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PAGE 12—AUGUST I960—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
MARYLAND
Migration Causes Turnover in Baltimore Schools
BALTIMORE, Md.
T he continuing migration of
Southern rural families into
Baltimore is reported to be caus
ing rapid racial turnover in the
schools, overcrowded classrooms,
revised curricula and teaching
methods and behavior problems
on an unprecedented scale.
While socio-economic back
ground rather than race is
stressed in most reports of school
officials and the press, Negro chil
dren make up the bulk of what
Baltimore School Supt. George B.
Brain calls the “culturally disad
vantaged.” A smaller grouping of
unassimilated white migrants
comes from southern Appalachian
hillsides.
The general picture was pre
sented by Stephen E. Nordlinger,
education reporter of the Balti
more Sun, in a Sunday feature
article entitled, “Standards
Threatened by Slow Students.”
Nordlinger wrote, in part:
“When a family in the mountains of
West Virginia or Tennessee or in the
small towns of rural areas of North
Carolina or Georgia decides to move
to Baltimore, their plans drastically af
fect the city’s schools.
“The children of many of those
families require an educational pro
gram far removed from the enriched
courses of the students bound for col
lege and technical jobs in industry.
Many of the southern pupils and their
parents know little about books and
classrooms and have yet to accept the
need for attending school regularly.
“While the [school] system broadens
its advanced programs on one hand,
it is devoting a major part of its re
sources to this group of culturally de
prived children, both white and Negro.
12 PER CENT HIKE
“By September the school system ex
pects a 12 per cent increase in pupils
assigned to elementary and junior high
school classes for the mentally re
tarded, compared to an overall enroll
ment growth in these schools of two
per cent. These pupils are not neces
sarily retarded mentally, but their test
results indicate a need for instruction
at that level.
“Dr. Harry M. Selznick, director of
special education, which covers pro
grams for mentally retarded pupils,
plans to request 24 more classes in
elementary school and 31 more in
junior high for these pupils. The num
ber receiving programs for the men
tally retarded is expected to rise 57
per cent in the next five years from
8,336 enrolled last September to 13,083
in 1964.”
Apart from the scholastic lag, the mi
grants to the city and the steady shift
from white to Negro occupancy in the
older residential areas create a prob
lem of constant pupil turnover in the
schools. The city’s elementary schools
had an average turnover of 21 per cent
last year. Miss Clara E. Grether, super
visor of school research, estimates that
some classes may have a 60 to 70 per
cent turnover in the course of several
years. One school in 1958 had a 150
per cent turnover.
SOCIAL LAG
Then, on top of the cultural lag and
the changing composition of classrooms,
there is the social lag, which manifests
itself not only in terms of truancy and
tardiness but in more basic ways.
Nordlinger reported:
“At some schools teachers must ex
plain the proper use of bathrooms and
the function of knife, fork and spoon.
They must teach children to wash reg
ularly, to eat balanced meals and to
take care of their homes and neigh
borhoods. Teachers have become social
workers at those schools in addition to
their regular duties.”
Dr. George B. Brain, who became
Baltimore’s school superintendent last
J anuary, addressed himself to the
manifold problems created by the
changing composition of the schools in
a speech before a Maryland confer
ence of the National Assn, for the Ad
vancement of Colored People. Without
mentioning race, Brain said, in part:
“As we evaluate the effectiveness of
activities we some
times become
anxious when we
assess the many
forces operating
as deterrents to
the achievement
of our boys and
girls. We are con
cerned about the
increasing number
of teachers who
are inadequately
prepared for their
responsibilities. We are concerned
about the apathy on the part of some
parents. We are concerned also about
the lack of cultural opportunities and
the supervision children receive in
their out-of-school hours. We are con
cerned about the interruptions of chil
dren’s educational experiences be
cause of the frequent moving of the
family. We are concerned about the
impact of unwholesome family life on
the school progress of some children.
“Over the past several years the staff
of the Baltimore schools has been con
cerned about the achievement of its
children. (Here Brain had obvious ref
erence to the declining median scores
of the school population as a whole in
terms of both grade-level achievement
and intelligence quotients.) Certain ad
ministrative and supervisory measures
have been employed in order to bring
about greater advances and progress in
the learning problem of every child.
