Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 16—MAY 1956—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
D. C. Curriculum May Be
to Meet Students’ Needs
WASHINGTON, D. C.
ISTRICT PUBLIC SCHOOL CURRICU
LUM may be refashioned next
fail to better meet the needs of stu
dents whose widely-varying achieve
ment rates were disclosed after the
start of desegregation.
Three proposals under consider
ation by school officials are:
• A four-track high school cur
riculum designed to prepare the bril
liant, the average and the dull stu
dent for the life work he is best able
to do.
• A later starting age requirement
for new kindergarteners and first-
graders.
• Knitting together the first, sec
ond and third grade programs and
where possible letting the same
teacher follow her pupils through
these three years.
The revamped high school curric
ulum would be offered all tenth-
graders on a trial basis,
Within The according to Assistant
District School Supt. Carl F.
Hansen, chief propo
nent.
High schools would provide these
offerings:
1) An honors curriculum, a college
preparatory program, for gifted stu
dents interested in an accelerated
study program probably leading to a
professional career such as engineer
ing, medicine, law and science. Re
quirements would be stiffen
2) The regular college preparatory
curriculum for students wanting a
wider range of elective subjects.
3) A general curriculum for stu
dents who want a terminal program
and a wider range of electives, lead
ing to employment opportunities.
4) A basic curriculum for students
who require remedial instruction in
the basic skills and who want oppor
tunities for educational experiences
that prepare them for employment.
Washington businessmen will be
asked to cooperate in providing part-
time job opportunities for these stu
dents while they still are in school.
PROGRAM’S PURPOSES
Hansen outlined five purposes of
the organization of the senior high
school into four major sequences.
They are:
To enrich the present program for
gifted students. To encourage all col
lege preparatory students to enroll in
more academic subjects. To raise
achievement levels for all groups. To
provide for slow students work more
in keeping with their abilities. To
give teachers a greater opportunity
to teach slow students without re
tarding the progress of others.
Extension of the present entrance
age for children was recommended
by a committee of school teachers
and officers that has evidence some
children begin first grade before they
physically are able to read.
First-graders may enter school now
if they are six by Jan. 15. This means
that some youngsters are five years
and seven months old when school
opens the middle of September. The
committee recommended that first-
graders enter school if they are six
by October.
National studies show that the “saf
est beginning” for a pupil, as far as
reading is concerned, is about at the
age of six and a half years, the educa
tors said.
PRIMARY’ SYSTEM
District teachers also are studying
possible use of the “primary” system
in city elementary schools. Under
this plan, grades one, two and three
and grades four, five and six would
be taught as separate units.
Meanwhile, the board of education
still contends that the first step to
ward raising lagging pupil standards
is to reduce class size to 30 students.
The school board sent Congress
last month an unprecedented petition
for money to hire 180 additional grade
school teachers next fall.
This unique appeal—signed by all
nine board members—was beamed at
Sen. John C. Stennis (D-Miss.),
chairman of the Senate Appropria
tion subcommittee which shortly will
begin hearings on the House-passed
city spending bill.
Under the House measure the
schools would get funds for 75 new
elementary instructors. At the same
time, however, school officials must
transfer 50 current salaries from jun
ior and senior high to grade school
use.
Revamped
Tsk, Tsk—Somebody
Should Do Something
About That’
—Washington Post
Heart of the school board’s descrip
tion of the teacher-short system is
contained in these two paragraphs:
“We are convinced that we need
what we asked for—180 new salaries
for elementary school teachers. We
do not believe that any part of this
number should be made up by trans
fers from one level to another. The
last two years in the Washington
schools, during which we have pro
ceeded with the job of desegregation,
have been hard ones and the job is
by no means finished; we feel re
sponsible for giving our help to the
teachers and officers who have this
work to do.
“Only because of our genuine con
cern for the educational picture as it
appears to us in Washington today in
the face of increased school popula
tion, of the problems incident upon
integration, and of our desire to make
the schools in the nation’s capital a
model educationally throughout the
country, do we take this unusual
method of appeal.”
CORNING’S REPORT
School Supt. Hobart M. Corning
gave the school board during its April
meeting a 21-page report on present
school standards and practices which
have been criticized by board mem
bers and District Engineer Commis
sioner Thomas A. Lane.
In his report, Corning blamed the
present furor about school problems
on the transition from a segregated to
desegregated school system.
“Merging the two systems focused
attention also upon widely varying
[pupil] achievement levels as re
vealed by citywide tests,” Corning
said. He added “it is too early” to
draw conclusions on the test results
which showed many Washington stu
dents falling far below national
norms in reading, arithmetic and
spelling. In general, white students
scored better than Negro students.
