Looking Back: April is conference time for national association 

Likely, few current board members remember the days when the state delegation chartered a flight to travel to the National School Boards Association annual conference.

In May 1961, more than 100 CSBA members boarded an American Airlines plane at the Los Angeles airport bound for Philadelphia. The members evidently made good use of the time, as reported in the April-May-June issue of the California School Boards Bulletin:

“This jet-propelled safari was enlivened by such hucksters as Herb Warren trying to give every person some of his famous fresh carrots, Sam Vucovich slyly suggesting that a bottle of Fresno wine would be good for everyone, Harry Hiraoka slowing down the process by forcing everyone to start with raisins, Wilbur Korsmeier handing out business cards to everybody who might be in the market for plants or shrubs or trees, ‘Doc’ Alberts providing free pens, and Helen Kerwin passing out information on what to see and do in ‘Philly’.”

The delegates got down to serious work once in the City of Brotherly Love (which the Bulletin called Quaker City), supporting a resolution to oppose further expansion of federal aid to education as a precursor to a national education system under strict federal control.

“Our public school system is a sturdy triangle,” said NSBA President Roy O. Frantz to the 1961 delegates, “one side representing youth and the second the professional educational personnel, with both of these resting on the broad base of local boards of education – legal citizen spokesmen for their communities. This structure has served our nation for three centuries.”

In 1965, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act was passed by Congress. Its latest iteration, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, has fulfilled many of the 1961 delegation’s fears.