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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—APRIL, 1963—PAGE 7 wee ard will ;ab- re- tion MARYLAND Baltimore School Commissioners Ask Progress Report BALTIMORE T he Baltimore board of school commissioners called on its professional school staff in March to produce a progress report on desegregation. The report was sought after the board’s vice president, Dr. Wil liam D. McElroy, raised the ques tion of whether school districting and transportation policies were promoting racial segregation. Dr. George B. Brain, Baltimore’s school superintendent, explained that schools were districted only when they were so overcrowded that attendance had to be limited to those children residing within a designated area and that children were transported to more distant schools as a last resort when districting failed to provide sufficient relief. He denied that either policy was used to promote segregation but added, “We have not deliberately endeavored to take children of one race and place them in with another.” ittec Etof, hoc*' laR . b* >v$ shot ste**- ati<* CO*- j#X* & v Discussions Cited Queried by telephone, Dr. McElroy, a professor of biology at Johns Hopkins University, said his question was prompted by discussions he had heard at a Chicago conference of the Great Cities Program, particularly in relation to the suit recently filed in San Francisco. “The question is being dis cussed in a lot of cities,” Dr. McElroy said, “and it is bound to be raised here with our overcrowded and districted Missouri (Continued from Page 4) borhood were 60 per cent white and 40 per cent Negro, school enrollments were reported by parents to be as much as 90 per cent Negro and 10 per cent white. Educational authorities de fine schools as segregated when the colored population reaches 90 per cent or more.” The report continued: “At the time when the WECC was striving to maintain an interracial community, white parents were en couraged to transfer their children out ° the district. Negro parents were re used transfers and arrangements were made for two busloads of Negro stu- cnts from the Scudder school district 0 Kinloch (St. Louis County) to travel Past five county school districts to at- Lt ,®°^ an High School. At no time 1 there appear any attempt to assure ° r Parents a balanced racial enroll- ent. All of which quickly led to the ah? e ^ a ti°n of West End schools—far munity°^ rese 2 re Sation of the com- Many w * 1 ’ te families, both long time ‘ e yand prospective buyers, have a preference for this com- ?’ they are denied the single, mun jt™ pc>rtan t aspect of a good com- i) ly a good desegregated school Denies Charges Piwi° f Instruc tion Philip J. Hickey atteinr,*^!. d en ied there had been any fesati” v school officials to “reseg- West End schools. The said i there are largely Negro, he said, l Cle A 1-6 largely Negro, Welv i\ C T ause the neighborhoods tru e e Sro- Hickey said it was not ^ *<7 1 w *dte parents had been en- frotn ,, to transfer their children ^ the district. thetic COnferenc e report got sympa- * . es P°nse, however, from the of /• “' /VVCVC1 » tne ^mber r '? Uca “°ns two Negro board tames p’ 3v e Rev - John J. Hicks and special f fjff* Jr. Hicks called for a S a , ® ct 'finding committee to probe the tjuKr ran ® e °f Negro problems ’■award jj ^ schools, including policies pl oy, Negro teachers and other em- t h e school board and the Sinistra+• scnooi board and the ; r ‘ th e rp *° n "™ u st answer charges - uie oiiswei- uoarges ***** With 60 per cent of our ’f the too f' e S ro an d practically half 6 Ne Srr , C , ln § staff, the interests of V '° r e u. C1 tizen must be considered n :y* * L — decioi e J er '” Eate in March the ? filquin ^ to start immediately on "on 6, ^ mt ° < ' rese ® rega d° n ” Jr^^u 3 ?’ the Rev - Arthur Mar- J^itte’o t airman of the education ^ed f °r the St. Louis NAACP, •j.°’ 1,1 ds tfiaf ;, a i s hon-Harris switch on tjT* tend to “ese changes will fur- V,, Publir. p frpetuate segregation” in f^P’s 84n SC ^,°j ls ' He said most of m, ^ to w S j'fdents would be trans- i Is ^hS dey , and .. Soldan high ikS ^eg rn ^ described as segre- C^hafi ° ° schools. The Rev. Mr. V^itv r* eahoed th e West End Coii^Posai . on ference viewpoint on Ueo *. to move Harris Teachers schools.” Dr. McElroy said he had discussed the question with Dr. Brain prior to the board meeting and that both agreed that it should be brought into the open. He expressed the belief that there would not be a problem in Baltimore as long as the freedom to transfer existed (nearly all city schools are open in