Education: Report Card

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¶ As president of Virginia's College of William and Mary, Vice Admiral Alvin D. Chandler, USN (ret.) has tried to make the easygoing campus a taut ship (TIME, Oct. 22, 1951). Last fortnight he announced that the governing Board of Visitors had ordered him to put tighter regulations into effect next fall. The new rules: no beer on campus, chaperons for every fraternity party, closer administrative control of student publications. Last week the students made public their answer to ship's discipline. In a special poll of the 1,700 undergraduates, more than half of the 1,165 answering indicated they would like to transfer to another college; 77% said that as future alumni they would refuse to contribute money to their alma mater; 72% would not recommend the college to prospective students.

¶ A study by the National Education Association shed new light on the forgotten men and women of U.S. education: some 160,000 substitute public schoolteachers—one-seventh of the nation's teaching force. The average substitute, N.E.A. discovered, is a woman, 43, married, with one or two children. She teaches 39 days (out of 180 days) in the average school year. Despite her training (usually four years of college, five years of full-time teaching) she earns only slightly more than half the pay of her full-time colleagues. Moreover, no matter what her qualifications, her average day's pay stays the same: $12.21. After deductions (income tax, lunch, carfare), it drops to $8.71—about the wage paid for domestic help in many U.S. cities.