Newspaper Page Text
Factual
•VO *S N 3 H i V
VI0 fa 0 3 0 JO AilS fa 3 A INn
1TVH fa 3 1 0 N V 3
3 N fa08SO *i »fa
z iioi—i? 3Nnr
001
Objective
VOL. HI, NO. 10
NASHVILLE, TENN.
$2 PER YEAR
APRIL, 1957
Virginius Dabney (center), retiring chairman of the SEES board of directors,
was presented an engraved desk set as a token of appreciation for his service. He is
succeeded by Frank Ahlgren (right), editor of the Memphis Commercial Appeal.
Coleman Harwell (left), editor of the Nashville Tennessean, made the presenta
tion on behalf of the board.
SERS Board of Directors
Picks Ahlgren Chairman
3 Key Court Cases Test
Pupil Placement Statutes
T hree court tests of theory and practice of pupil placement—now in effect in at least seven states—and
a head-on clash between a state supreme court and the U.S. Supreme Court highlighted a month of liti
gation and legislation in the southern and border states.
The key court cases involved:
Florida—where the state supreme court refused to carry out an order of the U.S. Supreme Court di
recting admission of a Negro to the University of Florida Law School for fear of “violence in university
communities and critical disruption of the University system.”
Virginia—where the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review lower court decisions ordering desegregation
at Charlottesville and in Arlington County and where a U.S. district court formally held Virginia’s place
ment act unconstitutional in cases affecting Norfolk and Newport News, now on appeal.
North Carolina—where the U.S. Supreme Court apparently upheld the state’s pupil placement act by
refusing to review a lower court ruling which had found the act not unconstitutional on its face.
Louisiana—where a circuit court of appeals upheld a lower federal court and attacked a placement law
^fter three years of service,
Virginius Dabney has retired
as chairman of the board of South
ern Education Reporting Service
and Frank Ahlgren, editor of the
Memphis Commercial Appeal, has
been elected to succeed him.
The change took place at the annual
SERS board meeting in Nashville
March 3.
The board also re-elected Thomas R.
Waring as vice-chairman and Don Shoe
maker as executive director.
Dean George N. Redd of Fisk Uni
versity was formally elected to fill the
vacancy created by the death of Fisk
President Charles S. Johnson, for the
term ending in 1959.
Dabney is slated to become president
°f the American Society of Newspaper
Editors in July. He will retire from the
board altogether at that time in order
to devote all available time to the ASNE
Presidency.
Also retiring was Dr. Gordon Black-
well, director of the Institute for Re
search in Social Science at Chapel Hill,
N. C. Blackwell recently was elected
chancellor of the Woman’s College of
the University of North Carolina at
Greensboro.
A special nominating committee head
ed by Coleman A. Harwell, editor of the
Nashville Tennessean, will fill the Dab
ney and Blackwell vacancies.
As a token of their appreciation to
Dabney, who is editor of the Richmond
Times-Dispatch, board members pre
sented him with an engraved desk set.
He has served since the beginning of
SERS in 1954 and his contributions and
leadership were lauded in statements by
board members.
The group also approved a budget for
the next biennium, authorized special
microfilming of the SERS reference col
lection, and heard reports on two new
SERS projects which will be made pub
lic shortly.
# # #
as “having implied as its only basis
Seven states have placement acts
identified as such. They are Ala
bama, Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana,
North Carolina, Tennessee (permissive)
and Virginia. A bill prescribing adminis
trative procedures for desegregation and
containing standard assignment features
has cleared one house of the Texas leg
islature. Most of these measures avoid
race or color as criteria for assignment
but courts have gone behind some laws
to determine legislative intent in mak
ing assignment.
Elsewhere on the school segregation-
desegregation front one more district
(in West Virginia) was reported to have
begun the desegregation process, bring
ing to 674 out of some 3,700 bi-racial
districts the number having begun or
accomplished desegregation.
Additional pro-segregation legislation
was adopted in South Carolina and Ten
nessee, while the first measures of this
kind were being processed in Texas.
Also, Delaware reported 32 per cent
of its school population now in “inte
grated situations” and Missouri report
ed plans for desegregation of an addi
tional high school, leaving only four
segregated in the state.
A summary of major developments
state-by-state follows:
for assignments the prohibited standard of race.”
