Public Schools: The Enemy Within

“An empty seat is your vote for better schools,” cried the leaders of New York City’s recent school boycott. Nonsense, reported President John H. Fischer of Columbia University’s Teachers College, in a speech last week before the American Association of School Administrators. Boycott promoters, Fischer declared, undermine “the child’s respect for the very school which is his surest hope of attaining equal opportunity.” Said he: “With friends like this, neither education nor the civil rights movement needs to look for enemies.”