CURRENT ISSUES any RESEARCH IN EDUCATIO GENERAL EOITOR Harry L. Mil Hunter Cit lege BOOKS IN THE stnies, ‘THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATIO Donald H. Clark ELEMENTARY EDUCATION Maurie Hillson EDUCATION FOR THE DISADVANTAGED Harry L. Milter SOCIAL FOUNDATIONS OF EDUCATION Dorothy Westby-Gibson Pe Social ‘Foundations of Education CURRENT ISSUES AND RESEARCH THE FREE PRESS, New York COLLIER MACMILLAN LIMITED, London209-2 2 U3 . 196) o S6 lege ine Union Col pameprauate ‘Library Copyright © 1967 by The Free Press Printed in the United States of America nan toretgr ig No part ofthis book may be reproduced or transmit copying regey S8Y Means, electronic oF mechanical, inchuding, photo without poset oF by any information storage and retrieval syste. on in writing from the Publishes Collier-Macmillan Canads, Ltd, Toronto, Ontario Library of ny of Congress Catalog Card Number: 67-15060 First Printing p< Foreword ‘This volume is one of a series intended to cope partially with the information explosion affecting, all the arts and sciences in recent years, a glut that has presented particularly severe problems for the field of education. Unlike the sciences and such applied arts as medicine, education has not had available a reliable network through which new ideas, experimentation, and criticism can be quickly gathered and disseminated. The field is only now beginning to establish centers for information retrieval to handle the vast expansion in educational activities that began in the 1950s Teacher education institutions for both graduates and under- graduates have been forced to such a rapid expansion that they have had little energy to devote to helping their students keep up with the flood of new data. Instructors may choose the latest texts, and most of them faithfully provide the traditional bibliography of recent joumal articles; but education students, neither more nor less scholarly in their habits than those in other disciplines, can be expected to read those bibliographic entries that instructors have threatened to include on examinations, and few others. There isazae ‘The Social Roles of Education institutions demonstrates this lag. Such a gulf is both an asset and a liability. Were our views of education to change radi- cally with great frequency, education would no longer be able to conserve our heritage by passing it on to the new generation. In Communist China, for example, in trying to wipe out all vestiges of “imperialism,” rioting Chinese youths recently burned books that did not preach the current ideology and burned irreplaceable art of the past. But too great a lag between the social realities of a society and its education can only spell disaster. For youth must be competent to function effectively in the adult society. They cannot be taught cultural values that are too discrepant from the realities of the adult world. The difficulty in a rapidly changing society, however, is to reach some agreement about the nature of those realities and the kind of education that will prepare youth to cope with them. In the United States our divergent and often inconsistent cultural values are reflected in our varying views of the social role of education. This third part of our appraisal of the social foundations of ‘education presents representative statements of those who find in education a focus for the national interest, the inter- national interest, or the individual interest. In conclusion we consider the impact on education of conflicting interests and especially of extremist groups. Cuarrer 7 Education in the National Interest Most Anericans would agree that we should educate in the national interest. But what is the national interest in a time of transition? C. Amold Anderson in our first article analyzes planned efforts to integrate educational goals to those of other sectors of our society, especially the economic. He traces the effects on education when it is viewed as part of the national purpose. Robert R. Smith in the excerpt that follows describes our society as involved in a “continuing revolution” that has both similarities to and differences from traditional revolutions. He suggests that we must learn to cope with “counter revolutions in process.” If we are to realize the constructive potential of the ongoing revolution, we ‘must use our massive resources of money and talent to attack its human problems, especially those in education. Earl C. Kelley in our third selection highlights the training of Citizens as the primary charge upon the schools. He outlines some of the attitudes that graduates must have if democracy is to be perpetuated. In so doing he asks that teachers examine their own attitudes toward democracy and toward the school as a place for the practice of democracy. Harold Howe II in one of his first major addresses after becom- ing U.S. Commissioner of Education sets in bold relief what he believes to be the most crucial issue in American education today— the elimination of school segregation. The schools cannot act alone, but they must sound the call to action. For segregated education whether de jure or de facto can only be inferior education. The >is126< ‘The Social Roles of Education Commissioner reviews some of the programs, federal and local, which are working to end segregation. Finally, John Hersey takes a hard look at “the role education may (and may not) play in the ‘War on Poverty.” He underscores that education is not the antidote to poverty. Schools are limited in what they can do. But they can adopt radically new approaches such as those which he briefly surveys. And, above all, they must ‘expect that the war will be long-fought and victory elusive. Educational Planning in the Context of National Social Policy C. Amold Anderson ‘The same social forces that have moved education into the center of national policy making in most contemporary societies have also fostered a faith in educational planning. While one could construe that practiced loosely as any sort of deliberate adaptation of means to ends, educational planning is more usefully seen as a ‘way of integrating education with other sectors of the society. In this discussion, planning will be viewed with considerable skepticism, but the main burden of the argument will revolve around the ambiguities and dilemmas arising from efforts to make ‘educational policy depend upon non-educational ends. Indeed, in my view the nature of formal education limits the extent to which it can be profitably assessed in terms of criteria drawn from outside. Since planning involves choices, as does policy making generally, the discussion is organized around a few basic decisions. [ACCOMMODATING EDUCATIONAL CRITERIA TO ECONOMIC GOALS ‘The sense of urgency with which developing countries attempt to use education as a means to political independence and economic improvement is viewed sympathetically. In our own nation there is 2 parallel inclination to orient education to economic functions as ‘we become more sensitive to the handicaps of lagging regions and subpopulations. The vogue for expansion of vocational education is a timely illustration. And as sustained economic growth comes to be counted on, the findings of the new specialty of the eco- Phi Delta Kappan 47 180-184, December, 1965. Reprinted by permission of the publisher. The author is director of the Comparative Education Center at the University of Chicage. F ee Education in the National Interest >aaz nomics of education are being used, perhaps prematurely, to estab- lish targets of trained manpower. ‘There is a temptation to conceive the main task of the schools, after the early grades, as the supplying of specific skills. Yet there is only a tenuous connection bewteen individuals’ education and the specific occupations they are engaged in—apart from the ex- tremes of the skill continuum. One can point to the unemployment of ostensible high school graduates or of Negroes without being able to identify unambiguously the shortcomings of education as a system that underly those situations. In particular, itis the deficien- cies in those individuals’ general education rather than in some specific vocational preparation that call for remedy. Even knowing, nothing of their vocational handicaps, it would be possible to establish the fact that the schools had not performed for them individually, as should be expected. Relying upon the accumulation of statistical information, we have become more aware of the distributional aspects of education and we have become more sensitive to the dilemmas with which policy must cope. We are coming, at the same time, to appreciate that fundamentally we face the same dilemmas as do the develop- ing countries. But in our case the special federal-local division of fiscal responsibility for schools gives rise to additional difficulties. Suppose we aim at enlarging the output of highly trained indi- viduals or at maximizing the number of candidates for the higher levels of training. Obviously, we could move rapidly in those direc tions by putting more educational resources into the areas of the ‘country that are already educationally advanced. But if we wish to reduce the lags in schooling and to bring up the areas that now put ‘out the fewest individuals with good training, then we would shift resources to the lagging areas. There are many other issues similar in nature. And most of them ‘an be dealt with largely in educational terms alone with little ‘more than perfunctory reference to economic criteria. If, however, fone chooses to introduce economic considerations into the policy debate, the educational and the economic criteria will not always be consistent. MANAGED VERSUS SPONTANEOUS CHOICES AMONG [EDUCATIONAL ALTERNATIVES It is possible to favor manpower planning without adopting any particular position as