School and Community Summer 2024

In the top 25 per cent, reading abilities ranged from 8.6 through 11.1. The median score was 9.8. The number of hours spent in weekly televiewing by this group ranged from seven hours through 57 hours. The median number of hours watched was 23 ½. In the lower 25 per cent, the range of reading abilities ran from 3.6 through 6.3 with the median score being 5.45. The number of hours of weekly televiewing by this group ranged from seven hours through 58 hours. The median number of hours spent in watching television was 38 ½. While 22 out of 28 of the lowest achievers watched TV more than 25 hours per week, it is

interesting to note that 12 out of 28 students in the highest achievement group also watched TV more than 25 hours a week. When a correlation between the rank on the Gates Reading Survey and the number of hours of TV watched per week was made, it was found that the relationship in the high reading ability group was -.17. This relationship is so low as to be considered insignificant. The correlation in the low achievement group was only -.23. While this established a slight relationship, it is so low that it also must be considered inconsequential. When the two groups were combined and a correlation computed on the

combined groups, the relationship was +.24; an extremely slight, but positive relationship which indicates that high achievers (those above grade level) watch television slightly less than the low achievers (those below grade level). It should be emphasized, however, that this is a very low correlation, and this writer would agree with most of the significant research in the area that there is no appreciable relationship between outside-of-school televiewing and reading achievement in school.

Editorial The Teacher Is the Key S lice it any way you want to. Reshuffle the students, build a new building, reorganize the school system, do team teaching, institute open classrooms, go to a year-round school and success of the school program sill depends on the key person, the classroom teacher. We are not putting down other school personnel and the valuable services they render. We are not discounting innovations and the need for them. All of this is necessary. All of these are truly designed to get at the meat of the situation, to make possible the best classroom climate, the place where learning in the school system takes place. (Field trips and such related experiences are considered as classroom enterprises.). If our evaluation of the importance of the classroom teacher is true, and we certainly believe it is, this person is entitled to financial remuneration commensurate with the job at hand. Low teacher salaries do not tend to attract and hold competent people. The day of the “apple for the teacher” is over and gone. Teachers are professionals and as such their salaries should reflect this status. Teachers must have the money to support their families on a basis equal to other professions. They need the money to buy homes, cars and insurance, pay medical bills, and have money left over for investments. The teachers are not getting their fair share of the economic funds and goods of this nation and this is a shabby way to treat those who mean so much to the future development of the children of the nation and the very future of our nation. U.S. News and World Report , in its May issue compared the take-home pay of many wage earning groups in the nation. The data takes into account the change in “real income.” Of the 39 groups listed, 20 showed weekly gains in real income ranging from seven cents per week for paper mill workers to $14.70 for auto workers. Teachers were not in this national group but were included in the group of 19 losers. School teachers showed a gain of $7.87 per week for March of 1973 over the similar period for March of

1973

1972. However, in real dollars this shows a loss of $3.35 per week in real purchasing power. This injustice must be turned around. For about 20 years, the Missouri State Teachers Association has produced and distributed a publication now titled Facts about the Financial Needs of Missouri Public Schools . Among many other facts are data comparing the salaries of Missouri public school teachers with teachers in the other 49 states. The average salary of the Missouri instructional staff for 1972-73 was $9,323. Missouri ranked twenty-eighth among the 50 states. Saying this another way, the average salary was $1,320 below the national average of $10,643. ... This year, although MSTA worked vigorously to get an additional $35 million for the foundation program, lower increases were asked for and the Legislature is always willing to settle for smaller increases when the opportunity is afforded. Also unfortunately; leadership at the national level has not been very successful in guiding fund increases through Congress. This has not been the fault of our Missouri congressmen and senators who have a good record of voting to support educational funding. It will take at least $68 million additional in teacher salary funds to bring Missouri up to the national average. Missouri is not a poor state. More funds were available last year for schools that could have been appropriated. To get them, it was a matter of developing the priority in the proper governmental units and carrying this through with the members of the General Assembly. The Missouri State Teachers Association will again be trying to bridge the gap between the teachers salary in this state and the salary level at which it should be. Your involvement in this respect with your representative and senator will be a contributing factor to success. The role playing will take place in your school district and in Jefferson City from the fore part of January to the end of the General Assembly’s session.

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