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PAGE 16—June 8, 1955—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS District of Columbia WASHINGTON, D. C. ISTRICT school officials are con sidering the inauguration of a new high school curriculum tailor- made to the needs of gifted, average and retarded students. Such a proposal would not have been forthcoming in the old frame work of segregation where it was im possible to find funds to hire enough teachers to keep pace with an ever growing Negro enrollment. Local educators say such an endeavor un derscores the fact that a school sys tem has not reached a plateau with integration, but must keep improving and advancing. Proponents of the plan contend the specialized courses of study would cure some long-standing school sys tem ills such as the drop-out prob lem and the dearth of young people being prepared for advanced study in science and mathematics. DETAILS OF PROGRAM The new program offerings would come in four packages instead of the present college preparatory and non college high school study plans. These would be: 1. A new, pre-professional college preparatory course for gifted students planning careers in engineering, law, medicine, science and other profes sional fields. 2. A general college preparatory course without specific professional emphasis. 3. A non - academic, non - college course for students of average abil ity who plan to get a job after gradu ation. 4. A new program, separate from regular classes, for children with slow-learning ability. All of these courses of study would be offered in various city high schools. Assistant School Supt. Carl F. Han sen, author of the plan, points out this would allow students following different programs to share general courses like physical education, mu sic and art. No one, he said, would feel set apart or different. Although the proposal has not been recommended as yet for board of education approval, some members privately are speculating about the racial make-up of the various stratas of programs. Hansen has stated “race has nothing to do with it.” In connection with the proposed curriculum overhaul, Hansen would replace the present standard diploma system. Graduates would get diplo mas describing the course success fully completed. The retarded stu dents would get a certificate indicat ing the type of program they fol lowed. According to the tentative plan, a re-built curriculum would be of fered the academically backward stu dents. It would include the required subjects such as English, mathematics, American history and science—but on a simpler level than now offered. It also would contain many trade- type courses to prepare the slow learners for jobs. SEEK SPECIAL FUNDS Such a slow-learner program, Han sen said, would hold many students in school who now quit because of boredom and inability to progress. School officials estimate there are several thousand retarded children now sitting in regular classrooms. During its golden anniversary con vention last month, the District Con gress of Parents and Teachers voted top priority to working to obtain congressional appropriations for spe cial classes for retarded school chil dren. The PTA delegates voted to seek funds for establishment of psy chiatric services within the school system. Last month the district court judges appointed a new member to the school board. She is Mrs. Man- son B. Pettit, wife of a St. Eliza beth’s Hospital psychiatrist. Mrs. Pettit on July 1 will succeed Miss Mary Parker whose three-year term expires. Reappointment to the nine- member board were Walter N. To- briner and Col. West A. Hamilton, one of three Negro members. Mrs. Pettit, a former teacher, said she wants tailormade courses for the slow and quick child and psychiatric service for pupils. “For years,” she said, “we have ignored the very bright and the very slow learning child ... If this pro gram can be adopted it will solve some of the problems in our school system.” As for integration, Mrs. Pettit said she preferred to make observations from the vantage point of a board member before offering any lengthy comments. “However,” she said, “it is my per sonal opinion that there’s no going back (from the Supreme Court opinion). It is up to each individual to make it work.” CARDOZO TEAM WINS Elsewhere on the school scene, Cardozo High School, formerly of the Negro division, marched to first place in the first integrated regimental competition of the Washington High School Cadet Corps. Placing second was Phelps Vocational High, a former Division II school which still has an all-Negro enrollment. Third place winner was Roosevelt High, a former white school. Two Washington students took part May 29 on The New York Times Youth Forum which aired the views of young people from the North and South on the problems of integration. Juliann Bluitt, 16-year-old Dun bar High School student, said: “Men are put on earth together. Now we have become mature enough to re alize we must come together to work for the common good.” Miss Bluitt and Celia Shapiro, 17, McKinley High, reported to other panelists on desegregation of schools in Wash ington. Miss Bluitt said that her school, being in a Negro residential section, had not had any effects, but that stu dents who had transferred to other schools were pleased. Miss Shapiro, whose school has a predominantly white student body, described a period of difficulty her school encountered when integration began last fall. “If it weren’t for the parents, we could have done a much smoother job . . . we all know these prejudices are inherited,” she said. RIGHTS OF EVERY CHILD During the May board of educa tion meeting, Negro member Mar garet Just Butcher criticized School Supt. Hobart M. Coming for delay ing the announcement of chairman and assistants for the school system’s educational departments, now in the process of reorganization. Coming said he would make this report at the June meeting. The American Friends