to how “tight” educational planning shouldnase = The Socal Roles of Edtaion a That is, a projected schedule of needed ski ill re supply side by several st tegies, If - needed in different occupatior Lips aa ns, it seems ters to set up a correspondi onl Apart from hiring fore % ring foreigners, Prgtans ‘wanted physicians only if it opens ‘an obtain the places (or finds thor places in medial shen are only a few occupati Schools abroad). But th pations aside from medicine for wheh pent lowing two premises of the foregoing argument exe att St should be within the formal education system rahe gee job. 2) Needed kinds and numbers of manpower are eke traning inthe stipulated specialties nll societies met pee) training occuts outside of schools and is mainly carted wa employers. Even among the more formally trained indviod outside a short list of occupations—there is a large ameun a robility among occupations, ie, a large proportion of the ployed were not trained forthe specie work they ae dang Moreover the ecxpatonal src is beng sed py Flexibility in choice of education and of employment mst thee fore be allowed for. Planning officials probably canoot alae individuals among employments more deftly than can the id viduals who must find their careers, wheter a intial ent othe labor force or subsequently during their working lives, Ase from the instances in which training involves expensive faites (an medicine is again the clearest cas), the tsk isnot so much ht of scheduling training places as providing opportunities for esc and inducements for appropriate choice ‘There is nevertheless a role for the planner, Inthe collie economies adjustment of financial inducements to denon Shortages. of surpluses in diferent ocupatins an hie movement of workers among occupations en a projecting manpower neds” neve Ups leona need for information about occupa! ae wh ob! i that individuals may combine the occupational testure that inva 2) era in making educational and PT gp iercorllary of this Kine of argument isthe cnr ig eral education that 18 sdies individuals for tr ould have pity over formalized Frogs of wi ing-at the pre-universi ty evel. fllows that 2 ‘work out appropriate P can be satis 1umbers of nny ly logical to many ing number of trainin to be sure a count nt ci seco porns betes een ‘education inthe National Interest naa 1 higher sation ater thant stb elaborate diferent and ght athe han 16 a so rosa win tose level {MENTARITIES IN EDUCATION sTanisHiNe COMPU 1001s AND OTHER AGENCTES pert scHO0t f other academics they have a Educational planers, because like oth ora in dhe formal educational system, commonly assume tty have we learned how lage ino own country i the part seaton for employment that goes on in agencies outside the es particularly onthe job Intellectuals tend also to underest- athe importance of nonscheal influences in inculcatng ili sl, and enterprise. "ie vol sph we cn os © dcp dat ams to prepare potential workers for particular employments Boke other hand, poly can encourage onthejob training of already committed workers. The importance of finding the most futable policy on tis question is no less important forthe United Stats then its for the developing countries that have no resources to waste In our present mood of guilt and panic over the neglect of our disadvantaged youth, many commentators are urging. us to in- uputate massive new programe of vocational training. Yet ad ‘ators could contend thatthe task of the pre-university school is to improve the literacy and alertness and scintific-mindedness of youth 50 that they willbe prepared to absorb vocational training when they enter the labor force. Such a position has special strength ina society in which technological change transforms oc- cupational specialties with unaccustomed rapidity. But apart from the particulates of this debate, the fundamental task is to work out the most effective division of labor among the many kinds of ‘sucational agencies that our rich and complex society possesses ALANCING EFFICIENCY AGAINST EQUEFY CRITERIA ‘Though this topic was touched on in the first section, its im- Porlance warrants separate discussion, We are committed a5 a ‘nation to the ideal of equality of : ualty of opportunity and we are impatient 10 bring lagging regions up to the national level. But formerly within states and now between states solutions aze confounded by130« ‘The Social Roles of Education ‘our constitutional tradition of central-local relationships. Primarily for political reasons, the difficulty is to aid lagging regions or subpopulations without simultaneously providing subventions to the groups that are already ahead in educational facilities. It is clearly efficient to encourage the groups that have demon: strated a capacity to supply well educated individuals in large ‘numbers to continue doing so. But any incentives provided through the public fiscal system along those lines limit the assistance that can be given to disadvantaged groups; the inequity is not di- minished by the fact that the leading groups may have achieved their superiority unaided. This clash of equity and efficiency is present in the most prosperous as in the poorest nations, though the latter must work out their compromises within much tightened budgets. If we diminish the direct costs to individuals of higher education we will surely elicit a larger flow of graduates whose services will enhance economic growth. But increased subsidy of university stu- dents raises awkward questions of equity when we examine the opportuniites to improve elementary schooling for disadvantaged groups or to improve secondary education in order to diminish dropouts. The spread of the notion of “compensatory education” will sharpen our awareness of these dilemmas. Undeniably, in the long run a shift of resources toward the disadvantaged groups would bring equity and efficiency assess- ments closer together. But to what extent short-run can be sacri- is an empirical judgment as well PRESERVING AN ADAPTABLE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM Usually this topic is discussed with respect to the developing countries; for example, their schools are supposed to encourage youth to become practical-minded and to become appreciative of the values of their own culture. In more subtle forms, policy makers in the most advanced societies face the same task. The problem is appearing in varied guises as an accompaniment ‘0 the current wave of educational reform in the United States Despite previous disclaimers, the expansion of the federal share of educational funds is creating numerous rigidities. To be sure this is occurring partly because of the conjuncture of expanded programs with the civil rights movement. On the other hand, the generous new supply of funds for vocational education will encour Education in the National Interest >is. age an unwarranted extension of conventional vocational courses in situations where it is perhaps rather improved general education that is needed. ‘The sense of urgency that underlies the vast new national pro- grams is likely to encourage a rapid generalization of programs with plausible utility but lacking research support. The inaugura~ tion of centers for the diffusion of educational practices may foster formula thinking more than it improves educational methods. The parallel funds for experimentation may be less fruitful than we ‘expect because other aspects of the new federal programs limit the scope for variation among school districts more rapidly than the experimental programs can increase such opportunities ‘Of more than minor importance is the risk that as a by-product of the new fiscal programs and central stimulation of educational change we may find ourselves with more authoritative voices in education than hitherto. Financial inducements combined with the federal imprimatur on programs may rapidly erode the mood of independence and autonomy that has encouraged local ventures in progressive communities—although much of the autonomy was ad- mittedly sterile. In large part the outcome of these diverse influ- ences will depend upon the extent to which schools are not asked to demonstrate “results” from the expanded support. In this context, acceptance of nationwide testing linked to fiscal support could hardly be other than a catastrophe. MAINTAINING A BALANCED CURRICULUM. The composition of school curricula must reflect forces in the schools’ milieu, since there is no intrinsic, “natural” structure of the pedagogic task. If outside groups abstain from proposing courses of study, the arid, encrusted, “classical” schoolmaster will continue his or her tyranny. The educational planner in our present period thinks concretely in terms of schedules of occupational skills which he tries to project back into schemes for curricula. Though it is not logically necessary, there is an empirical connection between a manpower view of education and a tendency to see the schools as designed mainly to prepare men for employment. Though man- power planners may speak of “social” along with economic aims, the former get slight attention, in part because it is difficult to infer curricula from the goal of better “general” education. How all of this works out we have seen in the post-Sputnik shift toward mathematics and science, though recently the social studies haveI SS—e— 1a2< The Social Roles of Eduction ‘on a — scrutiny. If one resists the external pressure cone cate or econani, suldance in curriculum policy mast cea conception of the “map of knowledge," ih Suture of the shy dpe. Ard hs ane bs autonomy of the schools from an rere of the ana th schol om ay and al det press of But there is a growing tend lendency to project disciplinary speciliza ton into undergraduate and even secondary mare hee of general or liberal criteria. And at the moment we are one