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It was reaching deadline time and I still hadn't come up with a topic for this week's column. Before I went into a state of panic I decided to clean off my desk hoping that by some miracle a topic would pop into my head. I wasn't disappointed. For once. my poor housekeeping habits paid off. At the bottom of a pile of unruly notes I stumbled across a copy of the Nov. 13 issue of the New York Times and it was opened to a story entitled "No One Knows What Makes a Good School. .. l Amidst the Regional council deliberations last week on chlorinating the water supply were Cambridge Aid. Bernice Adams' comments that brought a recurring point to life again - bow aware is the public of issues being decided for them by their local government? Although specific comments on a particular issue, her comments reflect a larger problem - the need to inform a populous who still appears pretty much in the dark a lot of the time about local government. The article was extremely interesting and it tied right in with Dr. Ken Ledbetter's remarks last week to the Waterloo County Board of Education. Md. Adams pointed out that many of her constitu- ents who voiced opposition to chlorination confused the disinfectant with fluoridation, the tooth tottghner. That lack of knowledge, I suspect, is a prime reason for the low' tum-outs at municipal election times. That lack of response has always made me wo.nder about us. _ V In the opening paragraphs the author stated that experienced teachers may be either more or less successful than inexperienced teachers and class size may have slight or virtually no impact on student achievement. The amount of money a district spends per pupil makes little or no difference. These observations are the vague and contra- dictory conclusions of serious research studies sup- ported by millions of dollars. Ernest L. Boyer, Unit- ed States Commissioner of Education drew his own conclusion, In countries like Rhodesia, people are playing Army with real bullets to get the principle of one manone vote accepted by the ruling government. Meanwhile, in good'ole' thttary-ary-aryio, we seem to throw away votes at municipal elections with a shrug, as if they were a used Kleenex'. While moving the election date from early Decem- ber into November may help a bit, I suspect the real problem goes back to people not really aware of the growing significance of local government. and their “The only constant in educational research is the continuity of ambiguity. In short no one seems to GOT THE HOTS'? Doctor. Doctor. You may know where the stuff that thermometer. but forget it. Mod- ern medical science. while it hasn't yet found a cure for the common cold, has come up with something new for diagnosing a fever, A pharmaceutical company has something new that replaces the conventional thermometer. It's a one by four-inch, chemical-impregnated plastic strip. Works like this, according to a company release: The plastic strip contains liquid crystals that “are nofJr poisonous. thermosensitive chemical substances which have optical properties that cause them to change color in response to heat As the cry/'sfals heat up. they pass through a fixed sequence 91 colors rang- ing from colorless to brown, yellow. green and finally blue. In cooling. this sequence is reversed _, _. Wasn't that perfectly clear? So much for today's chemistry lesson. When held against the forehead. it registers an "N" if body temperature is normal, or “F" if you've got a fever. Just in case you were wondering. be careful next time you go out to maim somebody The federal jus- tice department has just added two items to its pro- hibited weapons list. The first. known as a steel cobra or kiyoga baton. is apathy. Booklets, such as the new one put out by the Region outlining concisely the upper tier's responsibilities, may help a bit too, but it all seems like remedial help, I suspect the school system could help out significant- ly. , functions and responsibilities. In ignorance lies I recall in high school taking a civics course but it was pretty sketchy, particularly regarding local gov- ernment. The low priority local government received was reflected in the fact that while my school or- ganized trips to Queen‘s Park and to Parliament in Ottawa, not once were we taken into the council cham- beri of our own town, a mere eight blocks away. Now mind you things may have changed since my school days. For all I know, informative urban gov- ernment and studies courses may be offered in today's curriculum. I certainly hope so because while master- ing the magical mysteries of mathematics is impor- tant, I think it's also important tor students to learn how a community operates and develops. . From-the-cloudy-crystal-bail desk: I can't depart this week's column without an explanation of last week's near-miss prediction on the Grey Cup game. Well, it wasn't exactly a near miss unless you consider know what makes a good school. It would seem that thousands of years of accumulated educational experience refined with modern research tools ought to provide a reliable core of knowledge of what does and does not work but this does not seem to be the case," he said. _ Using standardized scores, The New York Times compared the results of five major studies con- ducted in the United States. The studies agreed on two points. 