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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