Service Committee has published a 16-page booklet, “The Right of Every Child,” which describes the one-year ex perience with Washington school in tegration. The report comments on the strengths and weaknesses of the District integration program, term ing it a “pioneering effort, necessari ly involving trial and error.” The booklet warns those who look for a “magic formula to give proof against error.” It adds that students of the Washington story will find that “the job of desegregation is feasible and constructive, even with difficui. ties and mistakes.” The booklet describes vestiges of remaining school segregation and de. dares the “outline of the dual sy s . tern in many ways remains as a kind of residue of the past.” In a number of “important respects,” the booklet says the program in District schools “falls short of full and complete de. segregation.” The authors are par. ticularly critical of the option plan which would let pupils remain in their present school until graduation, unless overcrowding resulted. OPTION PLAN A BRAKE’ “The option plan will act as a brake on integration as long as it is in force,” the booklet declares. Com. menting on this student choice pro- vision, the book says: “White parents are particularly subject to social pressure to keep their children where they are, influenced by a need to conform. Negro parents, feeling the humiliation of segregation and more often inconvenienced by the segre. gated assignments, have more incen tive to move.” The feature of the choice has the effect of loading the scales in favor of the old pattern, the booklet adds, “unnecessarily prolonging the transi tion period.” A policy which estab lishes the same rules for everyone would be more fair and easier to enforce, the authors contend. “Negro schools are not desegregated as the plan now operates,” the book holds. It adds that the movement of both pupils and teachers is one-way into former white schools. “Some forthright planning and imagination are needed to remove the racial label of ‘Negro school’ in the public mind,” the booklet suggests. Florida MIAMI, Fla. "C'LORIDA’S legislature, at this writing in the closing days of its session, has taken a wide variety of action on the question of school segregation. It has: Adopted a memorial to Congress urging action to permit southern states to preserve segregation. Passed a bill allowing local school boards to assign pupils to specific schools. Turned down a proposed constitu tional amendment to allow the sub stitution of a private school system to prevent integration. The Senate has scheduled action in the closing hours on a House-ap proved bill designed to discontinue the tenure provisions for Negro teachers. The Senate also passed and sent to the House a bill designed to protect counties from financial loss should they refuse to operate deseg regated schools at military bases. All this activity was marked only by perfunctory debate and a complete lack of emotionalism which had been predicted if and when the segregation issue arose. AWAIT COURT DECREE Several members suggested that the various actions were futile at this time because the United States Su preme Court had not yet acted to im plement its May 17 decisiion. A resolution calling for an extra session to deal with the problem has been introduced. Gov. LeRoy Collins said he will call it. Two men, Sen. Charley E. Johns, of Starke, former acting governor, and Rep. Prentice Pruitt, of Jefferson County, where Negroes make up 63 per cent of the population, have been responsible for all the bills on the segregation question. Johns proposed the memorial to Congress, which passed both houses. It asks Congress “to enact such legis lation or propose such amendments to the Constitution of the United States, or both, as may be designed and calculated to enable the sover eign states to continue and control the education of their peoples under systems as they see fit, including a segregated system.” Johns also sponsored the school as signment bill, which sailed through the Senate without a dissenting vote. In explaining his measure, Johns said: “I am one senator who wouldn’t do anything to the Negro population in any way, shape or form. There are many Negroes in my home county of Bradford, and I believe all of them have voted for me every time I have offered myself for office because they know I am fair and I always help them in any way I can.” Johns said his bill contained “the best features” of similar laws passed in Georgia and Misissippi. “Counties in our state that want to keep segre gation can do it under my bill,” he said. HELD UNNECESSARY Gov. Collins said of the Johns bill: “I don’t believe it is necessary or will serve any useful purpose.” He recalled that he had asked the legislature in his first message to avoid raising the segregation issue until final action by the Supreme Court. “I believe that any action taken on this subject would be pre mature and may well serve to in flame the passions of our people un necessarily,” he said. He added that the Johns bill “may be innocuous.” This bill subsequently passed the House without significant debate and went to the governor’s office. Final action there is pending. Reaction about the state was slight. The Fort Myers News-Press called the proposal “meaningless.” It added: “County officials in Florida already have authority to assign certain stu dents to certain schools, based on the residences of the pupils, the capaci ties of the schools and similar consid erations. However, if the Supreme Court di rects that Negro children be admitted to white schools, the order will apply to all schools supported by public taxes, whether administered at the state or local level. “No state legislature could confer upon local agencies any authority to do otherwise than what the U. S. Su preme Court directs.” PRUITT’S BILLS On the same day that the Johns measure was sent to the House for its action, Rep. Pruitt introduced a series of bills to