To the editor:

There are two situations that we must relate in our public discourse. We have a senator scoring points with her conservative base in a campaign of demagoguery and character assassination against a university faculty member. The state Legislature agreed with her. The same Legislature, again, failed to fund public schools adequately, and again we fired dozens of teachers in Lawrence.

It is time for those concerned about education in Kansas to stand up and scream. Let us state the problem explicitly: the people of Kansas, like many in the United States, care little about education. We allow our legislators, continuously, to undervalue education. We allow them to demonize Kansas University as a bastion of liberalism when we know the institution’s importance. We allow them to underfund the university so that it has no choice but to raise tuition each year. We even allow them to engage in outrageous campaigns like that waged by Sen. Susan Wagle, R-Wichita, when we know that ideas must be freely exchanged at a university campus.

Sadly, after nine years of teaching at KU, I do not expect this situation to change. My daughter has announced that she wants to be a teacher. For the moment, I applaud her dream. Someday, however, she will hear that her work will be personally rewarding, but not valued by society. Unfortunately, at this point it appears that she will grow up to be as altruistic as her foolish father.

Paul R. Laird,

Lawrence