COUNTYWIDE : Schools Honor 100 Years of Pledge

Months before George Bush made respect for the flag a burning political issue as part of the 1988 presidential campaign, Paula Burton realized the importance of the Pledge of Allegiance.

For Burton, a Villa Park substitute teacher, the pledge and all the emotional issues attached to it became a crusade earlier that same year. It started when she asked her students at Taft Elementary School in Orange to discuss the pledge’s famous phrase, “one nation, under God, indivisible.”

“The kids raised their hands, and a little girl said it means you can’t see it,” she said. “They thought it meant ‘invisible.’ And all the kids were just positive that was right.”

It is unlikely any of those students would make the same mistake today, thanks largely to Burton’s four-year quest to bring a greater sense of national pride to local schools. Her commitment has earned her the schoolyard nickname “the Flag Lady.”

Burton’s efforts will climax Friday, when thousands of schools across the country are expected to take part in an observance of the pledge’s centennial, organized by Celebration U.S.A. Inc., a nonprofit group run by Burton and a handful of other Orange County women.

More than 100 Orange County schools are expected to in some way commemorate the pledge Friday. And on Oct. 12, students from the Orange Unified School District will celebrate the centennial and recite the pledge during the “Pageant of the Pledge” in Santa Ana.

To Burton, the pledge represents everything good about America and serves as a valuable yet underutilized tool in teaching youngsters about citizenship and history.

State education codes call on school districts to adopt unnamed “patriotic exercises” but do not specifically require recitation of the pledge.

The pledge became a political issue in 1988 when George Bush attacked then-Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis for refusing to require his state’s students to recite it. Some critics blasted Bush’s tactics, saying such nationalistic oaths are not fair measures of one’s love of country.

But Burton and her friends said they have little time for such doubters.

“If people don’t want to, that’s fine. I don’t think we should say ‘you must,’ ” Burton said. “A small minority chooses not to, but a large majority is thrilled to. . . . I don’t see how you can criticize patriotism.”