Coming’s report continued: “The
transition from a segregated to an in
tegrated organization involved a tre
mendous reorganization of the entire
school system and brought to light
differences in methods, procedures
and conditions which quite naturally
had developed when the school sys
tem was so completely divided ...
•MORE TIME' NEEDED
“While desegregation is virtually
complete at this time, integration in
the true sense will require more time.
Final judgment on existing practices
should be deferred until we have had
more extended experience with the
new organization, and until the stu
dents and educational employes of
the two dissimilar educational sys
tems can become acclimated and ac
quire more similar backgrounds.”
Corning pointed out that the pub
lic schools must provide suitable
training for children who differ wide
ly in mental ability. He said a city-
wide mental test of third-graders
showed ranges in I.Q. from 49 to 149—
all gradations from the extremely
limited to the near genius type.
These youngsters, Corning said, are
not alike at any age level in their
readiness to learn, to master skills
and to acquire knowledge. They dif
fer in such characteristics as reten
tiveness, perseverance and ability to
work, he said.
ENVIRONMENTS CITED
“Some are from homes where there
is every inducement, encouragement
and advantage for successful school
ing,” Coming said, adding: “Others
come from homes where there is no
climate for learning, no encourage,
ment to succeed, no appreciation of
the need for an education, no physj.
cal or cultural advantages.”
On the national scene last month
President Eisenhower’s special com
mittee on education admitted it had
“straddled the fence” on
National the major issue of ra-
Conference cial segregation in the
Report massive report on school
problems presented to
the White House.
During a press conference, Neil
McElroy, chairman of the White
House Education Conference Com
mittee, said:
“We didn’t want to counter with
the issue. It was properly out of our
hands . . . and under the wing of the
Supreme Court . . . and the latter’s
views you don’t indorse, but accept.”
In its final report, the committee
said school segregation problems
“must be worked out by each com
munity in its own way.” The solu
tions, however, must be “within the
intent of the relevant Supreme Court
decisions” banning public school race
barriers, the committee stressed.
RACE ISSUE TREATMENT
Actually segregation was the only
major issue on which the 34-member
conference committee struck out on
its own in the report. The race ques
tion was mentioned only incidentally
in reports issued during the Wash
ington conference and not at all in a
summary of reports of state confer
ences held in preparation for it.
McElroy explained that a confer
ence subcommittee on “school goals”
insisted the subject “could not be
dodged.” So, it was included in the
report in this way:
“This committee agrees that the
great social, psychological and or
ganizational changes implicit in the
recent decisions of the Supreme
Court designed to abolish segrega
tion in the public schools cannot be
achieved with equal speed in every
community.
“The committee also agrees that
the intent of the majority of the
American people is to abolish racial
segregation as soon as possible.”
West \irginia Desegregation Fails to Become Political Issue
CHARLESTON, W. Va.
HE SEGREGATION ISSUE, SO Very
much alive in West Virginia fol
lowing the Supreme Court’s ruling,
has failed to become a subject of de
bate as voters prepare to select party
candidates in the May 8 primary. In
fact, only one aspirant for Congress,
in the sixth district which includes
the capital city of Charleston, has
even mentioned the matter.
Offices to be filled in the forthcom
ing primary include school board
members in all of the state’s 55 coun
ties, including five still to be officially
integrated. Unlike the other offices at
stake they are on a non-partisan ba
sis with no expected run-offs after
the primary.
Other posts to be filled include six
members of the U. S. House of Rep
resentatives, a U. S. senator, the gov
ernorship, state treasurer, attorney
general, superintendent of schools and
the commissioner of agriculture, be
sides 16 members of the state senate
and 100 members of the house of del
egates
SEGREGATION ISSUE
The only candidate to touch on the
once controversial subject is Dem
ocrat John M. Eckard of Charleston,
who is given the barest of chances to
depose Robert C. Byrd of Beckley,
also a Democrat, who is completing
his second term as representative
from the sixth congressional district.
Eckard declared he was “for lib
erty schools that will give any Amer
ican boy or girl the democratic right
to go to school with children of his or
her own race, or any amendment to
the constitution that will guarantee
that right.”
Byrd didn’t reply although the
sixth district, which includes popu
lous Kanawha, Boone, Raleigh and
Logan counties, has an estimated 15
pei cent Negro voters.
A Bluefield State College faculty
member who refused to answer ques
tions about his alleged identity with
Communist party activities won’t be
rehired by the State Board of Educa
tion when his contract expires May
31.
He is Nathaniel Bond, serving his
first year as a substitute English in
structor at the once all-Negro insti
tution. The state board made the de
cision on the Negro teacher after re
ceiving a report from President W. J.
