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Objective
VOL IV, NO. 12
NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE
$2 PER YEAR
JUNE, 1958
Court Action In 9 States Marks Month
What Are ‘Standards?’
An Educator Explains
By A. D. ALBRIGHT
any people throughout America are
deeply concerned about the quality
of public education. The Sputniks, Ex
plorers and Vanguards have put in or
bit an intense interest around math
and science.
Shortly before the satellite launch
ings, Johnny’s reading enjoyed lavish
attention and before that safety came
into the spotlight of public concern. Of
course reading, writing, spelling and
arithmetic have been perennials. Usu
ally a specific subject or skill has been
singled out at a particular time. Crisis
has been normal.
In the South, especially since the de
segregation decisions of 1954, people
have been disturbed by the possible ef
fect of desegregation on the quality of
the total school program in their com
munities.
MEAN MANY THINGS
Standards seem to mean many differ
ent things to various people. When you
ask what standards are, individuals in
cluding many educators seem to have
difficulty in being very precise in their
answers. This is understandable, par
ticularly when an interpretation is
Dr. Albright is professor of education
and executive dean of extended pro
grams at the University of Kentucky.
cloudy about what the schools are try
ing to accomplish. Yet standards can be
viewed most realistically in terms of the
schools’ objectives and in case these
goals are unclear then standards at best
are obscure.
Recognizing the purpose of imparting
information as important, other objec
tives such as the development of values,
attitudes, beliefs, citizenship and re
sponsibility are usually desired. But
these are difficult to standardize. What
is an average value or attitude, average
citizenship or personal responsibility?
many standards
Too, numerous standards exist. Those
for the accreditation of a school, letter
or numerical grades for subjects, and
achievement and intelligence tests are
examples. Standards for the accredita
tion or approval of schools consist main-
V of measures of resources available
which are assumed to insure quality in
the program: degrees held by teachers,
teacher-pupil ratios, dollars spent per
c hild, square feet of classroom per pu-
Pff, number of books in the library, and
others of similar nature.
How these resources are put together
ar *d used to provide learning opportu
nities is primarily a matter of judgment
exercised by those persons who do the
nocrediting or approving of a school,
these judgments represent the expecta
tions and purposes held by the apprais
es. Consequently, wide ranges in de
cisions about what is a good school oc
cur frequently.
Another type of standard is symbol-
lze d by a letter or numerical grade as
signed by the teacher to a pupil in a
Particular class or course. For example,
. t° 100 per cent is an A. Recently a
Junior high school pupil asked, “Ninety -
°ur to 100 per cent of what?” Contin-
~tig, he applied the question to his his-
iY course and inquired how the teach
er, since she couldn’t possibly know all
00 per cent) history or even all early
nnierican history, decided what was im-
P°rtant to cover.
^achers grade differently
observed, even though treated in
e textbook, that the fact of who was
a yor of Hartford, Conn., in 1848 was
ut particularly significant to him. Yet,
“s achievement and his grade (a
/Uiidard) were determined in a small
a y by his answer.
That different teachers for several
l °n.s of the same course in a school
furti? 6 Afferent tests is well known and
^thermore, research tells us that one
c her may grade the same examina
tion (in English, for example) differ
ently than a second teacher. Hence,
even within a school, varying achieve
ment levels and standards prevail.
The most commonly talked about
standards are the norms of standardized
achievement tests which provide some
information about the average level of
academic attainment in a general school
population. These tests are composed
of numerous items selected by the test-
makers which rely upon previously
gained information for the answers, and
usually there is but one right answer.
Customarily the test constructor con
sults subject-matter specialists, educa
tional psychologists, textbooks, pre
vious tests and other resources in for
mulating test items. The preliminary
draft of an achievement test is tried
out with a sample of children, the main
purpose being to determine how well
the tentative test differentiates pupils
on what has been achieved academ
ically, not on what the aptitude or abil
ity to learn may become. On the basis
of trial runs the test is revised and
used with larger samples. When the
purpose and certain statistical assump
tions of the test designer have been
satisfied, the test is ready for general
use.
DIFFERENTIATION IS 50-50
Of course, by designing the tests to
differentiate pupils, 50 per cent are au
tomatically placed below and 50 per
cent above the median or mid-point.
Teachers and parents want their chil
dren to achieve at least the average
established by the tests but this is im
possible. The way the tests are de
signed and interpreted half of the chil
dren must be placed below the average.
Even if the average is raised, the same
holds true for there is consistently the
50-50 division.