1. Heterogeneous classes do better than ones in which all of the students come from similar social. economic and racial backgrounds. 2. The studies could find no correlation between aca- demic and per-pupil expenses within the normal range of existing school budgets. Glancing quickly through the article l noticed a number of interesting points. One report considered smaller classes slightly more effective. Another study found that it had a "small effect" and yet another warns of the negative effects when the number of students per class exceeds 34. The studies generally favour small schools. but the New York State report sees no effect except when large schools offer more courses. _ _ The Coleman report suggests that inexperienced ... Waterloo Chroniclo. Wednesday. November 30, 1977 - Page 7 If you recall. I bravely predicted an Edmonton Eskimo victory by nine points'over the Larks who proved, despite Charlie F'artttharstm's, description, not at all to be the Montreal Ati-Weis. the TitGic's maiden voyage a near miss. See, my prediction was based on the premise that two teams would Show up for Sunday's match. As last week's disastrous 416 Montreal romp indicates, only one team actually appeared at the Olympic ice pad. The furtive. futile football players in the green and gold were only figments of the television viewers‘ imagination. It should have been called the Grave Cup game be- cause surely the Eskimo: were buried under an aval- anche of Als such as Weir, Judges, Crennell. Rhino, O'Leary, Wade, etc. May I also publicly apologize to Mr. Sonny Wade for cursing him as Mr. Inconsistent in last week's ill-fated prediction. As he sliced apart the Eskie secondary. he equally pulverized my nickname for him. Alas, I have learned my lesson. Today I'm much wiser (no more football guestimates) and much poorer (I dropped $3 on those western Turkeys). My only pre- dictions from now on will be as sure as death and taxes such as I predict Mr, Paul March will have at least one beer this week. teachers improve the performance of minority stu- dents who are more often low achievers and the correlation between teacher education and student achievement ranged from no effect to considerable effect. Another study suggests that 30 or more credit hours beyond the bachelor's degree are help- ful whereas another report says that such courses have no effect unless they are actually part of a course of study that leads to a graduate degree. The teacher's race and teacher salaries have no effect and good or.poor school facilities have a greater corresponding effect on minority students than on whites. _ a manually-triggered steel whip sold by a US, mail order house. _ It's a steel coil that measures l9-centimetres closed and 43-centimetres fully extended (could be big as a house, for all that metric nonsense stands for. ) I give you this information for what it's worth. Perhaps those of you who have been following Dr. Ken Ledbetter's remarks concerning illiteracy in our schools and how to combat it. will find the results interesting. df nothing else, perhaps this information will make Waterloo County School Board trustees feel a little better about the problems they have been encounter- ing. Not only are these problems felt provincially and nationally but the United States is feeling them too. At least Canada. to my knowledge. hasn't spent millions of dollars only to come back and tell us there really is no answer. and that no one knows what makes a good school, It's advertised in magazines as a self-defence de- vice that can "send off your attacker howling with unbearable pain, or knock him senseless" The other banned weapon, sometimes known as a morning star. was more commonly referred to in medieval times as a mace. You know, it consists of a three-pound cast iron ball, complete with protruding spikes. attached to a 25-centimetrevlong chain. affix- ed to a 45-centimetre-long wooden handle The ministry notes that a poorly-constructed mace can fly apart and injure the user, “Thanks to the vigilance of the customs and excise and police authorities we are able to stop the flow of imported devices designed solely to maim and to kill," justice minister Ron Basford said Trouble is. the ministry also says the steel cobra has never been known to 'riiit'e' found its way into Canada, so there's really nothing to worry about And the mace went out of vogue in the I6th century It kind of figures. doesn't it? xwseP.kx.r.vss (tifii?ioy.t?2.