theory to all children, regard less of place of residence) and then he added, “but if we are busing children to segregated schools, let’s hear about it.” Dr. McElroy said he had no personal knowledge of a report on which a group of Baltimore parents have worked since last summer. The report, not yet released, reportedly offers evi dence that districting is used to pre serve predominantly white enrollment at some schools and that when Negro children are transported out of over crowded schools they are taken by bus to predominantly Negro schools al though white schools are closer. Dr. McElroy said that while he was unaware of the report, Dr. Brain had mentioned to him that some parents had been raising questions. ★ ★ ★ All-Negro Schools Subject Of Second Discussion The continued presence in Baltimore of many all-Negro schools, particularly in blighted inner-city residential areas, was the subject of a second discussion in March, this time at a two-day pro fessional conference on teaching in ur ban schools, sponsored by Johns Hop kins University. While most of the participants spoke generally of the problems of teaching the “culturally deprived,” Dr. Martin D. Jenkins, president of Morgan State College, was blunt. “The problem is race,” he said: “Most of the culturally deprived students are Negroes” and most young teachers “have learned that Negroes are not nice people to associate with.” Teacher Problem Charged Miss Mary Adams, assistant superin tendent of elementary education in Baltimore, said middle-class teachers have difficulties in communicating with children of different backgrounds. Her secondary-school counterpart, Dr. Vernon S. Vavrina, said teachers do not understand the mores of cul turally different groups. Dr. Jenkins was reported in the press as saying that young teachers shun city schools be cause they have been fed “the stereo type of a monolithic population of dirty, unintelligent, unmanageable children.” Himself a Negro and the president of a predominantly Negro college that trains a portion of Baltimore’s teachers, Dr. Jenkins said, “Only a small pro portion of the people who are in charge of the teacher education in this state have ever been in the inner city, except to drive through quickly.” Challenged on his statement by con ferees, Dr. Jenkins said he did not mean to imply that education was “monolithic, either.” But he urged Maryland educators to face the facts about inner-city schools. “Where the teacher in training is white, we are asking him to go in with a group of people he has learned to think of as inferior,” he said. One of Dr. Jenkins’ suggestions was to have some “financial incentive” for inner-city teaching assignments in the form of scholarships or supplemental salaries for the longer hours required in some schools. Training Varied Dr. Virgil A. Clift, who heads the education department at Morgan, said that his college had students training to become city teachers and that not to give attention to city problems would be “unrealistic.” Dr. Lawrence D. Red dick of Coppin State Teachers College also said that his predominantly Negro college sought specifically to provide city teachers. A spokesman for predominantly white Towson State Teachers College indicated that her college had students practicing in “culturally deprived” schools. Spokesmen for four other pre dominantly white colleges indicated, on the other hand, that they were do ing little to train teachers for urban situations. Dr. John Walton, chairman of the education department at Johns Hop kins, opened the conference by saying that “many things that are needed in urban schools can’t be learned in teacher education courses.” He closed the conference by suggesting that col leges in the Baltimore area join in a co-operative effort to train teachers for culturally deprived inner-city schools. Maryland Highlights The Baltimore school board called for a progress report on desegrega tion. Stereotype of unmanageable Negro children was termed a drawback to urban teacher recruitment. A Catholic archbishop called for complete integration. Eastern Shore Negroes appealed for speedier school desegregation in the city of Cambridge. A New York psychologist whose findings were cited by the Supreme Court in its 1954 school decision denounced the segregation of school children by their IQs. College presidents helped to de feat a Maryland Senate bill that would have withdrawn state aid from colleges that did not expel students in racial demonstrations. Racial discrimination in appren tice trades was cited as a handicap to public vocational schools. a Community Action Archbishop Shehan