NEW KATY NEWS EDITORIAL IN MY SUPPORT 1994 By George Scott:

The New Katy News recommends that Mary McGarr be re-elected to her Katy ISD Trustee Position Six post in the May 7 school board election.

In choosing to take a position in this race, we emphasize that our decision is based upon our assessment of Mrs. McGarr's outstanding performance in office for three years, and what we believe she will bring to the District if voters give her three more years of service.

Nothing in this editorial should be construed explicitly or implicitly as an attack upon her opponent.  In fact, in a spirit of fair play, our endorsement comes in sufficient time to allow her opponent an opportunity to address issues of importance to him in next week's newspaper.

Less than two decades ago, Katy was a small, rural community confronting an extraordinarily important challenge-could it keep physical pace with the explosive growth which was coming?  While we may all argue with some of the details, the basic answer is that Katy ISD met that challenge.  Our students attend modern schools second to none.

We stand on the verge of another challenge, which has absolutely nothing to do with the "bricks and mortar."  It is a challenge that poses the question --how does a local school district withstand the disintegration of academic standards fueled by a powerful national movement, endorsed at the state level and whose pervasive tentacles are already reaching into the classrooms of our public school systems, including Katy's?

Over the years, the educational bureaucracy has been the Pied Piper of government leading parents and children up one failed path after another.  First it was "new math." Then it was "open concept." Time and time again educational 'leaders' have used the power of a government monopoly to foist one theory after another upon the public only to have these theories discredited years later.

Today, the phrases are as cleverly deceptive.

     *Curriculum based upon 'outcomes' rather than knowledge.

     *Writing based upon 'expression' rather than content and grammar.

     *Math and science which values 'process' rather than content and mastery.

Oh, those phrases.  Real world problems.  Developmentally appropriate. The whole child.  Portfolio and non-graded assessment.

It's enough to remind one of how Tennessee Williams described the stage magician in The Glass Menagerie:  "He gives you illusion that has the appearance of truth..."

The New Katy News chooses to endorse Mrs. McGarr in this race because she has not, does not and will not tolerate any of this non-cognitive gibberish.

We endorse Mrs. McGarr because of her outstanding and demonstrable expertise in a wide range of academic and curriculum-oriented issues.  It has instilled within her a total commitment that academic standards must not be compromised here because the state's educational bureaucracy has sold out to the pseudo 'intellectuals' of our time whose destruction lasts far beyond their transient authority over the process.

We endorse Mrs. McGarr because of her unquestioned courage in playing the leadership role in addressing these academic issues in Katy--in the community and at the Board table.

We endorse Mrs. McGarr because she understands that not every child will attend college or a university but that every child should leave school having mastered basic skills and having achieved fundamental knowledge which makes them employable in the real world.

And while Katy remains head and shoulders above many school districts, the public should understand that only a false sense of ego would allow it to believe that this District is immune from these powerful forces. We will not use this occasion to recite specific concerns that we have addressed and documented in the past.

There are three great victims to the state's current educational movement--the students, the classroom teachers and the taxpayers--students who have become modern-day guinea pigs; teachers who are often forced to compromise their own standards, and taxpayers who are asked to pay more and more for less and less.

With the challenges this District will face over the next three years, Mrs. McGarr will prove to be the best friend of each.

This District will soon define the process of selecting the next superintendent of schools.  Part of that process should be to give the public significant prior input into suggesting the performance standards that should be incorporated into the next superintendent's contract.

Confronted with this overwhelming burden of responsibility to our children, it is actually frightening to think that a person of Mrs. McGarr's intellectual stature and personal courage would not be on the Board to help advocate for the public interest during this critical process.

While it is no secret that the owners of The New Katy News have had difficulties with the Katy ISD school board as an entity we do believe that most of the other members of the Board now have a better understanding of their responsibilities to curriculum issues.  In expressing our profound respect for Mrs. McGarr's talents, we are not seeking to diminish other members of the Board.  But we do say this:  a Katy I.S.D. school board without Mary McGarr's knowledge and leadership on issues of curriculum will not be as good a Board.

Like all of us and all of them, Mrs. McGarr has strengths and weaknesses.

But is is her overwhelming strength in the issues of curriculum and academic accountability that the public simply cannot afford to lose at this critical time in Katy ISD's history.

We do not write this editorial to tell you how to vote.  We write it to help publicly elevate the importance of the May 7 election and to encourage your participation.

If you agree with us, we urge you to contact Mrs. McGarr and help in her grassroots campaign.  Help her walk door-to-door.  Put a sign in your yard.  Donate $5 or may $10.  Don't be consumed by apathy.  Your involvement in her campaign WILL make a difference.  Call 578-1679.

If you support her opponent, then by all means work on his behalf.

We believe that less than a decade from now, Katy will look back at this period and be able to answer these questions:  Was Katy ISD able to resist a national and state movement of educational mediocrity?  Or, was it consumed by it?  From our perspective, Mary McGarr is the unquestioned leader of the resistance.