European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - September 24, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 the stars and stripes tuesday september 24, 1985 David Broder . Is learning its lesson in upgrading education mrm no my As \\ot1ier school year be gins the unfashionable is becoming More and Giorc commonplace la s unfashionable in a thai the Public school picture is looking belter but More people arc saying Jusi  a a ample in a recent Gallup poll 71 per cent of the parcels of Public school pupils gave an a or b rating to the school their oldest child attends. Only 7 percent gave that school a d rating or a failing Grade. The Parent who presumably know to Riboul what s going on in the schools give them better grades than others in the Public. But the Overall Public opinion trend is also favourable Gallup reported in the annual Survey for Phi Delta Kappa Maga Ine. When judging schools in their own Community the Public awards three times As Many Superior grades a or b As inferior d or failing. At the beginning of the decade the ratio was just 2 to 1 positive. When judging the nation s schools As a whole the Public four years ago was just As Likely to rate them a Flop As a Success. Today there Are Only half As Many poor or failing grades As Superior grades. All of this suggests a growing Confidence in Public schools. If i were going to guess. 1 would say it is based in part on inc direct experience Many parents have had with toughened curricula longer school Days stricter testing and increased Homework for their kids. La is also based in part on the attention that officials in almost every state and most local communities have Given to the Quality of their schools and the people who teach in Ihm. Let us give the conservatives in the Reagan administration credit for their role in rightly emphasizing that education is primarily a state and local responsibility. Let us Praise even More the Gover nors then mayors the school boards and the local citizens who have stepped up to a acct that responsibility. One measure of that response per haps nut the most important one but a significant measure nonetheless is the pay Public schoolteachers receive in the special Back to schoo Issue of today s George will goop Torp Mil Cook at w. Hom6cbss, pr65s6pin rags we Pontoo 66t a Job education the National education association Magazine the Survey on teacher pay shows the National average reached almost $24,000 a year last year up More than 7 percent twice the inflation rate since 1983-84. Encouragingly some of the biggest percentage increases came in states that have Long lagged toward the Bottom of the National scale Alabama Arkansas Florida Georgia Idaho Kansas. North Carolina South Carolina Tennessee Texas ver Mont and West Virginia. Those states and others have recognized that Public education is the key to their future. My own sense from travelling the country this year and from listening to what Gover nors and state legislators have been laying to each other at their annual meetings is that the commitment to education is grow ing. Obviously it depends on the degree of Confidence the voters have in their school systems and the qualitative improvements the principals and teachers can achieve now that salaries and Public sup port arc increasing. The jury is still out on both questions but again i think the evidence is encouraging. You can find it in that Issue of nabs today s education that i mentioned. Five years ago Nea the biggest teachers Union in the country was so Busy beating the drum for increased Federal funding of education and the re election of Jimmy Carter that it hardly had time for Educa Tion. When i attended the annual Nea convention in los Angeles i remarked on the fact that it was a political gathering with stunningly Little time for the concerns most parents had about what was going on in the schools. That has changed. Although Congress has blocked some of Reagan s education funding cutbacks the Federal share of the Public school budgets has declined by one third from 9.2 percent to 6.2 percent since Reagan came into office. With the increased Reliance on state and local funding has come what is clearly t re Vived attention by teacher organization like Nea to the fundamentals of classroom Educa Tion. Page after Page of today s education detail not the Battles Over Federal edition policy but successful and innovative programs for education conducted by award winning teachers in places such As Garner  Al bion Mich. Miami okla. Murfreesboro Tenn. Richmond Utah seven mile Ohio and Kamuela Hawaii. That has to be a better and More productive emphasis. This Battle to revive and improve our Public schools still has a Long Way to go. But the Good news As this school year began was that teachers parents voters and politicians seem to have their priorities right. C Washington poll the fresh Blush of youth is lost to porno Rock Here is a question that might cause you to Blush. What causes you to Blush when considering the Campaign against porn Rock vulgar and obscene lyrics in Rock music consider that question and this one would you want to live in a world in which no one not even the Young blushed various parents groups Are putting wholesome pressure on recording companies radio stations and the makers of Rock videos to exercise discretion and self restraint. Approximately one third of the nation s radio stations have Rock formats and Many Are behaving responsibly. But the son of people who profit from aggressively marketing porn Rock have the morals of the marketplace and the marketplace is the place to gel their attention. In addition putting labels on records with vulgar lyrics is going to help parents exercise supervision. Rock music has become a plague of messages about sex Ual promiscuity bisexuality incest Sado masochism satanism drug use alcohol abuse and constantly misogyny. The lyrics regarding these things arc celebratory encouraging or at least desensitizing. By making these subjects the common currency of popular entertainment the lyrics Drain the subjects of their Power to Shock their Power to make people Blush. The concern is less that children will emulate the frenzied behaviour described in porn Rock than that they will succumb to the lassitude of the demoralized literally thude Morali cd. As people become older they become less Given to blushing. This is in part because they lose that Sweet softness of Youthful character that is called inno Cence and Mikics one s sensibilities subject to Shock. Peo ple Blush for various reasons. Sometimes it is because we suddenly have embarrassing attention called to ourselves. Sometimes we Blush when utterly alone when we think of something about ourselves that is shaming such As the fact that almost nothing causes us to Blush. Often people Blush because they Are exposed to some thing that should be private or is shameful. This May be an endangered species of blushing thanks to omnipresent vulgarities like porn Rock making even the vilest things somehow banal. Walter Berns the political philosopher asks what if contrary to Freud and much conventional Wisdom shame is natural to Man and  is acquired if so the acquisition of  through the shedding of hang  is an important political event. There is a connection Between self restraint and shame. An individual incapable of shame and embarrassment is probably incapable of the governance of the self. A Public incapable of shame and embarrassment about Public vulgarity is unsuited to self government. There is an upward Ratchet effect in the coarsening of populations. Today s 12-year-Olds can not enjoy can hardly sit still for the kind of 1950s westerns that enthralled their fathers. Today s 12-year-Olds Are so addicted that is not too Strong a word to the slam bang nonstop Roar of Steven Spielberg movies their attention is not held by say John Wayne in she wore a yellow  the social atmosphere is heavily dosed with sexuality from the Selling of Blue jeans to the entertaining of prime time television audiences. Thus it is perhaps reasonable to have feelings of fatalism. Perhaps societies like Rivers run naturally downhill. Perhaps the coarsening of a Public it irreversible especially when the coat sconing concerns a pow Erful and pleasurable appetite such As sex. But it is demonstrably not True that societies can not move away from coarseness toward delicacy of feeling. In the first half of the 18th Century the Dawn of the Aje of reason a form of English merriment on Guy Faw Kaffl nights was to bum an effigy of the Pope. The belly of the effigy was filled with cats whose howls of agony in the flames were supposed to represent the voice of the Devil emanating from the Catholic Church. That kind of cruelty to animals is by today s Stan Dards obscene. Sensibilities can change for the better. So fatalism is wrong and the porn Rock fight is Worth fighting. Mass culture and especially music matters. Nothing is More striking to a Young Parent than the pull of popular culture on even 3 and 4-Ycar-Olds. And perhaps Good music can make Good values More Adhe Sive to children. People can reasonably argue about what is the second finest work of music a Mozart concerto a Beethoven symphony this or that Bach tune. But everyone knows that the Acme of the Art of music is the currently popu Lar song that says put me in coach i m ready to play. Look at me i can be Center  the Republic has a fighting Chance As Long As the popularity of porn Rock can be rivalled by the popularity of its moral oppo site baseball Rock. C Washington Post