Specialists See Few Curriculum Changes
Stemming From Race Issue In Schools
T® current concept of curric
. ulum, most southern specialists
ln the field agree, is flexible
en °ugh to adjust to new situations
ar ising from the segregation-de
legation issue without chang
es basic “curriculum guides.”
Curriculum” in contemporary edu-
' 10n weans the total learning experi-
35 w if fulfilling personality
just
§fade
are
thi
tablishment of a terminal education pro
gram for the mentally retarded in St.
Louis and the four-track system of in
struction in the District of Columbia.
In St. Louis, the terminal education pro
gram was made possible when more
space became available in existing
school buildings after desegregation was
begun. However, the plan had been
conceived and was under consideration
before that time.
as purely academic needs—not FOUR-TRACK PROGRAM
a list of courses for study in a given
°r school. “Curriculum guides”
, r Patterns or outlines of study
the which each child advances at
.'--laf JaCe an d to the extent possible in
""terest *° k* S ° wn men tal capacity and
Ser ies of interviews with special-
v e r® supervision and curriculum de-
f 0Ul ^ ment > Southern School News
Pf 0 on ly two cases in which new
tle ift nS followed desegregation. In
in ? r case were the changes general
“ature.
1Nd 1REi
So
Indirect effects are expected to
of j^n the programs of instruction
CT EFFECTS
^ 1° be felt at the level of teacher
segf e °°1 systems in states maintaining
the _^ ati °n, educators said. However,
lesegf ate a t impact of the segregation-
fatpej ation question on curriculum is
^g.
■K
drived ,' vere dm principal impressions
Agates ; rom !°ur days of querying del-
■he the 12 th annual convention of
' Ul hem° C * at ' on * or Supervision and
rnojjdj^ 1 Envelopment in St. Louis
% definite changes in curric-
*^ re ?at’ ^ have followed the school
lon decisions have been the es-
In the District of Columbia, the four-
track program—still in the experimental
stage—was a direct result of desegre
gation which brought into the same
classrooms children of widely varying
educational backgrounds and levels of
achievement.
Curriculum workers also pointed out
that many communities which have be
gun desegregation have found remedial
classes in various subject matter essen
tial. But the need existed before de
segregation and the classes were inau
gurated after in the effort to give all
children the opportunity to develop the
basic skills, as in reading and mathe
matics, to their fullest capacity, the edu
cators agreed.
In the eight southern states where no
elementary or secondary school deseg
regation has occurred, the impact of
the segregation-desegregation issue on
curriculum is believed to be indirect.
In Florida and Louisiana, Negro edu
cators have sought to improve the qual
ity of instruction and to instill in their
pupils certain values looking toward the
day when they expect segregation to
end. And outside the ranks of the edu
cators, elaborate plans have been out
lined in the pupil assignment acts of
seven states to utilize certain aspects
of the curriculum process to control, if
not to prevent, desegregation.
In the areas where desegregation has
begun, curriculum workers reported al
most without exception, no new courses
have been required solely because of
desegregation. The situation in Missouri
was described by a state department of
education official in these terms:
“Nothing has happened to the Mis
souri guide to curriculum. The guide
was built for slow, average and gifted
students. You don’t change the guide
[when desegregation occurs], but you
do find differences in attainment in each
area studied. Grouping is flexible so
that children may move from one to the
next group as they progress. Thus the
guide brings about uniformity of edu
cation but not conformity.”
This official was explaining how the
curriculum developed for the Missouri
schools accomodated itself to the situa
tion in some 184 of the state’s 244 bi-
racial school districts in which about
90 per cent of the 65,000 Negro pupils of
the state have been taken into inte
grated situations. In the beginning, he
said, Negro children were found to lag
behind white pupils when measured by
standard tests. However, in such sys
tems as Kansas City’s, the growth of the
Negro pupils after one year of work un
der the standard curriculum was found
to be “amazing,” he said.
REMEDIAL CLASSES
This educator said he knew of no re
quests for special kinds of courses or
changes in curriculum since desegrega
tion began. Remedial reading classes are
pretty general throughout the state.
But, he asserted, “percentagewise, Negro
and white children are in these classes
in the same proportions.”
