children of working-class Negroes living in a pocket community called Ken Gar which lies between the towns of Kensington and Garrett Park, Maryland, which are inhabited largely by upper middle-class, professional whites.

The program has a dual approach in that it tries to: (1) focus parental attention upon the school problems of their children; and (2) provide tutoring on a regular schedule, three times a week. Starting in January 1960 with 15 college-educated, volunteer tutors, the number had grown to 63 in January 1961. The two facets of the program were described by its executive secretary: 19

Our tutoring regime touches two sides of the academic problempoor academic performance and poor incentive. Since all the tutors are volunteers, we know them to be highly motivated. The exposure to such people with their diverse professions and backgrounds suggests values to the Ken Gar children which are new to them. It has been suggested that this enriching personal contact may be even more important than the substantive schoolwork which is done at the study sessions.

Nevertheless, we try to be as effective as possible in helping the children to face and to conquer their academic problems. We seek advice and guidance from the school system, and in periodic meetings with teachers we ask for specific suggestions in terms of specific children. We have also broadened our initial academic focus [by] ... taking the children on simple trips to local points of interest-zoo, museum, art gallery, White House, etc., for we have learned that their lack of stimulation and experience underscores their difficulties with words and concepts.

The executive secretary reported that at the end of the first year of operation, they found, as to parents: an increase in participation in the program, and in attendance at adult meetings; evidence of increased willingness to take responsibility; and new leadership by the local church.20 In relation to the children, there was a marked increase in attendance at study sessions, even by junior and senior high school pupils who had not attended the first year; some improvement in schoolwork or attitude, or both; and a marked decrease in delinquency." As to the applicability of the program to other areas, the executive secretary warned: 22

A possible danger. . . is that the program will be misconstrued as a simple tutoring regime. It is necessary to recognize the central importance of the interaction with the home environment, which sets the context for the volunteer tutoring effort. The administrator of a home study program should possess or acquire those profes

sional techniques involved in purposeful interaction with the adults of a subcultural group. The handful of professions which have such techniques would include Point 4 type program fieldworkers, rural demonstrators, field sociologists, action anthropologists, group social workers, and labor educators. Through the efforts of such a professional, it is possible to change the relationship of the home environment to school problems, so that, where previously there was a vacuum, there is developed a positive support for schoolchildren and a push toward more serious academic application.

At the close of the school year 1960-61 the Ken Gar Committee and the volunteer tutors arranged an honors program. The pupils (selected by their public schools) who had the highest scholastic achievement and those who had made the greatest progress during the year received prizes. The volunteer tutors gave citations of merit to children who had made the greatest effort. Each child received a book, appropriate to his age and interest, from the League of Women Voters. The 200 assembled Ken Gar citizens and guests were addressed by Frank Reeves, then President Kennedy's Special Assistant for Civil Rights and Minority Groups. The program was the climax of the year's effort to help a small community achieve higher educational goals for its children.

Transitional control

As part of a gradual desegregation plan, Montgomery County, Md., limited the number of Negroes in each school to one-third of the total enrollment and reduced the teacher-pupil ratio from the standard 1 to 30, to a sliding scale of from 1 to 23 to 28, depending upon local conditions, 23

Such a plan would be difficult to carry out except in a system where new schools could be or were being built-otherwise there would not be enough flexibility to achieve the desired result. The superintendent of schools of Montgomery County, testified that he believed smaller classes taught by well-trained teachers was the key to educational progress.** He also observed that research by his staff indicated that "when the number of Negro students exceeded one-third . . . there is a greater increase in proportion problems"; and that "the acceptance [of desegregation] on the part of the white population . . . was less enthusiastic when there was a higher ratio.25

Career clubs

A private, nonprofit corporation in Phoenix, Arizona, called Careers Unlimited, has a program for economically and culturally deprived students particularly Mexican-American and Negroes along with some

white farm children." The parent organization is privately financed. It provides a full-time director for the program.

The Careers Unlimited approach is to establish "Career Clubs” in public schools serving children in grades 7 through 12 as an extracurricular activity. Teachers and principals are requested to select as club members students having sufficient potential ability to permit them to pursue a business or technical career. Membership is kept sufficiently broad to avoid unpleasant "minority" connotations, yet selective enough to make it an honor.

Club meetings are held on the school grounds every 2 weeks during or immediately after school. The organization supplies speakers to discuss various business and professional careers and their educational requirements. Meetings are informal and youngsters have an opportunity to ask questions. Monthly field trips introduce the students to the climate of a particular career. They visit plants, factories, hospitals, laboratories, colleges, etc., to see who does what and under what conditions and to make on-the-spot inquiries.

At present there are 10 Career Clubs in eight elementary schools for seventh- and eighth-grade students, and in two high schools for ninthgrade students. Eventually, it is hoped, the program will handle 400500 students in grades 7 through 12.

