The Times they aren't a changing

Searching for those who can't do

Educators have long had this sense that the quality of teaching has been on the decline along with student performance. Much like the people of the Middle Ages, who comparing themselves to the civilizations of classical antiquity, concluded man must be getting dumber, many believe schools must strive to return to their glory days.

Of course, finding "better teachers" is not easy, given the low salary and various indignities of the job. Today's Times tells of the latest effort to recruit better educators.

Foundation Hopes to Lure Top Students to Teaching

By KAREN W. ARENSON

Taking the prestigious Rhodes Scholarships as a model, the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation in Princeton is creating a fellowship program that it hopes will lure top students into teaching and transform teacher education in the United States.

“Research shows that providing excellent teachers is the single most important way to improve student achievement,” said Arthur E. Levine, president of the foundation, which coordinates a variety of academic fellowship programs. “But the quality of our teaching force today is not as strong as it needs to be, and our teacher preparation programs are too weak. We hope this program will produce significant improvement in both and provide models that the rest of the country will follow.”

But the quality of teachers is not a new concern:

July 18, 1931
ASKS FOR BETTER TEACHERS
Dr. Newlon Blames Administrators for Lack of Scholarship

American school teachers lack scholarship and are “little more than automatons, little better than employees in the factory sense of the word,” Dr. Jesse H. Newlon, director of the Lincoln School, told educators at the Columbia Summer Session in the Horace Mann auditorium.

Many factors have “conspired to produce this condition,” he explained pointing to low salaries, insecurity of tenure, large turnover, and lack of recognition by the public of the fundamental importance of education. The real fault, however, rests with the administrators, he declared

Read two more examples after the jump:

Logan's Runway

Pilots have been fighting mandatory retirement at age 60 since the measure was approved in 1960. But in a boost for grayer skies, the House of Representatives yesterday voted to raise the age at which all aviators will be grounded to 65. From today's Times:

House Votes to Raise Pilot Retirement Age
By AP

The House voted unanimously to extend the retirement age for commercial pilots to 65, changing a 1960 Federal Aviation Administration regulation forcing pilots to leave the cockpit at age 60. The bill, if approved by the Senate, would put the retirement age in line with international standards. The International Civil Aviation Organization adopted a retirement age of 65 in November 2006. The House measure would require pilots ages 60 and above to have a medical certificate renewed every six months and to take a flight test known as a line check every six months.

But pilots and the FAA, acknowledging that not everyone ages equally, had considered a similar extension back in 1962. Mandatory medical testing would be required, just as it is under the current legislation.

March 11, 1962
STUDY MAY EASE REQUIREMENT THAT AIRLINE PILOTS RETIRE AT 60

Some airline pilots may be able to keep their jobs beyond the current mandatory retirement age of 60 because of a Federal Aviation Agency medical research program.

“This program is specially designed to study man’s aging process and develop individual standards based on each pilot’s physical condition,” according to Najeeb E. Halaby, the F.A.A. Administrator.

“When these criteria are established,” he went on, “the agency will be able to tailor a retirement standard for each pilot instead of requiring all to quit flying at the age of 70 when present medical statistics indicate it is generally prudent.”

Borderline politics

Presidential elections may have changed a great deal in terms of the length of the campaigns and the fortunes spent, but it seems candidates are still wrestling over the same unresolved questions.

Take the story in today's Times about Republican candidates telling a Spanish-language audience that they want to strengthen security at the border.

Republican Candidates Firm on Immigration

By MICHAEL COOPER and MARC SANTORA

CORAL GABLES, Fla., Dec. 9 — In front of what will probably be their most pro-immigration audience, Republican candidates toned down their rhetoric but told Spanish-language television viewers in a debate on Sunday that they would take strong measures to close off the country’s borders to illegal immigration.

More than 75 years ago, foreign-language speaking residents were equally dissatisfied with the candidates on the topic of immigration.

October 23, 1932
IMMIGRATION VIEWS OF NOMINEES ASKED

Foreign Language group seeks attitude of Roosevelt and Hoover on certain issues

The board of trustees of the Foreign Language Information Service made public yesterday a resolution it has adopted urging that President Hoover and Governor Roosevelt, as candidates for the presidency, state their attitude on certain issues of immigration policy of special interest to foreign-born voters.

In the 1952 election, immigration was one of the big issues, although it's hard to imagine such a fierce attack in today's watered down, focus-group tested rhetoric. It should be noted that Truman had already decided to bow out of the race.

October 18, 1952
CHARGES NOMINEE ACCEPTS ‘MASTER RACE’ THEORY OF NEW ALIEN LAW

By PAUL P. KENNEDY, special to The New York Times

WASHINGTON, Oct. 17—President Truman denounced in unusually bitter terms today the Republican party and its Presidential candidate, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, in relation to what he termed “cruel and repellent” immigration legislation. Mr. Truman’s attack drew immediate Republican criticism.

The President charged that General Eisenhower was willing  to accept “the very practice that identified the so-called ‘master race’” despite the fact that the General had taken a leading role in breaking Nazi domination of Europe.

