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| A FAIR RETURN | |
 March 3, 1999  | |
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JIM FISHER: Here, in what was the Greenbush Community of Southeast Kansas, just a couple of houses remain. Route 57 is usually empty of traffic. And the old St. Aloysius Catholic Church stands as a burnt-out relic. Kansas: Dull, humdrum, monotonous enough to be relegated to black and white in "The Wizard of Oz." But, hey, Dorothy, look over there. Why, there's an astrophysical observatory, looming 150 feet above the prairie; under it, a tropical rain forest, an archaeological dig, a 200-acre nature center with both wetlands and tallgrass prairie. Want more? FLIGHT CONTROLLER: Five, four, three, two, one... We have ignition. Liftoff. JIM FISHER: How about a mock-up of the Space Shuttle? After blastoff, kids climb into a simulated space station. S: Mission control. I need some mission control. CHILD: They don't have the headphones on. SPOKESPERSON: I know. JIM FISHER: Weekdays, the yellow school buses come, with excited children-- 25,000 last year-- plus another 10,000 teachers and administrators for continuing education, all done at what's called the Southeast Kansas Education Service Center. SPOKESPERSON: See the leaves curl up? That's its defense. JIM FISHER: Inside, a variety of classes. TEACHER: Now, the Mimosa, in North America, closes up as well, but not nearly as fast. JIM FISHER: From Botany -- to Japanese language lessons -- (Speaking Japanese) And it's not just for the students who have traveled here. Some 170,000 kids in Kansas, Missouri, and throughout the country participate via two-way video optic lines. All of this would probably bring a look of amazement even to the face of the Tin Man. But guess what? While politicians bemoan America's schools, test scores plummet, and billions of dollars continue to disappear into the educational abyss, folks out here in the country may be on to something. Greenbush, believe it or not, is a co-op, just like what farmers depend on. It buys in bulk, from books to instructional videos, hot dogs to computers. It passes along the savings, it collects user fees, it receives grants and it gets not one cent of tax money. MIKE BODENSTEINER, Greenbush Director: Tell Nick to go on. JIM FISHER: Instead of farmers out in the countryside, Greenbush serves 110 school districts. Mike Bodensteiner is a director at Greenbush. MIKE BODENSTEINER: We know the one school district working alone does not having the buying power of 110 school districts working together and certainly you don't have to have a Ph.D. in Economics to understand that. In the case of the rain forest, an individual school district wouldn't want to have a rain forest, but when you have school districts working together, it makes it real cost effective. JIM FISHER: It provides exam grading, health insurance, visual and audiology tests, titles from its $2.5 million audio-visual library. CHILD: We picked this book because it has a lot of information. JIM FISHER: It cuts through the red tape of governmental grids and regulations. It offers 170 other programs and workshops. For access to Greenbush, schools pay between $1,000 and $2,000 a year, not per student, per school. The kids love it. You can see it in their faces. STUDENTS: Yes! JIM FISHER: The big attraction, naturally, is the astrophysical observatory with a 24-inch telescope. SPOKESPERSON: We know that telescopes help us see better. JIM FISHER: Greenbush paid $35,000 for what had been a $200,000 telescope at the University of New Mexico. SPOKESPERSON: Okay. Now click on "planets." JIM FISHER: David Kuehn, an astronomer at a nearby university, runs the Greenbush Observatory. DAVID KUEHN, Astronomer: It sparks question immediately, how big, how heavy is the planet or how far away it is, or how many moons does it have, what's it made out of? And, of course, those questions are exactly the same questions that we ask as scientists. JIM FISHER: Kids looking at the night sky, pondering the universe, learning, in, of all places, a facility modeled after one where farmers could buy their seed cheaper, store their grain, and, most of all, get a fair return on their money. I'm Jim Fisher. |
