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PAGE 8—MARCH 1956—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
D.C. Officials Answer Parents’ Query: ‘How Is It Working?’
WASHINGTON, D.C.
ashington public school desegre
gation, now in its second year,
again has become a matter of national
interest.
“How is it working?” residents, as
well as outsiders, daily ask school
officials.
School Supt. Hobart Coming con
tends this is a question with a million
answers. Because, it seems, integra
tion means different things to all
people. It is a new situation.
Slick-paper magazines and out-of-
town newspapers, most recently Vir
ginia dailies, have devoted columns
to the subject. Their conclusions re
flect varied views.
QUERIES ANSWERED
But what do Washington officials
tell Washington parents? Here are a
few general answers to the citizens’
questions:
• In general, where student bodies
are made up of no more than one
Negro to every three white pupils,
parents and teachers extoll the “suc
cess” of the changeover from segre
gation.
“Everything is going so well in my
school,” said one parent, “but then
we only have a few Negro students,
and they’re just wonderful.”
• Where former white schools now
have a majority of Negro students,
patrons and officials state they have
problems—and serious ones.
“I’ve become a police officer, a war
den, not an educator,” said one
principal.
“I have bad trouble these days, but
I’ll take care of it,” said another, add
ing, “I always have.”
LOWER GRADES SMOOTHEST
• Desegregation has worked with
fewer hitches in grade schools than
in junior and senior highs.
“For many a year,” said one teacher,
“I’ve argued it is harder to handle
teen-agers at that ‘awful age’ than
little people with unformed opinions.”
• Teachers of racially mixed class
es have to work harder than in the
past.
“Never in my life,” said one teach
er, “have I been so aware of the im
pact of a child’s home background
and past educational experience on
his present achievement in school.”
• School officers of different races,
while working together, too frequent
ly “Gaston and Alphonse” each other
instead of knuckling down to correct
ing weaknesses in teaching methods
and practices.
“We’re too afraid of hurting each
other’s feelings,” said both a white
and a Negro officer.
NEGRO TEACHERS ACCEPTED
• There has been almost complete
acceptance of Negro teachers by white
parents and their offspring and by
white teachers.
“I don’t like the idea of Jane having
a Negro teacher,” said a mother, “but
what could I do . . . Jane loves her.”
Coming and his top aides quickly
admit the “growing pains” stage of
desegregation will last many years,
perhaps a decade.
TIME REQUIRED
Adds Dr. Margaret Just Butcher,
one of three Negro board of education
members: “You can’t eradicate the
sins of segregation overnight. Nor can
you condemn the children sinned
against.”
Greatest evidence of the inequality
of the two school divisions is found
in the results of the first citywide
achievement tests given after the start
of desegregation, according to Mrs.
Butcher and other school authorities.
These results showed that Wash
ington students in general failed to
attain national norms in such subjects
as reading, arithmetic, spelling and
social studies. Also, in general, pupils
of former Negro schools did not do
as well as members of former white
schools.
CONDITIONS AFFECT ATTITUDES
“This isn’t so strange,” said Mrs.
Butcher, “what do you expect of the
products of years of overcrowding
and understaffing?” She even went
so far as to say that because of “con
tinuous, unbearable” conditions, some
educators “just gave up.” They
shouldn’t have, but they did, she de
clared.
White officials know this equally
well, but they flinch away from the
fact that one side of the school sys
tem didn’t give a “tinker’s dam” what
the other did—to the detriment of
both.
Corning recently charged his entire
school faculty, which numbers more
Negroes than whites, with jacking up
the daily routine in the classrooms.
He said the “disturbing” achievement
record should and could be corrected.
He underscored the fact that this ef
fort would be enhanced by the addi
tion of 180 more grade school teachers
next fall to reduce class size.
“I don’t see how the teachers do
what they do for 40 or more children
with such divers backgrounds,” Com
ing said. Some of these teachers
frankly say, “I’m going slowly mad
. . . that’s how.”
According to Mrs. Butcher and
other Negro officials, many Negro
students “have benefited greatly”
since the start of desegregation.
“I have many phone calls from par
ents saying ‘my son is on the honor
roll for the first time’ or ‘at last my
child is being challenged in school.’ ”
On the other hand, Mrs. Butcher said
she also receives calls from parents
whose children are having trouble
keeping up.
“Somewhere along the line, these
children were crippled,” Mrs. Butcher
said.
Principal Charles E. Bish of Mc
Kinley High School, which has 659
Negro students and 521 white, said:
“We have lots of evidence that we are
meeting the educational needs of all
our students.”
Bish said that many of his white
students have told him, “I wouldn’t
have missed the opportunity to attend
McKinley during these first years of
integration.”
BEHAVIOR PROBLEMS
Several high school principals point
out that they have had a greater num
ber of behavior problems among stu
dents since desegregation.
One principal said some of his
Negro students, particularly girls,
“seemed to have let off steam in a
new situation.” He said it is neces
sary for teachers to more or less
“police” the school halls when the
students change classes.
“It’s just a case of rowdyism . . .
but you can’t let it go on or the young
sters would soon be running the
school,” the principal said.
