DELEGATE KIRKLAND: Thank you,
sir.
Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to say
this: I just wonder how many of you
would be willing to live in a house without
a basic foundation.
I personally think that all the minority
report is trying to do is give education
some basis from which to grow.
I want you to ask yourself these two
questions, or keep them in mind and try
to answer them. I have some answers for
them. I would like to see if yours are the
same.
Can we afford to sacrifice educational
excellence by not providing for education a
basic foundation from which to grow and
expand in this constitution, I submit to you
we cannot, when you stop to consider that
most of the other states in the Union have
so provided for their educational areas a
basic structure.
The second question I would like to ask
you, and for you to consider in your de-
liberations, is whether we can afford to
leave educational excellence to the whims
of the educators and legislators to change
educators' directions whenever they want
to or see fit. These to me are very im-
portant factors in determining your
answers.
I do not believe that we can leave, and
I am an educator, and educators are just
as bad as anyone else when it conies to
trying to control the entire educational
field. Legislators many times must sacrifice
a great deal to support education. I think
you could remove them and take them off
the spot somewhat by providing a basic
structure.
I would like to go to Delegate Lord for
just a minute. He stated that he felt that
certain areas of ours were backward-look-
ing. Yet in turn he made a statement that
he wanted the traditional.
I would like to read to you just a second
here a statement by Mr. McGeorge Bundy,
when he was asked, "And what about pub-
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