Asks Discrimination End in Baltimore Area Archbishop Lawrence J. Shehan called early in March for an end to all aspects of racial discrimination in the Baltimore archdiocese, which includes some 430,000 Catholic parishioners. “The duty of justice and charity ap plies not only to our churches, our schools, our charitable organizations and institutions, and our hospitals, but also to all of us as individuals,” the archbishop said in a pastoral letter published in The Catholic Review March 1. As the spiritual leader of the oldest see in the United States, Archbishop Shehan reminded Baltimore Catho lics of the posi tion of the Amer ican Bishops in 1958 and wrote, in part: “There is, I hope, no need to say that in our churches and in our parochial life generally there must be not only no racial segrega tion, but also no distinction of rank or place or treat ment based upon racial difference . . .” SHEHAN “In our schools, both elementary and secondary, the same general policy holds. As Catholic schools, they are meant primarily for Catholic students— for all Catholic students insofar as facilities can be made available—with out racial or any other discrimination. “This means that in the registration of students a common policy, approved by our Catholic School Board, must be followed in the case of all Catholic children living within the boundaries of every parish fortunate enough to have its own school. The same policy must govern all transfers from one school to another. Within the school, identical academic standards must ap ply to all students, and all must be treated with equal justice and charity.” The prelate said that the centenary of the Proclamation of Emancipation made it “particularly appropriate” that he speak out, since “here in our own state, recent experience has shown that much—very much—remains to be done; that grave wrongs still need to be righted.” In response to question on behalf of Southern School News, the Rev. James C. Donohue, superintendent of Catholic education in the Baltimore area, said there were an estimated 1,500 to 2,000 Negroes in the archdiocese schools and that they represented 2 to 2(4 per cent of the Catholic school population. He said that the schools, although already desegregated, were mentioned in the pastoral letter “to put the cap on once and for all.” Father Donohue explained that many parochial schools had been desegre gated prior to the Supreme Court de cision of 1954 but that there had been some reluctance to change in some out lying areas. ★ ★ ★ Cambridge Group Asks Rights Program Speedup An integrationist group appeared be fore the mayor and city commissioners of Cambridge, on Maryland’s eastern shore, March 25 to urge speedier recog nition of Negro rights, including “com plete school desegregation.” The group was led by Mrs. Gloria Richardson, chairman of the Cambridge Non- Violent Action Committee. As reported in the Cambridge Dem ocrat and News, a weekly newspaper, the group sought “immediate action” in desegregating schools, industry, amuse ment places and housing. Under the heading of schools, the statement called for bus reassignment according to the proximity of residence and “a begin ning minimum of 50 (Negro) students” to enter Cambridge High School. Mrs. Richardson’s daughter was one of three Negro girls to enter Cam bridge High School last September and then withdraw after about two weeks because of what they termed “the silent treatment.” Cambridge is in Dorchester County where schools have been desegregated a grade a year from the 12th down to the sixth grade. The only actual desegregation is at the North Dorches ter High School where two Negroes entered last September and at last reports still were there. The Civic Interest Group, based in Baltimore, announced in the last week of March that about 100 student free dom riders would go to Cambridge on March 30 to picket City Hall, the county school board offices, Chamber of Commerce, state employment office and a theater. Freedom rides to Cam bridge a year ago led to near-riotous reactions among some white inhabi tants. Miscellaneous Baltimore Hearing Told Trade Schools Place For Negroes An all-day hearing on racial dis crimination in the apprenticeship trades, held by the Maryland advisory committee to the United States Civil Rights Commission on March 15, de veloped testimony that the public vo cational schools in Baltimore suffered from the lack of openings in the skilled trades for Negroes. William Hucksoll of the Maryland Department of Education presented data to the effect that 74 per cent of the predominantly white graduates of the Merganthaler