As WFB frames the question, "There is general agreement only on the proposition that public education is in bad shape. Why this is so, and what should be done about it, is where there is disagreement." To Mrs. Futrell, who by background is a classroom teacher, and whose commitment to the nation's children is clearly genuine, "If we do not have a voice at the Cabinet level speaking for education, then it is not considered to be a priority in this country." To Mr. Bennett, "I am a bureaucrat. I would like to think of myself as a considerate and thoughtful bureaucrat, but the notion that I am somehow more attuned and more in touch with and more sympathetic with the needs of the children of Mississippi than are the parents and the teachers of Mississippi strikes me as

ridiculous."