preserve segregation. One provided that no teacher can be paid from state funds if he teaches classes which include both Negro and white children. A second proposed a constitutional amendment authorizing the substitu tion of a private school system. Later Pruitt offered his third bill which, he explained, would abolish the teacher tenure law “to prevent Negro teachers from agitating to teach in classes with white children because it would give the school board the right to fire them at any time.” Florida’s present law provides a continuing contract for teachers after a specified probation period. After this, dismissals may be made only for cause. Pruitt said his bills were not based on “animosity” toward Negroes. “I will support all legislation that will give the Negro race the finest ed ucational facilities,” he said. “It’s the social aspect of the problem that I ob ject to. I don’t believe the welfare of the Negro race is advanced by inter mingling. The only way the Negro will be acceptable to the whites in the South is by making people want to associate with him, not by force of laws.” MAKE LAW PERMISSIVE The private school proposal was de signed to change a constitutional pro vision adopted in 1885 that the legis lature “shall provide for a uniform system of public schools and shall provide for the liberal maintenance of the same.” Pruitt’s proposal would simply make this permissive by changing the “shall” to “may.” It added a provision that in the ab sence of a public school system, the legislature could provide state aid for private schools. Pruitt’s bill went to the House Committee on Constitutional Amendments, where it was reported unfavorably. Pruitt asked the House to override this recommendation. The vote, 53-32, was only four less than the required two-thirds major ity. In fighting for his bill, Pruitt told the House that immediate action was needed if segregation is to be pre served. “If you wait until the old mule is gone, don’t go shut the bam door,” he said. “The time to act is when the situation is in hand and not under pressure. The (Supreme Court) ruling could be handed down any day now. When it happens you are going to find utter chaos in the school system.” REQUIRES REFERENDUM Pruitt said his proposed amend ment, which would require a popu lar referendum, is necessary to de termine if the people “want to main tain the time-honored and success ful system of segregated schools, or whether they favor commingling of these races in the public schools.” Opposition was led by Rep. Volie Williams, Seminole County, chair man of the committee which turned down the proposal. He said that it would invalidate millions in school construction bonds. “The Legislature should not be precipitate in its actions and do something which may not have to be done,” Williams said. Pruitt was successful in getting his bill to destroy the tenure protection for Negro teachers through the House, 59 to 10. It was rushed to the Senate in the attempt to beat ad journment deadline June 4. Although Pruitt said he believed it is the key measure in his campaign against integration, state school au thorities expressed a lack of concern. Harold Friedman, a spokesman for the state department of education, said: “The bill may be aimed at Ne gro teachers, but it also affects white teachers.” The measure says teachers “shall be retained on a basis of efficiency, compatibility, character and capacity to meet the educational needs of the community.” PAPER ASKS VETO The Orlando Sentinel-Star sug gested that Gov. Collins should veto all these bills, if and when they reach his desk. “The proposed legislation is all contrary to the views of Gov. Collins and also at variance with the brief filed with the U. S. Supreme Court by Atty. Gen. Ervin. “Both held that any legislation on the subject would be premature un til the Supreme Court clarifies its ruling and decides how and when it will be put into actual enforcement. “The wise course is to appeal to the court to permit a gradual appli cation of its segregation order, to avoid outbreaks of objection and re sentment which might occur in the states which insist that there should be no mingling of the races in the schools. “It may be taken for granted that the Supreme Court will not approve any of the Florida legislative enact ments.” MILITARY BASE SCHOOLS Latest segregation action in the Florida legislature is the bill unani mously approved by the Senate to guarantee Bay, Hillsborough, Oka loosa and Brevard Counties against financial loss from refusing to oper ate desegregated schools at military establishments. Schools in question are at Tyndall, Eglin, Patrick and MacDill Air Force Bases. They have been operated as part of the county school systems, and enrollment in these schools has been figured into the calculations on which the counties receive state funds for teacher salaries and other expenses. .. The counties, under this bill, win continue to receive funds on the ba sis of enrollment in the base schools, although they revert to federal oper ation Sept. 1 when an order of the secretary of defense forbidding se gregation at military bases takes et feet. Aside from the legislative prop 0 nents of segregation, most Floridi®^ heeded the advice of leaders to war and see” what the final Suprem Court decision would be. But discussions continued on m° ^ levels of community thought, television panel pitted Hollis Ri° e hart, member of the Florida Sta Board of Control, which administ^ the university system, against *». Hamilton, Jr., Miami furniture stm manager who heads Florida Rights, Inc., an organization d cated to “non-violent” opposition tegration. ^ Hamilton charged that the f° r ^ eking desegregation are “comm st-inspired.” . a Rinehart replied that “putt 111 ® mmunist label on anything ^ n’t agree with is typical smear „ :s reminiscent of Sen. McCar At the state conference of the >nal Association for the Advan snt of Colored People at Panam See FLORIDA on Page 23