8. Problems and Programs

we have to do a lot more for some children just to give them the same chance to learn.'

CALVIN F. GROSS, Superintendent of Schools, Pittsburgh, Pa. Desegregation focuses attention on the gap between the scholastic achievement of the average white and the average Negro student. Educators and lay citizens alike have expressed fear that educational standards in the schools may suffer in the process.

At the Commission's Nashville conference in March 1959, superintendents of large school systems in the border States that had desegregated completely in 1954 and 1955 testified that these fears were not justified. Standards, they said, need not be lowered as a result of desegregation, but it may be necessary to find some way of coping with the wider spread between individual achievement when white and Negro children are brought together. Experience has shown not only a gap in scholastic achievement between the average white and the average Negro pupil, but that the gap widens as pupils progress in school. Educators have observed that it may represent as much as 1/2 to 2 school years by the time children reach the high school grades.2

Believing that our most urgent domestic issue is how to improve public schools while adjusting them to constitutional demands, the Commission has devoted special attention to needs of all children, but particularly of those from families that have suffered educational handicaps because of their minority-group status. Whether these handicaps are the result of segregation in the schools, economic and cultural deprivation, or some other cause, is immaterial. They exist.

The Commission's mandate from Congress is not only to study and collect information with regard to denials of equal protection but to make recommendations to the President and Congress. No other agency of the Federal Government has concerned itself with the educational problems inherent in the transition from a segregated to a nondiscriminatory school system; it therefore seemed desirable for the Commission to do so. Programs and ideas from different parts of the Nation have been assembled and are presented here without any attempt at evaluation. Some are elaborate and costly; others are not. Some are officially

sponsored; others are private, volunteer efforts. They may be classified into two groups. The first is concerned with differences in individual pupil achievement present in schools that include both educationally handicapped and high achieving children. The second, with programs aimed at improving the training of all children in a school.

CLOSING THE GAP

Ability grouping

As indicated above, when white and Negro children are first brought together in school, an unusually wide spread in scholastic performance is to be expected. Many educators believe that the performance of all is better when children are grouped so that slow achievers do not hold others back and high achievers do not discourage those who cannot keep up-while the average child proceeds at his own pace unhampered by either. Basically there are four types of ability groupings within a school system: (1) by schools; (2) by special programs within individual schools; (3) by classes within individual schools; and (4) by groups within classes. Each will be discussed briefly.

By schools. Special schools for academically talented students are not new, particularly at the high school level. Good examples are Baltimore's Polytechnic Institute, a special school for boys preparing for engineering colleges; and Western High School, for girls preparing for college admission to both is based on high scholarship. They were established long ago for whites only, but qualified Negroes are now admitted to both.*

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The criteria set forth in the pupil placement laws of many Southern States would certainly permit separate schools for pupils of different scholastic aptitude and achievement. In the absence of racial discrimination, this would seem to be constitutionally unobjectionable. Apparently no southern school system has used a pupil placement law in this manner. Many educators have testified that Negro pupils fall within all ability groups, although they are found in preponderant numbers among the low achievers."

By programs. Track systems, particularly at the high school level, are a familiar method of ability grouping by scholastic program. Introduced into the Washington, D.C., schools after complete desegregation by rezoning,' this approach was said to offer reassurance to school patrons that mixing white and Negro pupils would not impair the educational opportunity of anyone. Other cities that have tried it, before or after

desegregation, have found it an excellent instrument to provide for the slow, low-achieving students without hurting others.

By classes. Some educators strongly condemn the track system because it virtually freezes each student in a track in accordance with admittedly fallible testing methods. Intraschool ability grouping by classes for able, average, and slow learners meets this objection. Proven performance in each subject is the basis of classification. A child in an advanced class in science or mathematics may be in a slow class in English. Thus, an overall classification of bright, average, or dull is avoided. This kind of grouping has been useful in connection with desegregation. Of course, it can be used only in schools having two or more classes in the same subject.

Special classes in English,1o nongraded classes for overage students,11 and other remedial classes 12 seem to fall in this category, although only the lower level of the achievement range is singled out for attention. Sometimes such classes in desegregated schools in fact serve Negro students almost exclusively.13

Ability groups within a class can be used in schools having only one class of a particular grade, or subject. None of the educators attending the Commission's three education conferences discussed this method. However split classes are a variant of the ability-group-within-the-class technique. The superintendent of schools of Montgomery County, Md., testified at the Commission's Gatlinburg conference that he had used this method in an elementary school where most students were average or below, while a few were highly talented. Under this plan

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.. the bulk of the students are in regular class by grade and the top of each class has been put into a split class, so that we have a group of first and second graders with one teacher, third and fourth with one, fifth and sixth with one. These are the academically talented students, both Negro and whites, who are in that school, and they move along on this level and the others at the different rate move along in the regular classes.

Supervised home study

Tutoring of the handicapped Negro pupil newly enrolled in a formerly all-white school has been provided both officially and privately. The superintendent of schools of San Angelo, Texas, told the Commission that Negro students in his city performed so poorly when transferred to a white high school that they requested segregation.1

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We believe this was brought on by their first report cards. At the end of the first 6 weeks, all grades given to Negro students represented 8 A's, 13 B's, 37 C's, 13 D's, 20 F's, and 9 incomplete. This average was approximately 15 points lower than the grades the

same students had made the previous year in the all-Negro high school. Actually, about 44 percent was below what we considered standard grades for their ability.

When this report was made to the board of education, the board felt that we should provide tutors for the Negro students. To do this would have been giving special privileges to one group. It was recommended by the administration that we offer free tutoring at nights on a permissive basis for all high school students. As a result, more white students reported for extra help than did Negro students, on a percentage basis; however, we do feel that this step aided the transition because the grades started pulling up immediately.

At the Commission's California hearings, the executive director of the Community Relations Conference of Southern California reported

The conference is presently offering a tutoring service through the schools and with the approval of the Los Angeles School Board to students who are having difficulty adjusting to the standards of the local system (because of the inadequacy of the instruction in their former residence). The board of education has designated four schools as pilot projects. The tutors are retired teachers who are giving their time without charge.

A later witness for the same organization said, however, that the tutoring "is on a very limited scale because we find it very difficult to get teachers who are willing to volunteer their time. . .

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The superintendent of schools of Arlington, Va., testifying at Gatlinburg on the scholastic difficulties of Negro students admitted to formerly white junior and senior high schools, said:

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It is my understanding that the first Negro children who were admitted to Stratford Junior High School had received some tutoring help from persons not connected with the school system. It has also been reported that Negro students in our senior high school have received the same type of tutoring assistance. In spite of all this, however, I am not able to report these students are doing well within their classes. All senior high school students are working considerably below the average of other students in that school.

Perhaps the most extensive and well-organized private effort to raise the achievement levels of Negro pupils enrolled in a formerly white school was discussed at the Williamsburg conference. This project, sponsored by the nonprofit Home Study Program, Inc., serves about 100