For a while there was a rash of
“sassing or talking back” to teachers,
he said, adding this was not confined
to one race. “We soon put a stop to
this,” he added.
Several white principals pointed
out their Negro students are neater
in their dress than the white students.
The boys, for example, wear ties and
suits for the most part. This is not
the case in some schools where the
economic background of the student
dictates poorer clothing.
One principal reported he had
noticed a higher rate of absenteeism
and tardiness among his Negro stu
dents. But, he said, “a little counsel
ing” had worked wonders in most
cases.
In many school communities, in
terracial Parent-Teacher Associations
have “talk it over” sessions to iron out
problems and to make suggestions for
improvement.
Said one white principal: “The
Negro mothers of my pupils are so
eager to do things for the school. I
have a list of parents who want to be
called on to help in any of our proj
ects.”
The same principal, who has three
Negro teachers on her faculty, said
of them: “I wish all my staff had the
same feel for children.”
Perhaps the biggest gain since de
segregation, according to school of
ficers, is the greater interest all par
ents are taking in the school system.
They pointed to packed school
board meetings where the audience
comes to learn instead of to gripe.
At hearings, they observed, the wit
nesses “ask for new projects to bene
fit all children.” The old special
interest days are going, officials pre
dict.
REACTIONS OF PUPILS
What of the children themselves?
Do they get along together?
Take the situation in the grade
schools. It is not unusual to see pairs
of Negro and white boys giggling to
gether over the cases of pints of milk
they were assigned to pass out to
classmates.
Another common sight is mixed
groups of children working together
on a social studies project in the
library. The pupils, intent on their
common interest, help each other.
SOME PUPILS STAND-OFFISH’
In junior and senior high schools,
students of the two races generally
are more stand-offish. They tend to
segregate themselves in the cafeterias
and the halls—just as they go home
their separate ways.
There the secondary school stu
dents get to know each other better
through their work on student coun
cils, school newspapers and year
books, and in membership in special
subject clubs and in musical groups.
Students of the two races gain a
lot of respect for each other as the
result of prowess shown on the ath
letic field and the basketball court.
DUMPING GROUND’ CHARGED
Other action on the District inte
gration scene includes:
Mrs. Butcher, during the February
school board meeting, called for an
investigation of Armstrong High
School, the former Negro technical
school, now in the process of being
merged into former white McKinley
High. The latter is scheduled to be
come a citywide technical institution.
Armstrong, which still has an all-
Negro enrollment, is a “ghetto ... a
Devil’s Island ... a dumping ground”
for Washington problem students,
Mrs. Butcher said. She added the
school has a total of 18 remedial
courses in English and mathematics
in which many students are retarded
by five or six years. She said the
Armstrong faculty includes only one
teacher trained to do remedial work.
REASONS EXPLAINED
Asst. School Supt. Carl F. Hansen
said: “It’s no coincidence that Arm
strong has more remedial classes than
any other city school.”
He said the school is “shop cen
tered” and because of the achieve
ment level of incoming tenth graders
the curriculum had to be revamped
last fall. He denied the school is a
dumping ground. Hansen said the
school has more than 650 students
enrolled in the remedial courses.
The District federal court judges
who appointed board of education
members last month were given peti
tions signed by 12,648 persons urging
the reappointment of Mrs. Butcher to
a three-year term.
In a covering letter, the citizens’
group for the reappointment of Mrs.
Butcher said the signatures on the
petitions were those of clergymen,
lawyers, doctors, veterans, workers,
educators, fathers and mothers.
PAST SERVICE CITED
The petitioners urged Mrs. Butch
er’s reappointment on the grounds of
her “special qualifications and train
ing, past distinguished service,” and
her “devotion and untiring effort” to
provide a better public school sys
tem in Washington.
Two other of the nine board mem
bers whose terms expire June 30 are
Robert R. Faulkner and Rowland F.
Kirks, both attorneys.
On the private school scene:
For the first time, Sidwell Friends
School will admit a “limited number”
of Negro students during the next
school year.
For the 1956-57 school year, Ne
groes will be admitted to the kinder
garten. Each succeeding year, admis
sion will be extended another grade
upward.
Shivers Suggests Texas
District to Desegregate
AUSTIN, Texas
ov. Allan Shivers has suggested
a statewide referendum in Texas
on interposition.
The governor gave the movement
its strongest push in Texas by sug
gesting a study by Texas Democrats
in all conventions this year, followed
by a referendum on the summer
party primary ballots. An over
whelming majority of Texans nor
mally vote in Democratic primaries.
(See “Legislative Action.”)
The National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People gave
notice of a vigorous legal attack up
on segregation wherever it exists in
Texas. (See “Legal Action.”)
The Kerrville school board an
nounced a three-year desegregation
program involving some 100 school-
age Negro children beginning at the
elementary level next fall. (See
“School Boards and Schoolmen.”)
SPECIAL SESSION ASKED
The Associated Citizens Council
of Texas, supporting interposition on
racial segregation, urged the gov
ernor to call a special legislative ses
sion to consider a resolution. (See
“Community Action.”)