Asked about the demand among Ne
groes for more vocational education, this
source pointed to several reasons why
Negroes have sought, instead, the broad-
(See CURRICULUM, Page 2)
Alabama
Legislation to implement a “freedom
of choice” measure adopted last year is
expected to come before the General
Assembly when it meets in May, partly
as a consequence of a federal court de
cision in Louisiana attacking pupil
placement.
Arkansas
Three pro-segregation candidates
were defeated and one was victorious in
spring school board elections.
Delaware
The state saw (in Kent County) the
first federal court order calling for a
school integration plan. A statewide
count showed 32 per cent of Delaware’s
school population in “integrated situa
tions.”
District of Columbia
Congressional leaders expect to see
civil rights legislation reach the Sen
ate floor for action before the Easter
recess.
Florida
The state supreme court refused to
carry out an order of the U.S. Supreme
Court for admission of a Negro graduate
law student to the University of Florida
because this course might result in “vio
lence.”
Georgia
School segregation is already a polit
ical issue 18 months in advance of the
gubernatorial primary, with prospective
candidates vying for support as all-out
segregationists.
Kentucky
Use of racial epithets “is to make an
avowal by conduct and words of stir
ring up strife,” a Kentucky court ruled
in acquitting a newspaper publisher and
a police chief of charges of criminal-
slander made by a segregationist.
Louisiana
A year-old court order to desegregate
New Orleans schools was affirmed in a
circuit court decision which held that
a state’s right to administer schools as
it desires can be overridden by “matters
of fundamental justice that the citizens
of the United States consider so essen
tially an ingredient of human rights as
to require a restraint on any state that
appears to ignore them.”
Maryland
The State Board of Education turned
down an appeal from 11 Negro pupils
in Harford County seeking admission to
white schools not included in the first
stage of a limited program—restricting
desegregation to the first three grades of
two schools in the current year.
Mississippi
Alcorn College, where some 580 Negro
students walked out in protest over a
professor’s newspaper criticism of the
NAACP, was back to normal at the end
of the month with a new president. Gov.
James P. Coleman, whose attitude here
tofore has been described as one of “pa
tient understanding,” took a strong
stand against “outsiders” who would
foment trouble in Mississippi.
Missouri
Only four high schools in the state re
main segregated after the decision of a
school in the “bootheel” section to ad
mit Negroes next September.
North Carolina
The state’s pupil assignment law ap
parently has been upheld by the U.S.
Supreme Court in a test over admission
of Negro children to a McDowell County
school. An NAACP national official
blamed “timidity” of public officials for
lack of desegregation in state schools.
Oklahoma
Three lawsuits have been filed seek
ing admission of Negro students to
white schools while one of the earliest
systems to end segregation at the high
school level announced plans to inte
grate all grades next year.
South Carolina
One house of the legislature has ap
proved a bill giving the governor broad
powers “for the protection of persons
and property.” Other pro-segregation
measures are pending.
Tennessee
Segregationist John Kasper was re
arrested on a second charge of crim
inal contempt of court at Knoxville.
Nashville school board members author
ized the superintendent to start work
on plans to “inform, elucidate and help
solve problems” which may be involved
in September desegregation at the first
grade.
Texas
Pro-segregation legislation was re
ported to be making progress in the
legislature, which adopted a resolution
urging the states to resist federal en
croachment on their authority.
Virginia
The U.S. Supreme Court has refused
to review lower court orders directing
Charlottesville and Arlington County to
begin school desegregation. A state offi
cial told the school authorities involved
that they were helpless to obey under
Virginia law. A federal district court
judge made formal an opinion holding
the state’s Pupil Placement Act uncon
stitutional.
West Virginia
With desegregation a reality in most
school systems the legislature has abol
ished the Bureau of Negro Welfare and
Statistics—over criticism of some Negro
citizens. Six Negro pupils are now at
tending formerly all-white Martinsburg
High School in Berkeley County, leav
ing only two counties with schools
wholly segregated.
Index
State Page
Alabama 13
Arkansas 15
Delaware 2
District of Columbia 5
Florida 6
Georgia 4
Kentucky 7
Louisiana 8
Maryland 11
Mississippi 14
Missouri 10
North Carolina 14
Ok’ahama 10
South Carolina 9
Tennessee 12
Texas 16
Virginia 3
West Virginia 5
