Education: Thoroughbreds and Scrubs

Residents of Oklahoma City, whose schools are ugly and overcrowded, several of whose school officials are in prison or under indictment (TIME, Dec. 5), last fortnight suffered even worse disgrace—loss of local pride. In 84-point type the Oklahoma City Times admitted: FORT WORTH SHAMES OKLAHOMA CITY.

While “embezzlement, bribery and politics” have made “a shambles of Oklahoma City’s school system,” grumbled the Times, schools in comparable Fort Worth are “an educational fairyland.” The paper proceeded to rub it in with two pages of photographs and text picturing Fort Worth’s Fairyland.

Pointing out that to run its inferior schools Oklahoma City spends $429,000 a year more than Fort Worth, the Times sought to bestir citizens to long-overdue school reforms, cried: “It costs no more to raise a thoroughbred than it does to raise a scrub.”