READING AID
“Remedial reading assistance for
non-readers and reading consultant
services to teachers through the read
ing center program have been in effect
since 1956.
“There has been an increase in the
speech correction services since it is
recognized that speech disabilities have
a decided impact upon the ability of
pupils to learn to read, write and spell
correctly.
There has been increased emphasis
upon the testing program as a source
of information to the teacher regard
ing the need of each child. . . .
“There has been an increase in the
supplemental teaching service to pro
vide for slow learners through supple
mentary teaching in the major fields of
need, especially reading and arithmetic.
Concomitantly there has been a devel
opment of supervisory programs of as
sistance to teachers in order to in
crease the instructional efficiency of
teachers working with children of low
abilities, low achievement, and whose
cultural backgrounds have not pro
vided them with a readiness for learn
ing in all general fields. .. .
EFFORT WITH PARENTS
“An effort also has been made to de
velop parental understanding of the
school program. Similarly an effort has
been made to build some basis for hav
ing parents value education for their
children and to create among parents
a consistent desire to continue the
schooling program for their children.”
Telling the NAACP that the prob
lems of adjusting rural peoples to ur
ban ways was not the “basic responsi
bility” of the schools and that the
schools’ efforts along these lines “have
not been sufficient,” Brain said:
“In my own opinion a city such as
Baltimore needs desperately the type of
service which the federal government
has provided to rural communities
through the land grant acts since 1862.
Activities and agencies comparable to
the 4-H programs for rural youth
might prove very effective if adapted
to the needs of in-migrants in our ma
jor urban centers. Assistance of this
type is necessary to orient adult family
members and to stimulate among them
an attitude of responsibility for them
selves and their children. . . .
“But in the absence of a unified, co
ordinated and well-defined program
aimed at adjusting cultures in con
flict—adapting the socially undesirable
to the socially acceptable—the schools
are left with an ever-increasing bur
den, which handicaps the school’s pur
pose and complicates the fulfillment of
the school’s basic responsibility. There
fore until a unified plan of action can
be effected on a city-wide basis, the
school must move rapidly to provide
every possible educational and cul
tural assistance to the children of such
families in order to elevate their in
school achievement to a more desira
ble standard.”
Reminding his audience that “the
power to be free can only come from
the people themselves,” Brain solicited
the NAACP’s “understanding and con
tinued cooperation.”
LOSING POPULATION
The continued shift in racial occu
pancy within the city is manifested in
many ways, the most recent of which,
some believe, is the revelation by the
1960 census that Baltimore has been
losing population during a period when
Health Department estimates showed a
net gain. As of last year, the Health
Department records showed that since
1950 Baltimore had lost 43,000 white
residents and gained 75,000 Negroes,
for a net total population of 982,000.
The preliminary 1960 census figure
for Baltimore is 923,224, a drop of 26,-
484 from the 1950 figure and about
60,000 below the Health Department
estimate. (The 1960 figure is also below
that of Houston, which replaces Balti
more as the sixth largest U. S. city.)
While the preliminary figure has no
breakdown as to race, some popula
tion experts say privately that the most
likely error in health estimates would
be an underestimation of white with
drawals from the city. If this proves
true, the Negro population percentage
in Baltimore may run higher than the
current estimate of 32 per cent.
Whatever the status of the total city
population, the racial change in the
school population is a matter of rec
ord: Between 1950 and the school year
that ended in June, Negro pupils in
creased from 41,225 to 82,525, or almost
exactly doubled their numbers; the
white total during the same period
rose from 80,140 in 1950 to a high of
88,083 in 1956 and then began a de
cline that by last fall had reached
84,194.
When schools reopen in September,
Negro pupils will be in the majority
in the school system as a whole, if they
did not in fact pass the 50 per cent
mark at some time during the past
school year,
PROBLEM OF NUMBERS
Aside from any scholastic, cultural
or social differences, the change of
neighborhoods from white to Negro has
presented a striking problem of num
bers for the public schools. With most
of the new suburbs closed to them,
Negroes by and large have had to oc
cupy the older dwelling units, which
are served by schools that were built
to meet white needs. Since about a
third of Baltimore’s white children
over the years have attended private
and parochial schools, which attract
very few Negro children, a residential
change from white to Negro immedi
ately creates a larger school population.
