Education: The Cost of Quality

Otto and Mary Krai, who live on a farm near Hastings, Minn., have one main goal in life: they want to educate their son. So last year they took seven-year-old Tommy out of Lakeland-Afton public school after watching him vegetate on a soda-pop diet of “life-adjustment” courses. Mary Krai is a former high school teacher; her 35-year-old husband is a professional mathematician. The Krals decided to school their bright but not prodigious boy at home (TIME, March 2). Tommy’s six-or-seven-hours-a-day curriculum: arithmetic, grammar, German, geography, composition, spelling, mythology, music, poetry and chess. Tommy also reads books usually offered to 13-year-olds.

The Krals have been in and out of Minnesota’s courts ever since, defending themselves against charges of violating the state’s compulsory school-attendance law. Fortnight ago the case came up before Municipal Judge Searle Sandeen of Stillwater, who listened to four University of Minnesota scholars testify that Tommy’s studies do indeed meet the legal requirements of private-school instruction and should be so recognized. English Professor Huntington Brown called Tommy’s curriculum “a respectable, oldfashioned, academic program,” said he would prefer it to the public schools’ for his own children. History Professor David Noble called Tommy’s knowledge of history “unique, especially in view of the lack of history teaching in public schools.” Electrical Engineering Professor Henry Hartig praised “the discipline and memorizing” that Tommy’s instruction involves compared with the public schools’ tendency “to make things fun at whatever expense.”

But testimony of school officials against the Krals was decisive. They said nothing about the quality of either public-school teaching or Tommy’s home instruction. They simply attested to Tommy’s absence from school and recited the truancy law. Judge Sandeen’s ruling: 30 days in jail (subject to appeal) for the Krals.

Last week Tommy’s parents, free on bond, appealed the case to the Washington County district court. As a last resort, they may send Tommy to a private school in St. Paul 25 miles away, but never back to public school (“It would set him back ten years”). Though their rebellion has cost them $1,000 so far, the Krals aim to establish their rights in a legal battle straight to the top. “We may have to mortgage our home,” says Mary Krai. “But if it takes every penny, we will fight.”