Vocational-Technical High School in Baltimore find jobs in the fields for which they have trained, whereas only 15 per cent of the grad uates of the all-Negro Carver Voca tional-Technical High School in Balti more are able to get work in their skills. * ¥ ¥ Four college presidents joined in- tegrationists in denouncing a bill in the Maryland Senate that would have re quired a state college or university to expel a student convicted of trespass and would have withdrawn state funds from a private college which re fused to expel a convicted trespasser. Introduction of the bill followed mass arrests of students for trespassing at the Northwood Theater in Baltimore, where repeated demonstrations finally led to admission of Negro patrons. After receiving a favorable commit tee report, the bill was defeated on the Senate floor in mid-March by a vote of 5 for and 18 against. What They Say Ability-Based Desegregation Hit The segregation of public school pupils as slow learners or “culturally deprived” has been roundly attacked by Dr. Kenneth B. Clark, one of the psychologists cited by the Supreme Court in 1954 in support of the pre mise that racial segregation in public schools tends to retard the educational and mental development of Negro chil dren. The assumption that children from a working-class culture need a differ ent type of education “contributes to inferior education for children of lower economic and racial status,” Dr. Clark told an audience at Coppin State Teachers College in Baltimore. Such an assumption, Dr. Clark said, “intensifies racial and class cleavages and extends them into society.” A pro fessor of psychology at the City College of New York, Dr. Clark is author of several books on prejudice and race relations. Speaking on “The Clash of Culture in the Classroom and Attitudes of Chil dren,” Dr. Clark told a one-day social science in stitute: “The whole de segregation issue seems to me a basic issue in volving cultural and social vari ables.” He said “The clash of cultures in the classroom is essentially a class war,” with the school as a “socio-economic and racial battleground” in which “middle class and middle class-aspiring teachers” are at war against “hopelessly outclassed, working class children” who are “sys tematically humiliated” and “cate gorized.” “Children treated as incapable of education are not being fooled by euphemisms of snobbery,” Dr. Clark told his audience in March. Whether they are relegated to groups of “slow learners, trainables, pussy cats or bun nies,” he said, the children know they have been downgraded: “They have a feeling of humility, hostility and aggression”; they are “re volting against an attack on their dig nity and integrity.” Referring to Dr. James B. Conant’s “Slums and Suburbs” as a book in fused with a “New England noblesse oblige, snobbish attitude,” Dr. Clark said he was “shocked” at the class dif ferentiation that Dr. Conant advocates. Dr. Conant even made distinctions among suburban children, Dr. Clark said, but “no such distinction was made for underprivileged urban children, particularly urban youngsters . . . “Dr. Conant reserved most of his praise for one of the most shockingly discriminatory, segregated school set ups in the entire United States, namely the public school system of Chicago where Negro youngsters are systemati- ally being denied the right to meaning ful and effective education under the leadership of Ben Willis, the darling of the Ford Foundation.” Finding “no evidence” that children of lower socio-economic status have any greater difficulty learning to read, Dr. Clark said: “I CONANT submit that the type of education espoused by Dr. Conant is arrant nonsense. This is the ‘social dyna mite’: The cure he suggests.” Once children are put in tracks or judgments are made to teach or not to teach them as other children, Dr. Clark said, “the insidious horror is that the results tend to justify the assumptions. Children treated as uneducable almost invari ably become uneducable. Educational atrophy sets in.” “They are not being taught, so they fail.” Dr. Clark termed various assump tions about the special needs of chil dren of lower status “class and racial snobbery” and “alibis for educational neglect.” Education by assumption of learning levels “can only lead to social stagnation,” he said. “All groups have the capacity to learn,” Dr. Clark told his largely Negro audience. “If organically defec tive children can learn certain basic skills, so can the children of lower status learn academic skills,” if they are taught with the same standards and quality of instruction (as other chil dren).”