Peviencing demands to strengthen the vocational component va tscondry schol: among cer eto to redace pon We are experiencing also new pressures for embodying curialar specialization in “organizational differentiation,” i, segregation of pupils by ability and specialty. Yet even from an explcly eo- omic poston ene can contend that general eden he st ive preparation for employment, in part because it minimizes obsolescence of sill ™ . MAINTAINING APPROPRIATE STANDARDS OF QUALITY When education is judged by how well it functions to satisfy some extra-school end, efforts begin to establish quality standards ‘Where the main purpose of education is the final production of a tiny intellectual elite of leaders, the quality norms for university sgraduation can affect each level of school back to elementary. Educational planning in practice, though not of necessity, tends to measure education in terms of diplomas and certificates, rein- forcing the schoolmaster’ affection for examinations. Most plan- ners assume a close correlation between vocational skills and levels of formal education. Fortunately, a growing, number of educational planners are learning that (outside a short ist of occupations) the practitioners in every occupation display a wide range of schooling, oth in amount and quality. Afterall, any occupational rubric is ‘only shorthand for a family of occupations. Since even individual ‘ecupations are variegated, there is merit in an educational system that turns out minutely graduated individuals. Rigidity of educa- ations and their purported matching with ocuPs ching individuals tional clas tions can prevent a desirable flexibility in mat with jobs. ‘Thinking in terms of factitious sta proposals to control the flow of pupils through the « irrigation water. The educational pyramid that one projec indards and certificates leads schools like ts will be dacaton in the National Interest 3133 fh occupational aims for fon of the social des more squat if ei But in the last analyst the pen wlingness 10 Use # issive attitude about the ere ‘at al re ‘cational levels alll iven supply and it will increase the fee ofthe educational enters occupational continuum ses oti tin exch cat vate United States has been distinctively wi oe te Secondary and higher levels of the cational rate He have found it comforuble to live with the Ft Dt sre eh la ne = ne forma We have played down the formal and academic criteria crrnteatonal performance, For various reasons, including, new aemaion that education has a “ational purpose,” we are now towing toward the European pattem of external examinations and ‘ucattonal selection on the basis of formalized qualifications. This evelopment linked witha tendercy to define education in more arr cognitive terms, accompanied by a rejection in many {uartrs ofthe solid logic in “fe adjustment” education ling to increase the ‘UNEASY STATUS OF TEACHERS Educational planners working with underdeveloped countries become very discouraged about teachers; they exaggerate the im- portance of beterrained teachers on the one hand and on the ‘ther propose replacing teachers by such devices as television. As the developed countries try to cope with rising enrollments and spans fr higher wandard, the came reactions appear; and parallelism inheres in the situation of the teaching occupation. The demand fr teachers services reflects the expansion of oc: ceptions requng moe and beter eduction, and the later ex- Pansion i at the same time an opportunity for teachers io the cps thir tom uation inne chen met fo many reasons, inl one way. The publi Papin ae nae 1 prove steady, yet asthe fret es teaching cadre increases, teachers. mus ey be drawn fom compantively lower levels of ability, ducation is the teachers’ labor, side of education expansion is teachers’ salaries in public tanpower can follow several differ- tot their money salaries, the fiscal pst bythe ae hare A policy for teaching ma134< ‘The Social Roles of Education cent lines. It would be possible to allow individual localities to choose whether they will bid for the superior teachers or be con- tent with less costly ones. As teacher-salary policies are generalized to states or the nation it becomes necessary to balance the qualifica- tions of teachers against other employees, especially those in public service. Is teaching, then, an occupation of such importance as to warrant adopting premium incentives in recruitment? A comple- mentary decision in many places is whether to set attractive entry rates of pay or instead to establish inducements for long tenure in the profession. tis possible to follow another line of policy (strongly expounded by Myron Lieberman): to differentiate the cadre with many levels, of qualifications similar to what has been happening in the medical field and in many populous occupations. This change would favor the emergence of a prestige stratum within the broader category of teachers. In this as in the previous case, which line of policy comes into favor will depend largely upon the balance of substantively professional as against “labor market” considerations. ‘A rather different approach that has some support from research is to emphasize the structure of the curriculum along with or instead of the qualifications of the teacher as most efficacious for maximizing pupils’ learning. This course of action would encourage pronounced centralized planning of curricula and of the details of school operations. It raises one most difficult question: Do we wish further to weaken the teacher's attractiveness as an identification model for children? None of the choices discussed in this paper is peculiar to the contemporary period nor to any particular sort of society. But as policy makers strive to produce a more integrated pattern for edu- cation, choices that were in the past often tacit or made by profes- sionals having little awareness of the influences impinging upon them come to be seen as entailing complex balances of gains and losses. We live in an age when individuals are commonly viewed as means to collective purposes, their fate decided by officials remote and unknown to the beneficiaries or victims. This is to say that “educational” criteria or ends become increasingly collectivized, with individuals or lesser units of the society receding from the fore- ground of attention. “As educators in developed countries come to accept the nation’s goals,” policy making becomes more complex. The greater salience given to educational questions gives that policy making a more tendentious air. Policy is always a balance among alternatives; Education in the National Interest 213s many desirable activities must be sacrificed, and the gains and losses become more visible to the interested parts of the public. Educating Youth in a Revolutionary Society Robert R. Smith We ust the term revolution loosely in describing ours as a revolutionary society unless we qualify it. Revolution is a term tra- ditionally used to describe extremely rapid and cataclysmic move- ments usually engineered by force of arms and usually hitched to a fighting type of utopian idea or set of ideals. Its object is an abrupt overthrow of the existing order. The American and French Revolu- tions and the Communist Revolution against the Czarist regime are examples. We are considering here a developmental revolution building at a progressively more rapid pace through time, generated by a com- plementary set of factors which force drastic changes in major sectors of our society. Its impact becomes increasingly coercive in the face of resistance to change and limited capacity for innovation, It has some characteristics of traditional revolutions and some major differences. The cumulative impact on our instiutions, our patterns of association and habits of mind have the dimensions of revolution, but ours is a continuing revolution rather than a one- time staccato affair, hence more of it goes on beneath our level of conscious awareness. In such circumstances the shining ideology which marks the traditional revolution may lose its luster and become blurred over time and a succession of generations. What then do we have as a common ideology or a set of social ideals to consolidate our continuing revolution? The democratic creed of the Enlightenment provides the baseline. But those ideals, to which most of us subscribe, seem to many to represent a priori concepts and notions, often out of step with the revolution as it progresses. A significant minority of our people would jettison the ‘deals cf democracy for various antidemocratic alternatives. Per- haps we have been careless in our efforts to clarify and reinterpret our ideals by underestimating the difficulties in sustaining needed consensus in a multi-group society in transition and under stress. Rejecting the efficacy of indoctrination, we experience difficulty in The Edith P. Merritt Memorial Lecture delivered at San Francisco State Col- lege in june, 1964. Reprinted by permission of the Edith P. Merritt Memorial Lecture Committee and the author, Professor of Education at San Pramciece State College136« ‘The Social Roles of Education keeping our ideals, our motive forces of direction bright and sharp. This contributes to the difficulties of education because common ideals lend direction to the curriculum and to educational policies just as they provide guides for individual behavior and sanctions that shape group life. ‘THE PROBLEM OF COUNTER REVOLUTION There is another facet of revolutions which we cannot enjoy. Revolutions tend by and large to be brief and violent-giving many people release from frustration and pent-up anger. They are exhausting and their conclusion is followed by a period of cons dation under the fighting ideals of the revolution, if the revolution- ists are successful. True, there is apt to be a subsequent