And a child may have different aver
ages since a host of tests is available
and used: mental maturity; readiness;
mental ability; reasoning; scholastic
achievement batteries in reading, spell
ing, language, arithmetic, social studies
and science; academic aptitude; and
many others. These tests have various
specific purposes and their norms are
expressed in several ways from per
cents to mental ages to school grade
levels.
Intelligence tests also are frequently
referred to in some predictions of pu
pils’ success in a school program. The
I. Q. tests usually contain items which
draw less than achievement tests upon
school experience for responses by the
child. Basically, however, there is little
difference between achievement tests
and intelligence tests, the latter being
a very general type of achievement ex
amination.
BASED ON ACQUISITION
Both types are heavily based upon
the acquisition of information. Often,
intelligence tests are thought to meas
ure only innate qualities of a child but
those people who seem to be most in
formed on the matter generally agree
that the I. Q. tests, as achievement tests,
assay the interaction between a child’s
endowment and his culture, his imme
diate and past experience. Otherwise,
some studies could hardly show that an
I. Q. test given before age 15 (9th or
10th grade) has only a 35 per cent pre
dictability for college success. If given
in the senior year of high school, the
predictability is 65 per cent.
So, in considering the school achieve
ment of pupils, standards of any kind
have greater meaning in relation to
what the schools are trying to accom
plish. Numerous standards exist, the
most common being the norms of
achievement tests.
Under present achievement testing
and interpretation, a half of the pupils
must be below the average, or stand
ard. Achievement tests, including in
telligence tests, mainly measure aca
demic attainment and academic attain
ment represents relationships between
a pupil’s endowment and his past home
and community conditions. With these
guides in mind attention can now be
T^HE 1957-58 school year ended on a legal note in nine southern and border states as key litigation in-
-J- volving school entry attempts either cleared through the courts or set the stage for further court action.
Delaware was in the center of this legal spotlight. Sitting at Philadelphia, the U.S. Third Circuit Court or
dered the state Board of Education to formulate a statewide plan for desegregation—the first such action of
this kind in the 17-state area affected by the 1954 Supreme Court ruling against school segregation.
No new instances of school desegregation came to light, though in Ozark, Ark., it was disclosed that Ne
gro children were readmitted at midterm to all-white schools after their withdrawal last fall.
The school segregation-desegregation
SC pktricts desegregated: 764 of 2,889 bi - - ™P !A Grows in Washington
racial districts, all but 15 of them in
the border states.
Districts segregated: 2,125, including
all districts in Virginia, South Carolina,
Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama,
and Louisiana.
SOME INCREASES
In the border states, year-end en
rollment figures showed some percent
age increases in Negro attendance at
desegregated schools. Missouri report
ed that 95 per cent of its Negro children
are now enrolled in schools in desegre
gated districts (though not all of them
are in “mixed” schools.) A Delaware
count showed 36 per cent of the state’s
Negro children were in “integrated sit
uations” in May as compared with 28.2
per cent in the same month of 1957.
In other court actions:
• Way was cleared for hearing of the
Atlanta (Georgia’s first) school entry
suit, while in the Birmingham suit (Ala
bama’s first) a court held the state pu
pil placement act not unconstitutional
“on its face.”
• Further litigation seemed likely in
Dallas, Tex., after a court ruling, and
it was not expected that Dallas would
desegregate next fall—as some had an
ticipated.
® Virginia appeared faced with a
segregation-desegregation showdown in
the fall in Arlington County and at
Charlottesville, as Negro plaintiffs won
court victories. Segregationists made
plans for setting up private schools in
the event Negroes are assigned to all-
white schools (in which case, under
state law, the schools would be closed)
and also planned “retaliation” by pre
senting white children for enrollment
at all-Negro schools (in which case
these schools, too, would have to close
under state law.)
In Washington President Eisenhower
declined to speculate on the govern
ment’s policy in the Virginia situation.
He emphasized, however, that federal
court orders must be obeyed.
There was little activity on the legis-
-Baltimore (Md.) Evening Sun
—Jackson (Miss.) Daily News
lative front. The Louisiana legislature,
just convening in May, was expected to
get a “package” of pro-segregation
laws, but none had been presented as
the month ended.
A summary of major developments
state-by-state follows:
Alabama
In ruling on Alabama’s first public
school entry suit (at Birmingham) a
three-judge federal court held that the
state’s pupil placement law was not un
constitutional “on its face” but allowed
for the possibility that it might be found
“unconstitutional in its application.”
Arkansas
The first Negro student graduated
from troop-guarded Little Rock Central
High School at ceremonies which were
conducted without major incident.
Meanwhile, the school board asked for
a delay until January 1961 in the re
sumption of integration. Ozark was dis
closed to have readmitted Negro chil
dren at midterm.