Wright of Bluefield State College. The
board deplored Bond’s conduct as a
non-cooperative witness during a
hearing before the House of Repre
sentatives’ sub-committee on Un-
American Activities in Charlotte, N.
C., March 12.
Included in the Bluefield presi
dent’s report was a copy of the letter
written to Wright by Bond after his
return from the Charlotte hearing.
TESTIMONY EXPLAINED
“I am not now and have never at
any time been a member of the Com
munist Party,” wrote Bond. He said
the “accusation of the committee’s
witness was based solely upon his
false assumption and my associations
that were inevitable during my near
ly 10 years of devotion to the com
pletely just cause of the National As
sociation for the Advancement of
Colored People.”
ATHLETIC AWARD
The “Athlete of the Year” trophy
was awarded to a white student at
West Virginia State this year. He is
Sam Chilton, a member of the col
lege’s swimming team and a relative
of former U. S. Sen. W. E. Chilton
from West Virginia. Young Chilton
commutes to the college from nearby
Dunbar.
During the month West Virginia
State, which already has been ad
mitted to the once all-white West
Virginia State Athletic Conference,
was invited to compete in the West
Virginia Girls Independent Basket
ball tournament in Charleston.
Garnet High of Charleston, which
for the past two years has won the
state Negro baseball title, also is com
peting in the Kanawha Valley Con
ference for the first time this season.
But this is to be the last term for the
all-Negro high school. The Kanawha
County Board of Education plans to
use its buildings to house a special
technical high school, starting this
summer.
PLANS FOR SCHOOL
School Supt. Virgil Flinn, who, at
his own request, is soon to become
assistant superintendent in charge of
research, said Garnet High School
will be converted into Kanawha
County Technical High School. It will
be the first such school to be organ
ized in West Virginia and means that
Garnet’s students will be integrated
into other county high schools with
the exception of those Negro students
who are selected for enrollment at
the new technical institution. In fact,
the three-year “selective” high school
will be for all advanced students, re
gardless of race, who want specialized
technical training.
It will not be a “trade school,” but
will be patterned after similar schools
in other states in that it will be for
above-normal students who will have
to pass special qualifications and have
high grades. The school will include
the new, and still unused, section, an
addition that has been built onto the
Negro high school.
A federal court suit to end segrega
tion in Logan County schools has
been settled, Judge Harry E. Watkins
announced April 11, following accep
tance by the county board of educa
tion of an agreement along with rep
resentatives of the NAACP.
The judge’s decision was that “dis
crimination on the ground of race or
color in the schools of Logan County
must end at the earliest practical
date.” It was reached at a pre-trial
conference among interested parties
in the district court at Huntington.
Judge Watkins suggested and the
school board and NAACP approved
steps toward integration which would
(1) eliminate segregation in grades
one through six at the beginning of
the next school term in September,
and (2) desegregate the junior and
senior high schools in the second se
mester of 1956-57, or about next Feb
ruary.
Judge Watkins said the board’s ac
ceptance was “unanimous.”
Figures produced at the pre-trial
conference indicated that the present
junior and senior high schools in the
county now were inadequate. The
judge noted that two new high schools
are under construction, and upon that
program he based a lengthy state
ment giving reasons for the delay in
the integration schedule for upper
grade students.
The suit had been filed only the
month before by the state chapter of
the NAACP but soon developed into
a dispute when some of the Logan
litigants, who supposedly had agreed
to it, declared they were receiving
fair treatment from the Logan board.
Integration of religious groups also
occurred during April. The state Bap
tist Youth Convention was attended
by both whites and Negroes for the
first time.
Using the theme, “No Longer
Strangers,” the two groups wor
shipped together, held business ses
sions together, and met at luncheons
and dinners together—all in compl ete
harmony. And as the three-day con
vention ended they passed a resolu
tion that all future meetings of the
two youth groups will be integrate
Announcement also was made by
the National Council of Churches o
Christ through the Rev. ^ ar T e
Chandler and Dr. Alfred Kramer th a
West Virginia soon will become the
site of a “pilot project in human re
lations.” The selection was based on
the fact that the state has been ere
ited with more than average speed u 1
integrating its school system.
A team of 20 white and ^
church leaders will study the W eS
Virginia program so that they nnaj
help cities and towns in other sta
“bring about integration in a P eace .,
ful, Christian way.” The team
include clergymen, physicians, e
cators and parents—all residents o
West Virginia—and will be the firs
its kind in the nation.
The purpose of the ^° unC te p
program, they said, was not to
in and try to tell courts and sch
when and how to end segregation ■ _
we are ready to help people who ^
concerned and who desire to un e
stand and solve the problems of tra
sition.” Neither, said the l ea
would the group “force any ideas^,.^
on the community, but will 6° i
an open mind, with convictions
a desire to help, if possible.