"Knowledge is an antidote to fear."

So said Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Here’s an excerpt from Bob Herbert’s syndicated column of February 14, a remembrance of playwright Arthur Miller entitled “The Public Thinker.”

“Arthur Miller, in his autobiography, ‘Timebends,’ quoted the great physicist Hans Bethe as saying, ‘Well, I come down in the morning and I take up a pencil and I try to think ... ’

“It's a notion that appears to have gone the way of the rotary phone. Americans not only seem to be doing less serious thinking lately, they seem to have less and less tolerance for those who spend their time wrestling with important and complex matters.

“If you can't say it in 30 seconds, you have to move on. God made man and the godless evolutionists are on the run. Donald Trump (‘You're fired!’) and Paris Hilton (‘That's hot!’) are cultural icons. Ignorance is in. The nation is at war and its appetite for torture may be undermining the very essence of the American character, but the public at large seems much more interested in what Martha will do when she gets out of prison and what Jacko will do if he has to go in.”

In today’s Courier-Journal, Dick Kaukas describes a proposal to dramatically alter the operation of a New Albany elementary school:

Floyd plan would overhaul Lillian Emery school, by Dick Kaukas of the Courier-Journal.

Kaukas writes:

“Under a plan proposed last night, New Albany's Lillian Emery Elementary would close at the end of this school year and reopen in the fall as an ‘early learning preparatory academy.’

“The proposal outlined to the New Albany-Floyd County school board would also eliminate the fourth and fifth grades at the academy, so teachers could concentrate on students in preschool through third grade.

“The older students would be assigned to other schools.

“Last night's plan is the latest to try to improve the academic performance of students at Lillian Emery, at 1111 Pearl St. The school has been plagued by low scores on the state's annual ISTEP exams.

“For instance, on the tests taken by third-graders last September, only 27 percent of the students passed both the language arts and math sections. The state average was 65 percent.

“Teresa Perkins, assistant to the superintendent for curriculum and instruction, said last night that the school ranks among the lowest in the state, and was ‘27th from the bottom’ out of 1,087 elementary schools statewide as determined by the third-grade ISTEP tests.”

NA Confidential fully understands that educational achievement is not measured solely by test scores, that it depends on numerous socio-economic factors.

We believe that first and foremost, society must value education, both as an essential prerequisite to productivity and as an immutable ideal that is valued in itself.

With memories of an intemperate and fascistic verbal tongue-lashing still fresh, we ponder who among New Albany’s political class is reading this evening, and ask this question:

To what extent does the institutionalized ignorance described by Herbert beget contempt for educational standards, and in turn, perpetuate a crippled and downtrodden community struggling to attain basic educational standards, suitable for exploitation by charlatans, ward heelers, slum lords and snake oil salesmen, and thus doomed to remain that dirty little river town we all know so well, resistant to thinking, immune to change, reliant on the lowest common denominator?

Please explain leadership in this context. Thank you.