Firstly, I would like to reassure Paul Apodaca that his remarks were fully
posted -- he may simply not have received a copy, since he was the one who
sent them: this is a function of the settings on the listserv.  After
that, it is considered polite and considerate to shorten quoted material
when referring to it, so that endless screens of 'stuff-we-saw-before'
doesn't detract/distract from the present posting.
 
Second: I have watched this thread with increasing sadness, brought on not
by what's being said, but by recognition that the quality of civilization
is slowly declining in this country.  I am a historian of technology, and
can offer anecdotal evidence from my own field that important collections
of historical material have within the past few years been moved,
dispersed, and degraded to an unhappy degree.  Whole research libraries
have disappeared, and their century(ies)-old collections become
untraceable.
 
I don't know about the education -to-director trend, but I would not be
surprised, given (a) the competition for dollars, (b) the public sense of
museums as educational institutions [fostered, may I remind you all, by
museums themselves], and (c) the widespread perception of curators as
simply those who dust the collections.
 
Given the importance of education as a mission, it certainly makes sense
to draw directors from the education ranks, especially if one is unaware
of the specialized expertise of curators [I have also been a curator, and
some of my best friends are curators, but I have the gawdawfullest time
explaining to nonspecialists just what it is that a curator does].  This
goes double if the education mission is seen as applying only to children,
rather than to the full age range of the population.
 
>From this point on, my sadness shades into bitterness, and I'll spare you
my speculations as to causes and ultimate fates.
 
--bayla