Orleans school case should not be over
thrown on a technicality, and a lower
federal court heard a new plea from the
school board for dismissal based on the
argument that the state, not the board,
is the proper defendant in the case.
Maryland
Washington County announced a
third step in its desegregation program,
effective next fall, while in Baltimore
a study showed that 600 Negro teachers
had been integrated.
Mississippi
Prof. Clennon King, ousted from the
faculty of Alcorn A & M (Negro) Col
lege in a controversy over anti-NAACP
articles he had written, applied for ad
mission to the all-white University of
Mississippi.
Missouri
School administrators estimated that
95 per cent of the state’s Negro school
children are enrolled in districts which
are desegregated at some level.
turned to the school achievement of
Negroes and whites in the South.
VARIATIONS IN ACHIEVEMENT
Without a doubt, Negro students in
the South, on the average, are achieving
less well academically than are whites.
Both achievement and intelligence
test results show some consistent dif
ferences between the two groups. The
Atlanta Board of Education authorized
a study of pupil achievement which was
conducted by the Educational Testing
Service of Princeton, N.J., and reported
in part in the September 1957 issue of
Southern School News.
Tests were administered in grades 4,
6, 8 and 12. In reading for grades 4
through 8, the per cent of white pupils
achieving the standard set by the top
half of the national sample ranged from
39 to 45, and the per cent of pupils
scoring two or more grades below the
national average gradually increased
from 10 per cent in grade 4 to 25 per
cent at the 8th grade. In the Negro
group the per cent of pupils at grade 4
who fell below the national mid-point
was 50 per cent and at grade 8, 85 per
cent. In English slightly over one-half
of the Negro pupils in the 12th grade
achieved at the level of the lowest 2
per cent of the national group. In arith
metic at the 6th grade level 10 per cent
of the whites and 50 per cent of the
Negroes were retarded in their scores.
In Dallas in 1955 readiness -for-learn
ing tests given in grade 1 placed 18
per cent of the Negro children and 32
(Continued On Page 2)
Delaware
The state Board of Education pro
ceeded with a statewide desegregation
plan without waiting for a specific time
order after a circuit court directed it
to formulate such a plan. However, de
lays were expected.
District of Columbia
At a press conference in Washington
President Eisenhower declined to say
what would be the government’s role
in the Virginia school controversy, but
emphasized that federal court orders
must be obeyed.
Florida
Southern mayors meeting at Jackson
ville set up a central police intelligence
agency to combat religious and racial
bombings. Gov. LeRoy Collins proposed
federal-state commissions to decide the
“wheres, whens and hows” of school
integration in the light of local condi
tions.
Georgia
Way was cleared for trial of Georgia’s
first school entry suit (in Atlanta) but
it was expected that the case would not
be heard until next year.
Kentucky
Two Kentucky districts announced
extension of present integration pro
grams next September and a third
shifted district fines affecting the racial
composition of a junior high school.
Louisiana
In Washington the U.S. Supreme
Court held that the preliminary injunc
tion against segregation in the New
North Carolina
Two Negro mothers in Durham filed
suit for entry of their children in all-
white schools in another attack on the
state’s pupil placement law.
Oklahoma
Two “Little Dixie” districts faced
loss of state financing for segregated
schools. One indicated it would bear
the extra burden itself and the other
said it could not afford to operate sep
arate schools longer than one more year.
South Carolina
Segregation remained an issue as po
litical candidates campaigned for nom
ination (equivalent to election) in the
June 10 Democratic primary. Six faculty
members at two Negro colleges were
dismissed or released in a controversy
growing out of charges of Communist
affiliations or sympathies.
Tennesseee
A federal court decision was awaited
in the Nashville grade-at-a-time school
desegregation case after both sides in
the lawsuit had filed briefs.
Texas
Delay of at least a year was expected
in Dallas school desegregation when the
way was opened for new litigation after
a federal court refused a test of a new
state law.
Virginia
Negro children seeking entry to all-
white schools in Charlottesville and
Arlington County won court victories,
increasing the possibility that some
schools may be closed next fall in Vir
ginia. Segregationists began organizing
plans for private schools in several
parts of the state.
West Virginia
Public schools ended the fourth year
in a climate of desegregation without
major incident and with two educators
commending the results. In one county
five schools were burned in acts of arson
which some attributed to racial feeling.
# # #
Alabama 8
Arkansas 10
Delaware 16
Dist. of Columbia 9
Florida 13
Georgia 3
INDEX
Kentucky 7
Louisiana 14
Maryland I I
Mississippi 14
Missouri 12
North Carolina 4
Oklahoma 3
South Carolina 15
Tennessee 12
Texas 5
Virginia 6
West Virginia 2