Mr. Truman declared General Eisenhower “has had an attack of moral blindness.” He asserted that the Republican candidate has had nothing to say on the subject of immigration and, in this connection, he “would endorse anyone with a Republican label,  no matter what his record is on civil liberties.”

The C.I.A. has delete on speed dial

The late, great New Orleans pianist James Booker had it right when in his signature song, "My Papa Was a Rascal," he warned that "we've all got to watch out, watch out for the CIA."

In today's Times, we learn that important videotapes of al Qaeda interrogations was destroyed to protect the undercover operatives:

C.I.A. Destroyed 2 Tapes Showing Interrogations

By MARK MAZZETTI

WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 — The Central Intelligence Agency in 2005 destroyed at least two videotapes documenting the interrogation of two Qaeda operatives in the agency’s custody, a step it took in the midst of Congressional and legal scrutiny about its secret detention program, according to current and former government officials.

The videotapes showed agency operatives in 2002 subjecting terrorism suspects — including Abu Zubaydah, the first detainee in C.I.A. custody — to severe interrogation techniques. The tapes were destroyed in part because officers were concerned that video showing harsh interrogation methods could expose agency officials to legal risks, several officials said.

But by now they've erased enough cuts to put out a two-disc greatest hits album. When the tapes could prove useful to an investigation, they have a way of mysteriously getting disappeared. Take this wipe-out from the Nixon years:

January 30, 1974
C.I.A. Destruction of Tapes Reported

WASHINGTON, Jan. 29 (AP)--William E. Colby, director of Central Intelligence, said tonight that the C.I.A. could find only one tape recording bearing on the Watergate affair and that it had destroyed all its other tapes from that period.

In a telephone interview, Mr. Colby said: "Senator [Howard] Baker asked us if there were any other tapes that bore on the subject. And we don't have any other on this subject at the moment. We had periodic destruction of our tapes."

Mr. Baker, the Tennessee Republican who is vice-chairman of the Senate Watergate Commission, confirmed in another telephone interview that he had requested any C.I.A. tapes bearing on Watergate...

Mr. Colby's comments followed a Columbia Broadcasting System report Tuesday night saying that the C.I.A. has destroyed numerous tape recordings considered vital to the Watergate investigation.

Whole lotta Big Love

Polygamous cult leader Warren Jeffs was sentenced yesterday, but it turns out this was only the latest chapter in the nation's 120-year-old war on plural marriage.

From today's Times:

Polygamist Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison 

By JOHN DOUGHERTY

ST. GEORGE, Utah, Nov. 20 — The polygamous leader of a fundamentalist Mormon sect was sentenced Tuesday to 10 years to life in prison for forcing a 14-year-old girl to “spiritually” marry her 19-year-old cousin and commanding the naïve bride to submit to sexual relations against her will.

The defendant, Warren S. Jeffs, 51, was convicted by a jury in September of two counts of acting as an accomplice to a rape. Judge James L. Shumate of the Fifth District Court imposed two consecutive sentences of five years to life in prison. The Utah Board of Pardons and Parole has the authority to parole Mr. Jeffs at any time, but a spokesman, Jack Ford, said it would be unlikely to do so before his first hearing in three to four years.

The archives contain a rogues gallery of Jeffs' brethren. Meet Edward Brain, who was sentenced in 1885 -- five years before the Mormon church banned polygamy as part of a deal to gain statehood for Utah. Notice that there has been substantial judicial inflation in 122 years. Alas, gone are the days when judges spoke of hypocrisy let alone blasphemy.

October 3, 1885
A POLYGAMIST SENTENCED

Salt Lake City, Utah, Oct. 2.--Edward Brain was convicted of unlawful cohabitation to-day. His latest wife, a Danish girl, testified freely as to their marital relations. Brain made a long statement to the court, maintaining the truth of his belief, of which he said he was assured by a direct revelation of God to himself. His covenants, he said, were made for all eternity, and he would stand by them at all hazards. Judge Zane reminded Brain that two of his wives in this "eternal covenant" of which he spoke were already divorced from him. His first wife was dishonored in her old age. To task of this being an "eternal covenant" under Divine command was blasphemy, and he was tried of hearing such hypocritical cant. The court sentenced Brain to six months in jail and to pay a fine of $300.

And more from 50 years later. Wife two has the perfect name for being outed in an embarrassing news story.

December 14, 1935
POLYGAMISTS SENTENCED

Kingman, Ariz, Dec. 13 (AP)-- I.C. Spencer and Price Johnson were sentenced today to serve eighteen months to two years in the Arizona Penitentiary for polygamy.

They were members of a strange cult at remote Short Creek, Ariz. Spencer admitted having a wife and nine children in Utah and a wife and four children at Short Creek. The latter is Sylvia Allred.

Johnson admitted having one wife with seven children and another with three.

Both men pleaded religious beliefs as their defense, contending that they were followers of the "real Mormons" the Latter Day Saints Church having rejected polygamy long ago.