struggle between the victors and the forces of counter revolution that may be sharp and brief. Our kind of revolution is not going to end, though the anxiety and tensions that stem from it are excruciating and enervating for many of us. It requires great staying power. We must, for example, learn to cope with counter revolution in process if we are to control our revolution through democratic values and humane goals. While we may have small cause for discouragement, carelessness and noncommitment could spell disas- ter for an open society. Currently we find counter revolutionaries ‘maneuvering as Minute Men in the deserts of Southern California, the White Citizens’ Councils in the South, the Black Muslims in metropolitan ghettoes, and the John Birch cadres developing in the suburbs. We find proposals to restrict sharply the level of educa~ tional opportunity to be extended to students of average ability and below average financial means. Increased tuition and more restric- tive admissions policies are the major vehicles of reaction in this sphere. Broad awareness of the meaning and potential of an open society coupled with determined efforts to extend opportunities and free- dom to those left behind in the revolution became major antidotes to antidemocratic movements which challenge our persisting ideals. HUMAN COSTS OF REVOLUTION Revolutions are marked by the unevenness of their impact on different sectors of the population involved. In this respect, our revolution is characteristic. Large ethnic and socioeconomic groups have been left behind, as Harrington and Sexton have pointed out. Education in the National Interest >137 ‘They lag in economic status, formal education, and citizenship rights and so suffer severe cultural impoverishment. As a result, large numbers of youth grow up in difficult “cultural pockets” making access to responsible adulthood extremely difficult. Youthful rebelliousness can be viewed as an effort to break with childhood and gain standing as an adult. The avenues for doing so are not clearly marked, and for some they may not exist in any realistic sense. While destructiveness and aberrant behavior among youth must be contained, it must also be viewed as symptomatic of the difficult passage in this shifting society from childhood to adolescence and on into adult roles. More specifically, despite our wealth and increasing investment in education, we permit a third of our young people to leave school before completing high school. Yet unemployment among youthful ‘workers is double that of the working force. As the population data cited earlier suggest, we are facing an explosion in the size of our potential work force at a time when manpower needs are shrinking rapidly for the under-educated. Three large metropolitan cities in California each have several thousands of teenage dropouts presently unemployable, and the coming youth wave is still only a ripple. Those most likely to be among the unemployed are also those with the least family resources to fall back upon. Some of our more deft modern muckrakers remind us that almost a third of the families in this wealthy country live in poverty and a larger percentage live below accepted standards of human welfare. Many youth are locked into the second and third generation of family poverty. Problems of youth are not confined to the lower socioeconomic and ethnic groups. College-bound students are facing growing problems of gaining admission to and maintaining themselves in colleges and universities. The Ford Foundation has recently re- ported that the nation’s college and university building programs are falling short of need by about $70,000,000 per year. Growing at- tention is being directed at the physical and mental health problems of students at both school and college levels. Evidence is accumu- lating that increasing numbers of promising students are living in anxiety, chronic fatigue, and fear of failure so acute that their health is impaired. ‘These are the dreary aspects of our revolution and can be viewed 48 another consequence of it. Large numbers of people suffer griev- us impairment of opportunity and health during such periods. Revolutions, once launched, tend to careen out of control. Yet thereaase ‘The Social Roles of Education is far less excuse for permitting gross imbalances in a continuing social revolution such as ours. We must learn to manage explosive changes so the fruits of our progress are more rapidly and evenly disseminated in improved economic health and educational support for all. We must re-examine more carefully the degree to which our major social institutions actually support the dignity and the ac: pirations of the individuals who comprise them, and whom institutions are designed to serve. Tt has been argued that the pace of change in our society has reduced the concept of a generation to a petiod of no more than five years. This is another way of estimating the growing gap be tween adults and youth. Adults of our generation can afford a deeper sense of humility in making judgments about how young people are doing. In the large, they do what we and the society we ‘maintain, teach them to do. ‘One of the tests of competent adulthood within a society is the ability to shoulder the time-tested responsibility for inducting the ‘young into the society as the adults think they should be inducted How to do so effectively is no small problem, given the uncertain- ties of change confronting us. Yet our frequent temptations to condemn youth are basically indictments of ourselves and the institutions we maintain, We are prone to sweeping moral judg- ments of youth. Reflecting our ambivalence toward the problems they present we occasionally redouble efforts to make them re- spond as we desire. At other times we wash our hands of the problems. A steady, inquiring, supportive posture holds more promis. This isa society born of dissent and one that, in its building, has looted the natural resources of a continent, poisoned its lakes and streams, and polluted its atmosphere in pursuit of immediate and sometimes narrowly conceived goals. It need not stand aghast at the small minority of youth who express their turbulence through negativism, violence, and vandalism. It is axiomatic that youth get ‘out-ofshand=or appear to their elders to do s0—in revolutionary periods. Perhaps we should remind ourselves too that while youth were manning the Peace Corps and the civil rights movement, some of their elders were inventing the topless bathing suit. Others were ‘moved to murder to protect their outmoded, antidemocratic system in the South. There are connections between these perceptions and 4 redefinition of our responsibilities for rethinking our approach to education, There is growing awareness that schools and colleges return far more to the society and its people than the investments Education in the National Interest >139 in money and talents suggest. Education is thus no longer a casual affair and must be granted a much higher, if not a top, priority as 4 prime instrument through which we realize the constructive potential of our ongoing revolution. In fact, our approach to edu- {ation may largely determine our chances of gaining the initiative on the human problems of dislocation and alienation accruing from change. It is dismaying to consider the central role education plays in multiplying our material affluence while schools and colleges struggle along on minimal resources. 17OCUS ON EDUCATIONAL PROBLEMS ‘Turning more specifically to problems of youth and the schools, ‘we need to focus massive resources and talent drawn from many fields on the following educational problems and needs: 1. Analysis of existing knowledge and support of further re- search in the area of human development and learning with the objective that teaching and school management shall be guided by the best that we know. 2. Extension of educational programs designed to. complement the family and neighborhood environment-especially for early childhood years—thus capitalizing on new evidence of growth potential in both cognitive and affective development. 3. Assessment of the social dynamics and human relations within schools in efforts to maximize their supportive potential for personality and character development as well as for effectiveness in more traditional kinds of school learning. 4. Development of cultural service and work experience pro- {grams designed to lend continuity to the child’s experience in and ‘ut of school, 5. Design of original, experimental curricula with strategies for wnlearning and transitional learning adapted to building self-confi dence and improved self-concepts for those impaired by previous ‘experience. 6. Re-examination of special fields of knowledge for related Integrative concepts functionally related to human development appropriate to a democratic society. 7, Reexamination of the possibilities for much more extensive and creative use of specialized personnel from a broader range of fields. 8, Exploration in as profound and serious way as we can of the140« The Social Roles of Education implications of our ongoing revolution for attitudinal and value implications which should shape major objectives of the schools. especially for character and citizenship education. 