recommendations 1) Provide specialized personnel in sufficient numbers 2) There should be at least one full-time counselor for 3) One psychologist-social worker-psychiatrist team for 4) A workshop-type training for all, including school aides. 5) Within the basic structure of the school program, provision for conference time, including time for meetings of specialized personnel with teachers. educating the malfunctioning child The malfunctioning pupil is one of the major factors responsible for the inexperienced and transient character of the staff in the "difficult" school. By the malfunctioning child we mean the educationally disabled, the socially disruptive, or the emotionally disturbed child. There is reason to believe that the high incidence of these children in slum area schools is a symptom of the general failure to provide an appropriate educational context for these youngsters. This is not to ignore, as important causal factors in maladaptive behavior, the non-school determinants, but to reorient our expectancies of the schools as our most viable instrument in the lives of these children. The primary aim, therefore, of our program for the malfunctioning child is to place the necessary means for working with these youngsters in the hands of the local school, where contact with a normal situation would be maintained, and where social ties based on mutual responsibility are strengthened. recommendations 1) Provide effective clinical and guidance support, with emphasis on setting up an educational program for the school staff. 2) Provide a therapeutic program for the malfunctioning child, resting on an individual case study, based on a pooling of information gathered from educational, clinical, guidance, and familial sources. 3) Provide a hospital-connected pediatric service with opportunity for a thorough physical examination for each malfunctioning child and provision for complete follow-up. 4) Set up a "Junior Guidance Track" (small special classes of disturbed children carefully organized on a therapeutic basis) in each of these schools. 5) Plan for greater involvement of clinical-guidance services in existing classes for the exceptional child, the mentally retarded, the visually impaired, the physically limited, et cetera, since the overwhelming majority of children in this category suffer from associated emotional problems. 6) Insure more extensive educational opportunities by providing after-school and evening recreation programs, supervised after-school study and remedial facilities, weekend activities, and summer camp experiences for both children and parents. 7) Make a clinical and counseling program mandatory for state hospital returnees, designed to provide appropriate screening and placement before return to school, and sustained follow-up. 8) Provide other placement facilities for those children who are found, after a careful evaluation by clinicians and educators, to be so disturbed and damaged as to be unable to profit from a regular school program. involving the community and its resources Schools must guard against isolation from the community. We dare not encourage the cultural alienation which has created, between disadvantaged children and their parents, such tragic hostility, directed both at themselves and society. The immediate school community must be mobilized for a bootstrap operation. This entails using federal, state, municipal, and neighborhood resources to provide for satisfying patterns of life and work. More extensive opportunities for parents, neighbors, and school personnel to meet at home and in school, to be exposed to each other's personalities and aspirations, might lead to a mutuality of understanding and trust which is basic for effective education. Every neighborhood now has social agencies of all kinds that are working in isolation and even, perhaps, at crosspurposes with one another. These agencies, including the public school, should be coordinated into a comprehensive neighborhood plan. Local leadership groups, especially the local school board, should be intimately involved in the development and implementation of the plan. Unless the school and the school board are not only willing to accept criticism without becoming defensive, but even to take the lead in exposing the inadequacies of our school system, there will be no genuine involvement on the part of the parents and the community. recommendations 1) The school should facilitate frequent meetings of parents and school personnel, individually and in small groups. 2) The school should take the lead in developing a comprehensive neighborhood plan, involving the entire community and the social agencies serving it. 3) The board of education should assume leadership on probing the inequities of our schools. It should welcome the cooperation of teacher and community groups and their constant critical evaluation. 4) The board of education should encourage the search for additional funds from the federal, state, and municipal governments, and from private foundations. integrating effective schools In approaching the question of the so-called "difficult to staff" schools, we must recognize that most of them fall into this category because they are de facto segregated schools, reflecting the problems and evils of the ghetto that feeds them. As we work toward upgrading these schools, we must, simultaneously, work toward integrating them. Otherwise, we are working toward the creation of good segregated schools. Such schools, however successful, are still handicapped by the problems inherent in segregation, and the results, for teacher and pupil alike, are never as great as they would be without the handicap of segregation. Therefore, the following recommendations are submitted in the subject-areas under consideration: recommendations 1) As redistricting, rezoning, and new construction proceed, under this plan, priority consideration must be given to the possibilities of achieving the greatest possible degree of physical desegregation of the student bodies of all the schools affected. 