Schoolman

Education, Inc., spending nearly $3,000,000,000 per year in good times, is the nation's biggest socialized business. Yet it is most unsocially and inefficiently decentralized, with 127,000 old-fashioned local school boards doing business with taxpayers' money. There are 424,000 school board members, one for every two U. S. school teachers. That some are inefficient and others are dishonest is not surprising. But people everywhere were amazed last week to hear that Dickson City, coal-mining suburb of Scranton, Pa., has a schoolman who cannot read and can scarcely write.

Treasurer of the Dickson City school board is Michael Wolohowicz, nearly 70, who emigrated from Lithuania 40 years ago, worked in the mines, ran a saloon, became prominent in local politics. He raised six children, sent them through high school. He closed his saloon after Prohibition but, portly and walrus-mustached, Schoolman Wolohowicz still resembles an oldtime bartender. He has been on the Dickson City school board for most of the past 22 years, has been treasurer for twelve years, lately getting some $4,000 per year in commissions.

Last week the school board was hailed into court. A taxpayers' association was seeking to oust six of its seven members on charges of financial irregularities, including failure to advertise for bids, violation of the school code, contracting illegally for teachers. Dull and petty were the dealings disclosed. But a passage in Michael Wolohowicz's testimony made news. All he knew about his job as treasurer was that he signed checks, carried money to and from the bank. He could neither read nor write--or, at least, very little. Said he, at the quiz: "I have to talk slow. I not been to school, not one day."

Q. You haven't been to school at all?

A. No, sir.

Q. You don't read at all?

A. No.

Q. And you don't write, do you?

A. I write. I can figure good on the paper.

Asked if he put his $4,000 in the bank, Michael Wolohowicz replied: "No, bank is bust."

Q. The bank wasn't busted in 1931, was it?

A. Yes, pretty near, and I save $18,000 this year if I put in that safe, and I save $18,000, I keep on my pocket for two weeks. Then somebody get it.

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