9. Development of patterns of parent participation and in- service education for school personnel aimed at serious involve. ment in the process of rethinking the role and function of the schools, 10. Establishment of research facilities and securing of research personnel to work with teachers and specialists in every school district and county in liaison with higher education and state and national agencies. Such efforts require financial resources and personnel beyond ‘conventional conceptions of educational needs. As a start, we right seriously consider doubling the outlay for education during the next five to ten years. In addition, we might add a modest increment for research and experimentation, broadly conceived. Supposing we were merely to match the existing level of expendi- ture for research in science, technology, and the development of hardware for war and defense-presently estimated at 22 billions of dollars? Through such modest efforts, an affluent society might expect to sain greater control ofits revolution in the service of human values. If education comes to enjoy the affluence now provided in the fields of defense, space exploration, and commerce, I would not quail. Given the importance of education, circumstances should become such that we could scrap a multimillion-dollar experimental education program as we now do an outmoded aircraft, factory, or space propulsion system in favor of a more effective model because of revolutionary advances. Thus we could be reassured that education enjoyed a priority in our society comparable to other basic enterprises. The Importance of Education for Citizenship Earl C. Kelley The state of being young is temporary. Our youth will grow up and in time will operate the affairs of the earth. As we will grow ‘old, the reins will slip from our hands. The way youth are built will >€atl C. Kelley, IN DEFENSE. OF YOUTH, © 1962. Reprinted by permission of Prentice-Hall, fnc., Englewood Clifs, New Jersey. pp. tia. The author Is peo fessor of secondary education at Wayne State Univesity. His other bookt Include Education for What Ie Real and with Marie Ramsey, Eaucation and the Nature of Man. 14d le National Interest 10 come. The school is our nce we have learned how f a human existence will Education in the ine the shape of things ermine the te wrospects. Si inevitably det tinuation o uF evument for building Our 1 to destroy all life, the very SOM to being. be in their be ver Hiroshima a new ¢ra oa ee ist 6, 1945, over most of ot birth of the atomic age has oun si pas of thinking. Many of on jn which no man is safe &x- Pate over night. An era Was This calls for a jgood will of all his fellow men. the Book aver before demanded of us. P eve we to meet this new challenge? Have we Fhe old outmoded workd of 19447 How od ct we reacting as an informed and intel aze we now motivand react to a new situation? Do we have the ligent citizenry shone of human beings so necessary to secure the ‘cc we mast have? Are we now responding in fear or in Fok? Tn more crucial form than we could have imagined the test of what we fought for is now upon us. How are we meeting this — given one more chance, perhaps the last, to see whether our ideals of citizenship can measure up to the needs of the hour. Do our youth, who get most of their ideals for coopera- tive living from our schools, know enough about democracy and cooperation fo sustain them in a world so shrunken in size that we are all next-door neighbors? How do our youth feel about their ‘own government and the welfare of their own people? How can they care about other peoples of the earth if they have not learned to care about their own? Do our youth know and appreciate what democracy is and what it means to live under the democratic sys- tent Do they have an attitude toward democratic government that will sustain that government? Will they care enough about i sive their sweat and brawn to Coane a ma pees cept through brand of citizen How well prepared are really been good citizens of Il as in war? The average adult A; think of ‘merican citizen is no b of government in the thi better. We too often enemy." “That fireman is rd person, That policeman is an The “government” is spokenA 14re ‘The Social Roles of Education of as some sinister thing which hangs over the citizens and busies lf in making their lives uncomfortable. Seldom does anyone speak of his government, his policeman, his fireman. All this in the face of the fact that the people created the government. The ironic fact is that the people mistrust and misunderstand the very instru- ment they invented and control. If the people could come to feel that they are the government, that it is theirs, and that they could control it, we would no longer have our malodorous city machines that return to power again and again with the tacit consent of good Citizens. If the people felt that the government was tl should no longer have our present public disdain of politics as being something dirty with which a decent citizen will have nothing to do. We would no longer have people talking about how life would perhaps be better if we had a dictator. In the dictator blighted countries the dictators were tumed to as an easy way to solve problems of work and security. Some of us were jobless 50 long that we began to think that an efficient dictator would give us work and security. We failed to realize that the only security worth having is that which we achieve for ourselves and not that which is given us by someone else. If we have this lack of understanding of the nature of the demo- ‘cratic living, wherein lies the failure in dur preparation of youth for Citizenship? Much of the blame must be charged to the public schools. It is true that a young man or a young woman is a product of many influences of which the school is only one, but the great public school system, “the backbone of our civilization,” “the foundation of the republic,” had and has as one of its primary tasks that of building citizens. It has often been said that the chief reason why a childless taxpayer should support the schools his neighbor's chil- dren attend is that his benefits come from the development of good Citizens; that if the neighbor's children should be allowed to grow up without the advantages of education, the childless taxpayer's life would be uncomfortable if not hazardous, and his whole economy would be threatened. Thus, the training of citizens is « primary and original charge upon the schools; and if we are not Betting citizens equipped to live in a democracy, we are not getting our money's worth. What kind of citizen does a democracy demand? It is not enough for the schools to develop just any kind of citizen. A special brand of citizenship is needed in a nation which is really of, by, and for the people, We need citizens who are excited about govern Education in the National Interest >143 rent, not apathetic or indifferent. We need citizens who will hold 2 bold, critical, inquiring eye upon their government, not obey its fedicts with blind docility. We need critical thinkers and energetic doers and earnest devotees of democracy. These are the chief ends for which school taxes are paid in America ‘The teaching of government and the training of citizens is the primary charge upon the schools, because the government is the implement which makes possible the use of all other knowledge. Tt is useless to learn science, for example, if the government does not permit free inquiry. The great Jewish physicians of Vienna had litle use for their knowledge under Nazi control, because the government did not permit them to practice. We build and main- tain our government so that we can live, as nearly as possible, the kind of life we consider desirable. The government, therefore, must be right first, then all other knowledge and skills can be use~ ful, The American people have a right to demand that the schools sake this theie first business Our schools are again filled with millions of young people; people who will have terrifying responsibilities, if we hope to have peace. What are some of the attitudes our graduates must have if democracy is to be understood and sustained? ‘They must know frst of all that democracy is a way’of life, an attitude of man toward man, a dynamic changing force that is kept going by constant attention. They must know that it is not a thing apart. Its not something that George Washington secured for us and that resides in the Capitol. They should further know that democracy is the only way s0 far discovered which permits man to live his own personal philosophy. There is no other way of life so far demonstrated in which it is not necessary for some men to be masters and some to be slaves. It is the only way of life so far devised which permits the full development of the personality. Under the master-slave arrangement, fear is the predominating factor in human life. Fear drives people within themselves 50 they do not dare say what they think or what they wish, and their personalities dwindle and fade and die. To cherish and defend democracy, then, is to cherish and defend all we hold as decent and worthwhile | think youth needs to know that our American government is not democracy, but rather the machinery for helping its people achieve democratic ideals. It is an attempt on the part of those who believe in democracy to provide a system that will bring about democracy. It is something that we ourselves created, hoping that aa 14a ‘The Social Roles of Education existence under it would approach the kind of life we thought we wanted. It is not a system developed by somebody else to oppress us, and we certainly need not, in fact, be oppressed by our device for realizing our ideals. Our youth must cease to mistrust and begin to believe in our own invention. We must begin to admit that this government is our own product and stop disowning it and com- plaining about it. Our youth must realize that the government is in truth respon- sive to the will of the citizens. If we have bad government it is because we either do not understand this fact or do not care. Bad government cannot exist except as we permit it to exist. Govern- ment largely takes the form that its citizens want it to take. When a smug and self-righteous citizen draws himself up to his full height and says that he will have nothing to do with that dirty government, he