To reduce a high dropout rate, Careers Unlimited gives $75 per-year scholarships to selected students to keep them in school. Future plans include summer career camps, vocational guidance publications, films, and radio programs and finally, perhaps, in-school, basic-skills training.

The secretary of the organization wrote the Commission that its sponsors feel the program fulfills a threefold need: 27

We are helping the children to reveal their up to now untapped talents; we are raising their goals and aspirations; we are preparing the community (by participation in this program) to be more ready to accept these children into the job market once their educational goals have been met.

The tie-in of this program with local business and professional leaders gives promise of nondiscriminatory employment opportunities. In this respect it is, so far as the Commission knows, unique.

SPECIFIC PROGRAMS

Most of the programs discussed above are particularly applicable to the Negro pupil who has arrived at a desegregated school for the first time.

Another approach is to improve his scholastic achievement in the segregated school before he moves to a desegregated school with higher standards.

It is not the Commission's position that raising the scholastic achievement of minority-group children should precede desegregation. The Supreme Court held compulsory racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional 7 years ago, and charged all school boards operating segregated schools with the duty of ending segregation and discrimination with all deliberate speed.

During a transitional period, however, efforts to raise the academic standards of inferior, segregated schools is not inappropriate. Moreover, while the programs here discussed were found in schools predominantly enrolling minority-group children, they would have no less value in biracial schools.

Two of these programs were in segregated southern schools; one was found in a formerly segregated school system in a border city; the rest in large cities of the North. All are imaginative efforts to provide equal educational opportunity for children whose background has not led them to aspire to scholastic achievement. Some are too new to have proven their worth; others show heartening results.

The Phelps-Stokes project

This project, directed by the Phelps-Stokes Fund, was conducted for 5 years (1955-60) under a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, General Education Board, in four public high schools in each of four Southern States.28 The general purpose was to improve instruction in the areas of language, mathematics, and physical and social science through the cooperative efforts in each instance of a high school, a nearby college, and the local school officials. The project sprang from a survey indicating that less than 3 percent of the graduates of Negro high schools in the South are likely candidates for the best interracial colleges.30

29

Six specific objectives were set: (1) to raise the level of scholastic achievement of the pupils in the participating schools, (2) to encourage better selection and use of instructional materials, (3) to stimulate professional growth of teachers, (4) to establish effective college-high school cooperation, (5) to improve preservice and inservice teacher education, and (6) to develop an attitude on the part of the participating schools and colleges to continue the program after the 5-year period.31

31

Various services were offered to each of the participating high schools: (1) the help of a college consultant in each of the four areas of instruction to be improved; (2) the services of 20 nationally recognized experts as consultants on particular problems; (3) 8-week summer workshops for teachers for three consecutive summers; (4) State and regional con

ferences and conferences of national consultants; (5) kits, study guides, and special posters; (6) standardized tests to assist in evaluating some parts of the project and its results; and (7) instructional materials beyond those ordinarily supplied.32 Over the 5-year period 700 high school and college teachers, numerous school administrators, and about 10,000 pupils were involved. The total 5-year cost of the program was $45 per pupil, or less than $10 a year.33

34

The results are positive but not spectacular. Test scores of over 2,000 9th- and 12th-grade pupils at the beginning and end of the project showed improvement in English, science, and social studies, but not in mathematics. The average pupil was still below the national norm for his grade at the end of the project, but the well-known increase in the gap relative to the national norm was not only arrested, but reversed, in three basic subjects.35

In the area of better selection and use of instructional materials, reports indicate an improvement in four ways: (1) better use of library facilities; (2) use of audiovisual materials and equipment for instruction instead of entertainment; (3) increased use of community facilities such as museums, manufacturing plants, and parks; and (4) more materials and equipment for instruction via matching funds.36

The evidence suggests that the project provided considerable stimulation to the professional growth of teachers both at the high school and college level. Overall, it has been summarized as a successful combination of three ingredients: (1) imaginative leadership, (2) extensive cooperations, and (3) a small expenditure of additional funds per pupil.37

The Banneker group program

The St. Louis Banneker group is an administrative cluster of 23 elementary schools, enrolling 16,000 children, 95 percent of whom are Negro children living in the most underprivileged section of the city.38 Dr. Samuel Shepard, Jr., the assistant superintendent in charge of the district, became concerned when, upon the initiation of a three-track system of ability grouping in the city's high schools, almost half of the 500 graduates of his schools going on to high school were classified as track III students.39 Among the five school districts in the city, the Banneker group students ranked lowest in citywide tests.40

Dr. Shepard's success in raising the scholastic achievement and high school classification of the Banneker group graduates in 3 school years, without additional funds except for a summer remedial project mentioned later, is spectacular. The table below compares high school tracks to which Banneker school graduates were assigned at the start of the program and 3 years later: 41