Local school-board members and school officials who participated in an August survey of their Presidential preference conducted by The American School Board Journal favored President Reagan by a 65-percent to 32-percent margin over the challenger Walter Mondale.
Reporting on the poll in its October issue, the journal notes that “among Mr. Reagan’s strong supporters are those to whom moral issues take precedence over others.” The editors quote one Reagan supporter from Texas as saying, “By far the greatest number of problems facing education today stem from moral issues. We need good moral standards in places of leadership.”
Even some of those who said they chose Mr. Reagan, however, noted that they opposed tuition tax credits and vouchers. And some backers of Mr. Mondale went further, arguing that the attention focused on education by the President has been largely negative for public schools.
“Mondale won the majority of votes in Connecticut, Florida, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Rhode Island, and Washington State, but in all six states the race was close,” the journal noted. “Among the states that went Republican: California, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York (also close), Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas.”
In a recent report to the membership of the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering (nacme), Walter F. Williams, president of Bethlehem Steel and chairman of the organization, noted that in its first decade nacme has changed from an “advisory” group into an “action” organization that has enlisted hundreds of schools and colleges to establish programs that involve 60,000 minority students in engineering-related studies.
Of those students, he said, about 19,200 are enrolled in pre-engineering programs at the 12th-grade level. Ahead, he added, lies the challenge of expanding the work of nacme--which is supported by businesses and foundations--to more metropolitan areas with concentrations of minority students and to include “math-based participation” for those students.
nacme officials noted that the number of minority freshmen in collegiate engineering programs dropped last fall for the second straight year--from 11,507 to 11,478, for 10.5 percent of the total freshman enrollment of 109,638. Overall, minority students constituted 8.4 percent of all those enrolled in undergraduate engineering programs, according to nacme.
Copies of nacme’s 1984 Pre-College Program Directory are available for $10 from nacme, 3 West 35th St., New York, N.Y. 10001.
The Association of Black Admissions and Financial Aid Officers of the Ivy League and Sister Schools, has prepared a 32-page booklet for minority junior-high students on financial-aid matters and the academic preparation required for admission to Ivy colleges. For free copies, write the association at P.O. Box 1019, Astor Station, Boston, Mass. 02123.--mm