becomes an agent of bad government. He becomes an uninten- tional saboteur of democracy. ‘Our youth must realize that if democracy is to work, good local government must be demonstrated. He needs to worry less about who is president of the United States and more about the wily ward heeler. Local government is the government that people see. Its often unsavory machinations have given many of our so-called good citizens their distaste and disgust for government. The average citi- zen never sees the federal or state government operate, but if the local government is filled with graft, if the taxpayers’ money is taken and he gets little in return, if the alleys are dirty, and the garbage is not collected, he is most likely to say that if this is democracy he wants none of it. If local government is efficient and serves the purposes for which the citizens founded it, and if by so doing it keeps constantly before the citizens a living example of democracy in action, the state and national governments are almost certain to function properly; but the citizen must realize that local gov- ernment will not function well unless he demands it and does his part to secure it ‘Our youth have shown on a thousand battle fields that they are not afraid to die. We have all learned by bitter experience the truth of the statement by Lewis Mumford that says: “a life sacri ficed at the right moment is a life well spent, while a life too care- fully hoarded, too ignominiously preserved, is a life utterly wasted.” Willingness to defend a faith makes it real. But our young people must learn in school that the effective defense of democracy may be more difficult in peace than in war. The alert- Education in the National Interest pias. ness which we can now instill in our present high school youth may be enough to defeat the insidious peacetime enemies of democracy. (OUR TEACHERS MUST BELIEVE IN DEMOCRACY If this alertness is to be instilled in our young, we must have teachers who really believe in democracy. We must have teachers who have not forgotten how they came to be or what their debt is to the democratic ideal. Most of our teachers were born in a lower economic and cultural state than they now occupy. They are largely the sons and daughters of farmers and workers. But for their good fortune in being born in a democracy, they would have lived and died as peasantry and in poverty. This is the land which gave them the chance to better their condition, but more than that, this is the land that gave them hope, without which humans cannot become really human. Many of our teachers have Forgotten the source of their power and have been using this power to damage the very ideals which have made them possible. If there is any group in America which should be grateful for America, it is our teachers. They have used the ladder which is basic to the American dream. We have teach- ers, however, who sneer at colleagues who try to introduce some democratic living into their classes. They block attempts to arrange any participation by students in the affairs of the school. They proclaim that no litle brat is going to tell them what to do. They say “I've tried democracy, but it doesn’t work.” One wants to ask, “How did you get here, if it doesn’t work?” Ever since our schools were established they have been of great interest to the public. The value of what the school does has long been debated. This I believe to be good. It shows that the are really interested in their schools. Magazines and newspapers would not print articles about the schools unless they thought that the public would be interested in them. OF all who have expressed an opinion on what the schools should teach or should be, there is probably no one who would not agree that a primary function of the school is to produce good citizens. There may be some who think it would be enough to have just a few good citizens, but I am sure no one would take issue 2. To better understand how this works in some other countries, ee Hadley Canis, The Polites of Despair, New York: Basie Books, Inc. 1936,— 146« ‘The Social Roles of Education with the general objective. They would disagree only with regard to what methods and subject matter produce good citizens. ‘THE SCHOOL 1S A SOCIETY WHERE DEMOCRACY CAN BE PRACTICED am taking the position here that the school is in itself a society with many of the problems of any society; that it is a ready-made society in which young people can learn how to be citizens by practice; that in order for anyone to become a good citizen he has to see himself as a citizen, he has to perceive himself as a person who is a factor in what goes on; that no one ever does anything voluntarily unless he sees it as worth doing; that the school is his school and that he can have some small influence on what it is, For example, I consider myself to be a citizen of the state of Michigan. It is true that I cannot have my own way, and many things go on of which I do not approve. I am one among millions of others. But I do feel that if I had a cause and could get a good many people to agree with me, I could have it written into the law of the state. It is unlikely that I will ever do this, but the fact that I am not forbidden to do it is what makes me feel that I am in fact a citizen. Of course, I want the right to vote, but if I had no right to try to get those elected to behave as I think they should, Citizenship would mean very little to me. Do the youth in our schools feel that they are a part of it? Do they think they have any chance to alter what goes on? Do they have a feeling of involvement necessary to sustain their self-concept as citizens? Perhaps some of the most successful have these feel- ings, but what about Joe Doakes in the back seat? In a very few years Joe is going to vote on school bonds. Are we making some mistakes in what we believe makes citizens? Education's Most Crucial Issue Harold Howe II During the past several weeks members of my staff and I have been meeting with groups of schools officials and political leaders from most of the southern States. ‘Against a backdrop of considerable press attention—some fac: blisher. >The Urban Review 1:1-6, June, 1966. Reprinted by permission of the Ps ‘The author, the US. Commissioner of Education, gave this address before the Founders” Day Convocation at Teachers College, Columbia University May 3, 1966. _ Education in the National Interest our tual, some darkly speculative—delegations have come to my office in Washington. We in turn have traveled to the South. While we encountered a spark or two of fire in the eyes of some of the southern representatives, the conversations were sincere and wholly useful. It was vital that they be so, for we were discussing what I conceive to be the most critical issue facing American edu- cation during the latter part of the Twentieth Century. I speak of the necessity for eliminating segregation from our schools In these particular discussions we focused on the segregation that has by official State policy characterized southern education for the past century and continues to characterize it in large meas- ure even though State laws have changed under Federal pressures. But the basic issues involved in racial discrimination in the schools are by no means confined to the South. The effort to eliminate seg regated classrooms will stir increasingly intense debate in every section of this country. The decisions we cannot avoid making will test both the patience and the conscience of every citizen. Our achievements and failures alike will have a significant impact on the national economy, on the quality of country ours will be, and con the individual lives of millions of people here in the United States and in foreign countries as well. ‘As President Johnson said on April 28, 1966 in his message to Congress urging new Civil Rights le We are engaged in a great adventure—as great as that of the last century, when our fathers marched to the Western fron- tier. Our frontier today is of human beings, not of land. If we are able to open that frontier, to free each child to become the best that is in him to become, our reward—both spiritual and material—will exceed any that we gained a century ago through territorial expansion. ‘Those of us professionally connected with education thus have 4 heavy responsibility to our students and to our fellow men. That responsibility is of course not ours alone. Eliminating segregation, in the schools no less than in other institutions, will require close collaboration among every element in the community. Govern- ‘ment agencies at the local, State, and Federal levels must play their art; and so must city planners, real estate people, architects, civic and political leaders, community groups, and many others. The call to action must come, however, from within the school itself, and it must come from those of us charged with the conduct of education. The school is where the children of the next genera-14s< ‘The Social Roles of Education tion now are. We cannot allow them to grow up with a cast of mind which perpetuates prejudice and which forces our nation into another two or three decades of living with the lie that racially separate education can be equal. Beyond its implications for the professional educator, I do not think it too much to say that continued existence of segregated schools—de jure and de facto alike-would undermine and in time destroy this nation’s spirit and vitality. Our citizens have always taken pride in their schools, regarding them as characteristically American. It would be a calloused ego indeed that would remain untouched in face of the fact that an enterprise regarded as charac- teristically American was in practice unfair. ‘And unfair is the best that can be said about the situation con- fronting the Negro child in the