On top of that, the Negroes tend to
have a higher birth rate, larger fami
lies and higher density per dwelling
unit.
A recent annual report of the school
board stated that a change of neigh
borhood from white to Negro “resulted
in two to three times the number of
public school pupils as before the
change.” Consequently, the schools
serving all-Negro or changing neigh
borhoods have become seriously over
crowded and, being older to start with,
have offered an invidious comparison
with new schools built to serve the
new white suburban areas.
As a result, Baltimore has had to
construct new schools in already
built-up areas, often through costly
condemnation and clearance, to ac
commodate the greater numbers of Ne
gro children. One example is an area
of west Baltimore where the number
of dwellings has remained the same,
yet the change from white to Negro
occupancy has filled two large new
elementary schools and one new junior
high, and a second junior high is in
the active planning stage.
ENROLLMENT DOUBLED
Some of the changes in individual
schools pose the problem of numbers
in graphic detail. Nordlinger used as
an example an elementary school in
northeast Baltimore that had 837 white
pupils in 1953, which was the last year
of segregation in the city, and this past
year had 44 white and 1,796 Negro pu
pils in the same building, or well over
double the previous enrollment.
A more meaningful comparison is be
tween the fall of 1955 and this past
year, since by 1955 desegregation al
ready was established in Baltimore and
the changes in enrollment reflected
what was going on in the neighbor
hood to a greater extent than they re
flected a Negro desire to enter a white
school.
At the school cited by Nordlinger, for
example, the 1955 enrollment was 693
white and 22 Negroes. The white en
rollment was already down 144, re
flecting a white withdrawal from the
area, and Negroes were just moving in.
The more than doubled enrollment fol
lowed after that.
In another school in the same sec
tion of northeast Baltimore, Negroes
were already in the majority in 1955
(605 Negroes, 205 white pupils) and
then increased rapidly in numbers un
til last year there were 1,309 Negroes
and 36 whites. Again their numbers
more than doubled, although the school
and the number of surrounding proper
ties remained the same.
A junior high in the same general
area also has seen a large change, from
1,848 white and 134 Negro children in
the fall of 1955 to 255 white and 2,114
Negro last fall.
COMPLETE TURNOVER
Across the city in northwest Balti
more several elementary schools have
had almost a complete racial turnover.
Only nine white pupils remained this
past year at one school, and only ten
at another. A new school, opened last
fall to ease overcrowding, had a first-
year enrollment of nine white and 932
Negro pupils. A new junior high serv
ing the same general area had two
white pupils and 1,923 Negroes.
In contrast, another junior high in
northwest Baltimore has had only a
moderate white loss while its Negro
gain has been sizable. This school in
1955-56 had 2,234 white students and
170 Negroes. During the past year it
had 1,957 whites and 820 Negroes. At
another school closer to downtown
Baltimore, the white enrollment has
grown while the number of Negroes
has remained small: 404 whites and 13
Negroes in 1955; 510 whites and 50
Negroes in the fall of 1959.
While the pattern is not uniform, the
general picture is that of quite rapid
racial turnover, which leads from in
tegration to resegregation. Only one
small school has lost its former white
pupils altogether, and that happened
under exceptional circumstances. But
more than 20 schools in the formerly
all-white category now have Negro en
rollments of more than 50 per cent, and
several of these are almost entirely
Negro.
OFFICIALS POWERLESS
Since the schools, apart from the
centrally located high schools, serve
neighborhoods, and it is the neighbor
hoods themselves that are undergoing
the racial change, school officials are
powerless to head off the trend toward
Change in Selected Baltimore Schools
School
Year
White
Negro
Total
A
1955-56
676
337
1,013
1959-60
149
881
1,030
B
1955-56
1,014
152
1,166
1959-60
773
321
1,094
C
1955-56
736
93
829
1959-60
248
529
777
D*
1955-56
70
240
310
1959-60
10
1,196
1,206
E
1955-56
274
12
286
1959-60
9
354
363
F
1955-56
547
15
562
1959-60
397
405
802
G
1955-56
205
605
810
1959-60
36
1,309
1,345
H
1955-56
795
120
915
1959-60
242
620
862
I
1955-56
711
299
1,010
1959-60
170
1,372
1,542
J
1955-56
693
22
715
1959-60
44
1,796
1,840
K
1955-56
1,848
134
1,982
(jr. hi.)
