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LETTERS IN THE EDITOR'S MAILBAG.

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Byline: The Register-Guard

School size an important factor

My thoughts about Eugene schools:

Education is not the same as the production of goods or the sale of shoes. Appropriate school facilities are more important because they are the physical framework that reflects the values, processes and norms of society. They are not just where two plus two equals four. The location and form of a school is important, not incidental, to the educational process.

What appears to be economical in the short run is usually more costly in the long run. Large schools reduce overhead, but it is well known that the cost merely is transferred to society in the form of more poorly socialized and educated children. It is for this reason that a country such as Norway, long a model of literacy, has decided, after a disastrous 30-year experiment, to abandon the idea of the mega-school concept and return to the small community school form.

Old people die and their houses usually get sold and reoccupied with younger families. Selling off old school property because an area is dominated now by older folks is analogous to the shortsighted and economically fatal business procedure of selling off temporarily underutilized buildings, equipment and land to increase immediate cash revenue.

Does anyone remember Pan American Airlines, the firm that ate itself alive and was reduced to company stationary in rented desks?

Robert A. Olsen

Eugene

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