segregated classroom. Every experience he has seems calculated to demonstrate to him that he is inferior and should resign himself to being so. The system singles him out, separating him by color from the best schools and the best teachers. The least is demanded of him and expected from him. The prescribed neighborhood he lives in, and the restrictions that shackle the adults he lives with, strongly suggest that his is a lost cause. His life at school combines with the rest of his life to make him see himself as a second-class citizen. Great though our country’s riches are, we cannot afford this waste of human lives. Nor can we lightly disregard its effect on the position of the United States in the family of nations. Since World ‘War II, the United States has taken the lead in the pursuit of peace and human rights. We seek to advance freedom and to relieve ‘oppression on all fronts—in a world made up of people some two- thirds of whom are not white. When these people look at the con- ditions among nonwhite Americans, they have little interest in the lengthy historical explanation of how second-class citizenship for Negro Americans has come about. More likely they will conclude, to paraphrase Emerson, “What you are speaks so loudly, I cannot hear what you say.” And we must therefore ask ourselves how Jong we can expect world leadership to be accepted from a nation that either cannot or will not put its own house in order. Itis necessary that we comprehend these issues. It is necessary to understand that American education—education offered equally and openly to all, not just to the privileged—is on trial. It is necessary to understand that segregated classrooms are not entirely accidental; it is not wholly by chance that our largest cities are marked by predominantly white and predominantly Negro schools and that Education in the National Interest 149 this separation of the races is on the increase in our city schools. And whatever decisions we make about maintaining or eliminating these arrangements, it is necessary also to recognize that segregated schools—in the North every bit as much as in the South—violate not only the most revered principles of this nation but our fundamental law. That position—particularly as set forth in the Office of Educa- tion’s Revised Statement of Policies for School Desegregation Plans —has been warmly challenged. Some southern leaders, and they are not without counterparts in the North, contend that our require- ments are not only unfair but illegal. By what right, many of them. seem to be saying, does the Office of Education interpret “discri nation” (‘he word used in Title VI of the Civil Rights Act) as being synonymous with “segregation?” Why isn’t it legal and just to have segregated schools as long as they are created by the choices of pupils and parents or by the patterns of residence which emerge in portions of a school district? ‘And thus suddenly the calendar is turned back to 1954 and the Supreme Court's decision in the case of Brown vs. The Board of Education of Topeka. In its opinion the Court enunciated “the fundamental principle that racial discrimination in public education is unconstitutional,” and the Court went on to say that “All pro- visions of Federal, State, or local law requiring or permitting such discrimination must yield to this principle.” The decision ended, you may recall, with these words: “We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” Fortified by these unequivocal statements—and a host of subse- quent District Court decisions spelling out the position in detail— those of us in the Office of Education are on firm legal ground when we move against the principle of the dual school system in the South, with its tradition of “separate but (theoretically) equal” schools and its segregated faculties. These arrangements were originally established by State and local laws, by formal public policy. The segregation resulting from them is clearly illegal under the Civil Rights Act and under Federal court decisions. But to the North lie quicksands of legal interpretation. No major Northern city has had—in recent decades, at least—a law or a public policy officially setting up separate schools for white and Negroes. Segregation in the Northern schools has instead come about for a wide variety of reasons connected primarily with patterns of resi- dence—from real estate convenants, for example, or from the flight—— 150« ‘The Social Roles of Education of well-heeled families to the suburbs; and most of all, perhaps, from the subtle, insidious, undocumented influence of prejudice ‘which herds the Negro into the city ghetto through economic and social pressures which have no standing in law but which operate as effectively as legal separation ever did in the South. The consequence is a clearly discernible pattern of predominantly white and predominantly Negro urban schools that have developed without any clearly official planning or policy; and the further consequence is unequal educational opportunity through segrega- tion in many ways more complete and severe than that existing in ‘many small Southern towns. But this segregation—Northern style— is beyond the clear purview of the Civil Rights Act, and outside the compass of other clearly established legal remedies as of this time. We face a similarly imponderable situation even when we get into the realm of official action taken by a school system. There is, for example, the feeder pattern by which children in elementary schools A, B, C, and D are assigned to East Junior High School; while those in schools, W, X, Y, and Z are assigned to West Junior High. The Office of Education has received complaints from several Cities that these assignments have a peculiar way of making East Junior High all white and West Junior High all Negro. But is this what school officials actually intended or is it just a coincidence? Unless intent can be established, it is difficult for the law to reach the problem. We have received similar complaints about attendance zone boundaries and about faculty assignments. It would be difficult not to suspect that some of the crazy-quilt attendance zones to be found are the result of deliberate gerrymandering to produce white or Negro schools, or that predominantly Negro faculties in Negro schools are there by something other than coincidence. But how does one penetrate the hearts and minds of those who drew those boundary lines or assigned those teachers? How does one legally establish their intent? Office of Education teams have spent many weeks in several northern school districts trying to find the answers—trying to deter- rine how we can successfully proceed. But we are not satisfied with four progress, and it is clear that the end to segregation in the northern schools will not come soon. What is more, we face the danger that in the South, patterns of de facto segregation will develop as the old dual school system disappears and as more fortunate white families flee to the suburbs of growing cities to avoid integrated schools. Education in the National Interest 21st The fact is that although a great deal is being accomplished under the Civil Rights Act, this law is not an ideal insrtument for changing de facto school segregation through enforcement. Its imperfections were recently brought to the attention of Congress through two bills—one introduced by Senator Edward Kennedy, the other by Congressman Adam Clayton Powell. Both bills are aimed directly at the problem of segregation in the big Cities. Both provide greatly increased financial assistance to school districts that wish to undertake programs to alleviate their prob- ems. One of the bills would apply sanctions against districts that remain segregated Whatever the fate of these proposals, programs enacted into law by Congress during the past few years are proving their usefulness in helping, to make equal educational opportunity a reality for every child. Under Title IV of the Civil Rights Act, for example, hundreds of teachers are receiving special training—at institutes, financed by Title IV—in how to deal with the problems of integration effectively and smoothly. As experience has demonstrated, desegregation means a great deal more than simply eliminating separate schools. ‘There are deep educational and psychological needs to be met, and teachers dealing with newly integrated classrooms must know how to meet them. One doesn’t hear much about Title IV of the Civil Rights Act, but it seems to me a particularly valuable and im- portant teacher-training enterprise. I wish it were larger and more widely used. ‘A considerably broader program is at work today in every State and nearly every community across the nation under Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. This Title, you ‘may recall, supports a billion-dollar-a-year drive to bring an array of special new educational programs to the children of poverty—the children (a large proportion of them Negro, of course) whose home and school deprivations are most poignantly acute. The program is ‘working, too, on the minds of school administrators across the nation. It is showing them that poverty is a problem in education and that education is the best way to destroy poverty. And perhaps it is causing some of them to speculate that sentencing Negroes to poverty may result from white people’s attitudes as much as anything else. Closely allied in spirit with Title I of the Elementary and ‘Secondary Education Act is a very special program we are just now trying to get off the ground—the National Teacher Corps. Carefully selected teams of teacher-interns, led by experienced carcer-| } sae The Socal Roles of Education teachers, will-at the invitation of local school systems—take their dedication and talent and spirit ito classrooms in city slums and poverty-stricken rural ares. It would be dificult to think of a more challenging or more rewarding oF more necessary undertaking. 