1959-60
255
2,114
2,369
L
1955-56
2,234
170
2,404
(jr. hi.)
1959-60
1,957
820
2,777
M
1955-56
1,664
86
1,750
(sr. hi.)
1959-60
1,355
294
1,649
*School moved to larger building after 1955-56
OUr nrc»f**ccirniol
BRAIN
Missouri
(Continued From Page 11)
school. The Negro proportion in the day
school was estimated at about 10 pet
cent.
In an editorial July 5, the St. Louis
Post-Dispatch said it was unfortunate
that the St. Louis Board of Education
would have to “go into the bus busi
ness” but it seemed inevitable.
“Transportation is a poor answer,”
the editorial said. “But under the cir
cumstances it is the only one the board
can be expected to give. Children who
would be transported will suffer less
this way than they would crowded into
fire-trap basement rooms and other
makeshifts, and fewer of them will be
affected. Taxpayers who refused to
vote money for new construction also
will be hurt. Transportation and neces
sary auxiliary costs will run to at least
$172,000 a year. If this money were ap
plied to repaying construction loans,
it would be serving a far more pro
ductive and lasting purpose.”
The Congress of Racial Equality,
holding its 18th annual convention here
June 29-July 3, passed a resolution ex
pressing “deepest admiration” for stu
dent participants in sit-in demonstra
tions and commending citizens who had
supported them.
In the resolution, administrators of
Negro colleges who “maintained the
freedom of their students to participate
in this civil rights revolution” were
praised. Other administrators, singled
out by name, were censured. The reso
lution said:
“We in CORE must express our deep
est admiration for the courageous and
daring students who have suffered phy
sical assault, arrest, jail and expulsion
from school. We also commend the
thousands of earnest citizens, in all
walks of life, who have rallied to their
moral and financial support.
‘DIFFICULT SITUATION’
“The administrators of the Negro
colleges and universities have been in
an especially difficult situation. They
have had to withstand the pressures of
financial supporters for ‘reason,’ for
‘discretion,’ for ‘restraint.’ Most have
withstood these pressures admirably.
They have maintained the freedom of
their students to participate in this
civil rights revolution. They deserve
our deepest respect and admiration.
“Unfortunately other administrators
have failed their students and our so
ciety. They have abdicated their re
sponsibility. Rufus Atwood of Kentucky
State College has dismissed without a
hearing 12 students and two faculty
members; Felton G. Clark of Southern
University has expelled 17 students;
George Gore of Florida A&M Univer
sity fired Richard Haley only a week
after the student council voted Haley
‘outstanding teacher of the year’; H. C
Trenholm of Alabama State College
expelled nine students and fired one
faculty member; Chancellor Harvie
Branscomb of Vanderbilt University
expelled Rev. James Lawson.
“We call upon the community and
particularly the alumni associations of
these schools to raise a sincere protest
Our silence means concurrence. Our ac
tion may prevent other such tragedies
in the year to come. We may not re
main silent.”
OTHER APPLICATIONS
The national chairman, Charles B-
Oldham of St. Louis, urged CORE in
an opening address to apply the concept
of direct, non-violent action to “the
unexplored areas of voter registration,
education, housing and employment.”
In a ceremony, five students of Flor
ida A&M University were named 3 s
recipients of the organization’s firs*
Gandhi awards. Named as first recipients
were William Larkins, 23 years old!
Barbara Broxton, 22; her brother, John
Broxton, 20; Priscilla Stephens, 21; and
her sister, Patricia Stephens, 20.
# # j
resegregation. Privately many of the®
regret it, because:
1) The opportunity to work with
small numbers of Negro children in
integrated situations is lost.
2) The bright Negro children whose
parents sought the advantages of a
predominantly white school are gradu
ally resubmerged in slower learning
groups.
Speaking of the schools’ manifold
(See MARYLAND, Page 13)