Seventeen public colleges in Texas
were reported to be accepting Negro
students with whites. (See “In the
Colleges.”)
LEGISLATIVE ACTION
The Texas legislature’s next regu
lar session is in January 1957. Citi
zens Councils and some other groups
have urged Gov. Shivers to call a
special session to consider an inter
position resolution on segregation.
Atty. Gen. John Ben Shepperd is
proposing such a resolution to pro
tect state regulation of oil and gas.
This followed the veto by President
Eisenhower of the bill to let states
continue to regulate production of
gas as well as oil. Texas is the na
tion’s largest producer of both na
tural resources.
POLITICAL CONNECTION
Gov. Shivers’ support of interposi
tion is linked to the 1956 political
campaigns. He is expected to an
nounce his political intentions on
March 1 in what may be a strong
plea for Democrats to rally behind
him in a fight to preserve states rights
on segregation and other matters.
While the governor has hinted at a
possible fourth-term race, most ob
servers consider this unlikely.
The recommendation for a refer
endum on interposition was made
in a letter to George W. Sandlin of
Austin, chairman of the State Demo
cratic Executive Committee. Sandlin
said the committee likely will meet
early in March.
The letter to Sandlin said in part:
“I feel that a question of this mag
nitude and importance—transcending
as it does any specific conflict be
tween the federal and state govern
ments—should be referred to the
people.
GRASS ROOTS DISCUSSION
“It occurs to me that the inter
position proposal would be a proper
subject for discussion and possible
action by resolution at the precinct,
county and state conventions in May.
Vote; New
The question there would be as to
whether such a proposition should
be placed on the ballot. Eventually,
of course, the expression of the vot
ers would be a guide to the Texas
legislature in the preparation of
proper interposition resolutions.”
Another letter went from Gov.
Shivers to Will Crews Morris of San
Antonio, chairman of an advisory
committee named by the governor to
study legal problems connected with
segregation in the public schools. The
Morris committee previously had
been furnished with material on
Virginia’s interposition proposal.
BROADER THAN SEGREGATION
The letter to Morris said in part:
“The principle involved here is
much broader than the problem of
segregation or integration; it involves
the basic right of the sovereign state
to protest against encroachment by
the federal government and the Su
preme Court. Or, to put it another
way, the question is as to the real
meaning of the Tenth Amendment,
which provides that the powers not
delegated to the federal government
by the Constitution nor prohibited
to the states are reserved to the states
respectively or to the people.
“So important do I consider this
issue that I feel the people of Texas
ought to have an opportunity to ex
press themselves on it, in a legal,
orderly and conclusive way. You
will note that I have enclosed a
copy of a letter I am writing to Mr.
George W. Sandlin, chairman of the
State Democratic Executive Commit
tee, in which I request that the SDEC
explore the procedure by which an
appropriate proposition could be
submitted to a referendum of the
voters of Texas.”
SHEPPERD APPROVES THEORY
Atty. Gen Shepperd told an Austin
civic club that the referendum would
be legal.
However, Shepperd earlier voiced
the opinion unofficially that the de
cision of the Texas Supreme Court
in the Big Spring school segregation
case (McKinney v. Blankenship) has
made hopeless any effort to adopt
an interposition resolution on this
matter. The state court ruled that
Texas segregation laws fell when the
U. S. Supreme Court held compul
sory segregation in public schools to
be unconstitutional, even though this
state’s laws were not directly attack
ed in that case.
LEGAL ACTION
NAACP officials in a statewide
meeting held in Austin decided to
attack “vigorously” in court the seg-
gregation of Negroes in schools,
parks, public health facilities, public
housing, swimming pools and buses.
The group promised a “no compro
mise .. . head-on fight.”
“We’re not asking any state officials
to help us,” said U. Simpson Tate of
Dallas, southwest regional counsel
for the NAACP. “We’ve been getting
along without their help for 50 years.
We’ll not fight the governor. We’ll
not fight the attorney general. But
our minds are made up. We know
where we’re going.”
The NAACP also announced a
membership drive in Texas.
The Negroes representing the
NAACP requested Atty. Gen. Shep
perd “to induce the governor and
our legislature to repeal all laws re
quiring racial segregation in the
parks.” The official promised to “look
into it.”
The Autherine Lucy case at th e
University of Alabama drew crib"
cism from Dr. George S. Mitchell,
executive director, Southern Region
al Council. He spoke in Dallas at a
meeting of the Texas Commission on
Race Relations.
A candidate for governor of Texas.
Reuben E. Senterfitt of San Saba,
declared that “one of the paramoufl
issues ... is the question of fores
integration in our Texas schools by
the federal government.” He h
been insisting that Congress is th
proper forum to fight for states
rights. U. S. Sen. Price Daniel is 8
likely opponent of Senterfitt’s in * e
governor’s race. .,
In Dallas, Morris B. Abram sat ’
“Over the South you see a spirit °
lawlessness.” Abram, an Atlan j
Ga., attorney, is southern coun 5 ®
for B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamatw
League. He spoke at a state meetms
At Kerrville, the school board ^
nounced a three-year desegrega
program starting next Septem
(Continued on Next Page)
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