2) One of the serious problems of our segregated system today is that children seldom have the opportunity to see members of minority groups in socially acceptable positions of authority. The minority group child needs this experience to aid in the creation of feelings of self-worth, and the identification with authority figures. The child of the so-called majority must have such exposure to serve as an important ingredient in the formation of positive rather than negative attitudes toward those who are different from himself. Therefore, it is important that a conscious effort be made to integrate the staff at all levels. 3) The desegrated student body and staff will not produce the desired result in terms of an integrated educational experience unless the curriculum and teaching materials reflect both the historical contributions and the day-to-day participation in our society of all groups. Such materials are available, and the necessary extra effort must be expended to acquire them. It may be advisable to set up a special curriculum committee, which will include teachers, similar to the committee on staffing, to recommend and supervise the required changes. 4) In view of past alienation of school and community in minority group areas, this is an especially important and sensitive area of concern. It will be important to guarantee that those people on the staff who are involved in any way in community contact be properly and thoroughly prepared, through in-service training courses, special workshops in human relations, et cetera, prior to assuming their duties. It is important, also, that the community be well-informed and involved from the beginning in the changes being made and the reasons for them. Such efforts to inform and prepare teachers, supervisors, and the community should also be inaugurated in those areas in which schools with fewer problems are located. providing for on-going evaluation and adjustment of the program As in the case of any responsible part of the school system, it is reasonable to expect that there will be periodic evaluations of the curriculum, program, methods, relation to other parts of the school system, et cetera. We recognize the necessity for building into these schools, from their inception, the personnel and funds needed for the continuous study and evaluation of the entire program by a body other than the one administering the program. This is an essential prerequisite for the careful accumulation of the materials necessary for a sound evaluation. It is essential that what is done here should be reported to the appropriate professional and official bodies. recommendations 1) Provide research specialists from an outside agency for the schools, to formulate and apply appropriate research criteria for the evaluation of the program. 2) Make appropriate adjustments based upon these evaluations. estimate of additional costs for the first step Budgetary appropriations have been far below the minimum needs of our school systems year after year. The budget must make adequate provision for teachers, classrooms, books, supplies, and the continuing development of know-how. Additional classrooms, demountable units, temporary housing, structural changes in the buildings selected for the program, costs of bussing children to underutilized schools, all of which measures may be necessary to reduce the There are too many variables to permit an estimate. concluding statement This design for Effective Schools should be considered tentative and minimal. There are important areas left out: early childhood education, emphasizing the new developments in pre-kindergarten and kindergarten education; teacher training for urban education; an on-going staff retraining program; orientation of staff; recruitment; use of staff, ■' evaluation, financing, et cetera. It is the hope of the committee, some of whose members helped to design the basic New York City Plan, that each school system may find the proposed AFT design of some value in developing its own program to fit its specific local needs. One fact must be recognized by all concerned with the plight of American urban education: the time for carefully planned and asserted action to improve our urban schools is now. We cannot and dare not wait. The tentative summary report is based largely on the plan drawn up by the United Federation of Teachers and which was the prototype for the More Effective Schools program now in operation in New York City in 21 elementary schools. Additional elementary schools will use this program in future years. The New York City program for More Effective Schools was drawn up by a joint committee consisting of an equal number of representatives from the Office of the Superintendent of Schools, the United Federation of Teachers (AFT), and the Council of Supervisory Associations. This committee was officially appointed by the school superintendent to study the proposals made by the UFT. All changes, improvements, and the inclusion of many significant specifics had to be acceptable to all three cooperating groups. The committee consulted with and sought advice from many organizations and leaders in the areas under consideration. |