1 would hope that the alumni of Teachers College would be well represented among the National Teacher Corps volunteers. All inal, there ae about 100 major programs carried out by the Office of Education. Every one of them, at every level of traning, has an important contribution to make tothe quality of American education and to making education equaly available to every cit- zen, without regard to race or ctcumstance. At the same time, local efforts of a variety of kinds are also whittling away atthe issue of de facto segregation. Open enroll- ment programs give children and parents the opportunity to desegregate themselves; the “pairing” of schools which have te ditionally been white and Negro isa device with some usefulness inthe Fringes ofthe Negro ghetto; busing of pupils to create rac balance i highly controversial but must be conceded to be helpful in some situations; forward-looking schools in many all-wht suburbs have attempted to make a contribution through student and teacher exchanges of various kinds But all of these laudable efots, both Federal and local, are Aoomed to failure unless they are fortified by further energies directed atthe basic problem The fist priority isto make sure that the schools which serve cour neediest citizens are at the very least equal tothe schools that serve our most fortunate. In spite of local, State and Federal efforts, this is not now the cas. Buildings are older, teachers are less experienced and not as well trained, the turnover of staff is higher, and in many cases equipment, books and special services are less adequate in those schools where the child has special handi- ‘caps to overcome It seems to me imperative that while we are forging legal and policy weapons to attack de facto segregation in the cites, we must atthe same time take immediate steps to bring real excellence to the segregated schools which do in fact exist ‘The Federal Government can contribute to this by programs like Title I of ESEA, and I would hope that my office can bring forward even more adventurous enterprises in the years ahead. But as we do 50, we will have to be supported by local resolution to regard the problem as crucial and to bend every effort to solve it Here are some things which ought to happen locally: Education inthe National Interest, pass 1, Personnel assignment policies adopted both by school sys- tems and by teacher organizations should be adjusted to guarantee slum schools their share of experienced, able teachers and cut down staff turnover in these schools 2 Building programs for the future should be planned so that new schools break up rather than continue segregation. The Office of Education will provide Federal planning funds for such efforts right now, and if Thave my way about it, we will provide construc- tion funds before long. Moreover, with the creation of the new Department of Housing and Urban Development, there is a new Federal tool to help education in the attack on de facto segregation. Planning for new land use and for housing patterns in the city ‘ust go hand in hand with planning for education. 5 The next generation of citizens should not graduate from our high schools without having confrontedthrough serious study and in depth-the issues which confront this society in the realm of segregation and civil rights. Eforts to get this subject into the classroom must originate with States and localities, for we cannot and should not set curriculum from the Office of Education. But wwe can provide research funds to start responsible efforts on cur- ricalum development, s0 that 18-year-olds are not entering adult life without an understanding of the stresses and problems of this society. It is about time we stopped offering. an antiseptic history of our country leaned up to please the local power struc- ture, and it is about time also that we started talking realities with young adults who are joining the military service and entering ‘matrimony atthe age of 18, 4 Local school districts must provide in slum schools all ofthe special opportunity programs found elsewhere inthe school system, ‘50 as to creat both the opportunity and the expectation of petform- ance by the children of the poor. There is a danger, well doci- mented by Kenneth Clark in his book Dark Ghetto, that our focus ‘on the culturally deprived will result in an assumption that poor childeen have less promise than others and should be given a kind of special propping up to atone for their status without giving them the advantage of the stimulation which comes from a rigorous ‘educational program. In addition to more remedial reading and more preschool programs, we need more advanced placement inthe schools of the shums. 5. Teacher education programs must affiliate with slum schools for their practice teaching in a way to give us many more young,a ees ; t iste ‘The Social Roles of Education teachers who are willing to venture “Up the Down Staircase.” And most schools of education can learn from Columbia Teachers College in this respect. These are some of the tools available to us to help make equal ‘educational opportunity a fact of American life. But in the long run we shall overcome, not just because of laws prohibiting dis- crimination in the schools or educational programs to dissolve it, but because America wants us to overcome. There is a new spirit abroad in this nation, and a refreshing new attitude. Spreading large part from campuses such as this one, there is new determina- tion that we cannot and will not divorce such principles as “equal justice under law’ from life as we live it. This determination inevitably focuses on where injustice is most apparent, and injustice is nowhere more apparent than in the segregated classroom. Discrimination will not be eliminated from ‘our schools easily or soon, but the course is in my opinion inalterably set. ‘The changing tide is traced by the results of opinion polls entered into the record of last summer's White House Conference on Edu- cation. One of the polls involved the question, “Do you think white students and Negro students should go to the same schools?” In 1942, 40 percent of white Northerners answered, “same schools.” By 1963 that figure had climbed to 73 percent. During the same period, the ratio of white Southerners saying “same schools’ climbed from 2 percent in 1942 to 34 percent in 1963. Overall, in 1963, 63 percent of the white people sampled felt that whites and Negroes should attend the same schools. As Professor Thomas F. Pettigrew, one of the Conference consultants, observed, “White opinions on school desegregation have undergone extremely signif- icant alterations throughout the country in recent years—far greater alterations than commonly recognized.” It is high time that these alterations be reflected in official school policy. American education must catch up with American life and ‘American law. The citizens of this nation demand that it do so, and they look to teachers and principals and superintendents to lead the way. ‘As educators, there can be no doubt in our minds that segregated education is inferior education. The wisest minds in our profession have joined the Supreme Court in making that clear. What is sadly lacking. is the clear public expression of these facts of our pro- fessional life. The educator must speak out and he must act. He Education in the National Interest piss must help parents understand that all-white and all-Negro schools harm both races. He must exercise his responsibilities for leader: forthrightly challenging those who would deny the constitu- tional requirement of equal educational opportunity for all. In the face of this most crucial issue in American education, the profes- sional educator cannot remain silent. Education: An Antidote to Poverty John Hersey We had never had it so good. In the years after World War I, sociologists’ tag phrases such as “The Affluent Society,” the cant of politicians in slogans like “Peace and Prosperity!,” the constant flood of commercials on television proclaiming the bigger-and- betterness of everything, and the ever-soaring graph lines of well- being, of rising gross national product and Dow-Jones averages and rates of employment—all these hints and signs seemed to vaporize in a cloud of illusion around our heads: We were all rich The only trouble was that a lot of us were poor. In these high times, one quarter of the wealthiest nation in history lived on frugal terms, one fifth in abject poverty. The so-called “Negro Revolution” brought this ugly realization to the fronts of our minds. It was not that the poor were exclusively colored, though the proportion of Negroes among the disadvan- taged was, and is, extremely high; it was that the Negro, suffering other sorts of poverty besides the economic kind, felt it was time to call his plight to national attention and he did. This, together with other reminders, blew away the cloud. We began to face the scandal of poverty here at home. Now our President has declared war on it. How will he, and we, fight poverty? Is not education the starting point? Should not our schools carry the brunt? This article will attempt, in few words and therefore with over- simplification, to assess the role that education may (and may not) play in “The War on Poverty.” If the note of caution in this article strong, it is merely because our nation, having wakened to this domestic horror, is already in some danger of becoming slogan- bound again: Oh, poverty? Education is the antitdote for that. > Reprinted from the AAUW Journal by permission of the author and the pub- lisher.$8:157-160, May, 196. John Hersey, a Plltast Prize win ‘of the National Committe for Support of the Public Schools and Child Buyer,