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VY: How long did you do that kind of work?

MM: I worked with the government for three years. Oh, I had a wonderful time because it was, you know, when a law's passed, like the Great Society, 1964, it takes a long time for that to become the law, to be translated into practice, because it has to go into the Federal Register and people have to have time to review it. Then it has to be made into (law regulations), what measures are going to be looked at to make sure the money is spent properly. Because that's oversight. (When) I worked with Title I, (we) went out and they saw it's supposed to be supplementary. So we would always look at the supplement or supplant the local money. So that was one of the major jobs. But (the Department of Education) asked me to stay on, I was on loan to the government because government workers are like widgets, they're interchangeable. So if you were going to have a GS-14, the GS-14 in the Department of Education doesn't have to know a thing about education or whatever department they're in, because they're interchangeable parts. So the law was changed too, and they needed somebody who had practical experience. So I went on these reviews to show them what they had to look for in the documents and how to look for the documents and what kind of questions to ask. And it was really interesting how each state is different. And I think most people come from nations where they have a national education group. Now, Hawaii has like a national education group, but it's an island. If it were a country it would be like that, but it has a strong education department.

VY: So when was this when you did this?

MM: I did this in 1973 to '76, I saw our president Nixon resigned among other things. But I saw women's equity come in, and another thing that I did was I volunteered a lot, so they had a lot of proposals. And although I'm a proposal writer, but I'm also a proposal reader, so I would volunteer for this. So I got to see the (Education) Department from, the different departments from different points of view. Women's Equity or Fund for Improvement of Post-Secondary Education, Migrant (Education). Like in the 1970s, they put migrant workers, individual children's grades and abilities on the internet. They didn't have internet, it was some kind of electronic something or other. So they went to another school, they didn't know where to place them. They would have these there at the other school, so they could be placed quicker than sitting for months until any kind of records came by. It was just brilliant. And I was so thrilled to be able to see that they had been working on this for migrant workers for such a long time. And I was so pleased (that) San Francisco brought a lawsuit, says if a child does not speak, read or (write or) understand English, they can't just be plopped in the classroom. And the Supreme Court, while I was in Washington, said that's a local (school) requirement. That if a child does not speak, read, write or understand English, it's the local school district that's responsible for doing something special to making it happen. So all this money that was used from Title I, because it's supplementary, now had to be taken over and owned by the school district. So it was very interesting times.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.