Report1the Real Trouble with US Education

report1 The Real Trouble With U.S. Education Ed. Note: The following special all over the country have been scrambling For various reasons, these problems It is a tough problem. But there are were expected to drop out and go to report, “The Real Trouble with to build new classrooms and hire new come into clearest focus in the public high answers for it. And already you can find work or switch to a purely trade school U. S. Education” is published with teachers—at last count, they were still schools. The elementary schools have a surprising amount of agreement on when they found the going too tough. the exclusive permission of Busi something like 140,000 classrooms short. their troubles, too. In fact, many of the what those answers are. Thirties’ Theme — But after 1920, ness Week Magazine published by In the scramble, most of them have let most serious criticisms of U. S. educa the idea that high school education should McGraw-Hill Publishing Co., Inc., go by default an older problem: the ques tion apply mainly to them. But about 9 HOW BAD ARE THE SCHOOLS? be available to everyone began to make Elliot V. Bell, Editor. The article tion of what to teach and how to teach it. out of 10 elementary school children go headway. And in the Depression of the originally appeared in the April 19 on to high school. If the elementary U. S. public education says I. L. 1930s, it became established policy. The Focus of Discontent — It is this schools have done their job badly, it is and April 26, 1958 issues. The fol rather than the numbers problem that Kandel in his book American Education main motive at the time was to keep lowing is the first of three install the secondary school that has to pick in the Tiventieth Century, “is based on young people out of the labor force. really lies at the heart of the discontent up the pieces. And this applies not only to ments. with U. S. schooling. For one _ way _ or the principles that it must be classless, But the schools generally welcomed the such things as reading ability and skill coeducational, nonpartisan in politics, and The U. S. educational system is not so another, the numbers problem is being new responsibility. They saw it as a with figures but also to basic attitudes, secular.” chance to make education a mighty force bad as you might think if you listened handled. Where school programs were values, and work habits. only to the critics who have rushed to well planned and standards high to begin It is also based on the principle that in the future of the country. with, the deluge of new _ students has The high school is the institution that it must be universal. Almost all states U. S. educators were feeling their oats their typewriters since Russia’s first Sput takes in boys and turns out men. It is nik went up. It can, after all, claim brought little serious deterioration. It is require school attendance at least through in the 1930s. The ideas of the “child- credit for producing enough scientists where the programs were already fuzzy the place where somebody has to decide the age of 16. Some set the minimum centered” approach, education of the and the standards low that education has just how much these men shall differ age for leaving school at 18. This means “whole child,” and “learning by doing” and statesmen and artists and authors one from another, how much the slow to give the U. S. a stable government and caved in entirely. that the high school has to deal with were spreading from the primary grades Criticism of U. S. schools didn’t start learner and the fast learner can' take, everybody, a ! complete cross section of into high schools. Teachers colleges a standard of living that is the envy how much the non-college group, which of the world. with the Sputniks. It has been going on the population. It is the only secular were hammering away at the notion But without any doubt it is bad enough for years. But Russia’s sudden demonstra is still the great majority, is to have in institution that shares with Christianity that it wasn’t the subject matter but tion of scientific equality, if not superi common with the smaller group that is the conviction that all souls are worth the method of teaching that counted. —so bad, in fact, that the problem of going on to college. It is the point doing something about it emerges as one ority, has .forced the whole country to saving. Success was to be measured not so much look some of the facts in the face. Na where the least common denominator of The assignment of this responsibility by mastery of a subject as by the of the great challenges to the U. S. of each succeeding generation is determined. the mid- Twentieth Century; so bad that turally, this has proved painful. In a very to the public schools is relatively recent. “growth” that a student demonstrated; our efforts to do something about it real sense, the educational institutions Within a few years, this point of deci It was not until 1874 that the legality and “growth” was a hazy concept, often inevitably will reshape our ways of living, are the reproductive system of a society: sion may shift to the colleges. And cer of spending public money for secondary equated in the teacher's mind with do patterns of spending, and scales of social To entertain serious doubts about them tainly within three or four years the schools was established. As late as the cility. values for the next 50 years. is a traumatic experience. colleges are going to be beset with a 1920s the high schools still considered With comparatively few qualms, the Since World War II, the' most obvious It is a healthy experience nevertheless. numbers problem similar to the one that themselves selective institutions, respon high schools seized on their new respon and most urgent problem of U. S. educa For the U, S., if it looks carefully and now swamps the lower schools. But that sible only for dealing with the bright sibilities not only as a chance to take tion has been sheer numbers. From the honestly, can identify its basic school time has not yet arrived. For the present, students or at least the moderately bright. a new approach to the education of all moment the baby boom of the 1940s problems and decide what it wants to do the problem of U. S. education emerges Slow learners—an earlier and less com students. surged into kindergarten, school boards about them. as a high school problem. passionate age called them “dullards”— (continued on page 5) ’58 Junior Prom Queen ... VOLUME NO. 48 ISSUE 12 Durham, N. H., May 15, 1958 PRICE — SEVEN CENTS Official Notices Acheson Predicts Summit All students are responsible for knowledge of notices appearing here. Meeting As A Soviet Trap Lost and Found: Articles lost on By DICK SHEA campus should be turned in and claim Joyce Ferguson, Junior Prom Queen ’58 is crowned by President Eldon L. ed at the Memorial Union reception “. the ‘conference at the summit’ eminence of the participants was equalled Johnson during intermission. Behind her stand her two aides (1. to r.) Valerie desk. can not change any essential element of only by the extent of their failure.” Consigli and Martha Gordon also members of the class of ’59. The prom, Practice Teaching: All students who the conflict between the U. S. A. and “The Washington Conference of 1921,” which was the first to be held in the Memorial Union’s Ballroom, featured the intend to do their practice teaching in the U. S. S. R.” lje said, “was a disaster. The rest (of “Battle of Bands.” Beach parties and dinner dances completed the 1958 the fall of 1958 should register with Thus spoke former United States Sec the treaties made during the years be Spring Week-end. Purdy Photo. Mrs. Porter in Murkland 3 before Fri retary of State Dean G. Afcheson in the tween the World Wars) were failures.” day, May 23. Students going out in the last of this year’s Distinguished Lec The Genoa Conference of 1922, he re fall will be expected to report to their ture Series on Thursday afternoon, May garded as having an ‘unmistakably comic respective high schools at the start of 8, at New Hampshire Hall. aspect.’ He said, “It lasted just over University Receives Half-Million the public school year, normally se The steady rainfall had little effect on five weeks and then, like an old soldier, veral weeks before the University the turnout, New Hampshire Hall being faded away.” opens. Students may make appoint filled to overflowing. The speech was Mr. Acheson then noted the wartime From Spaulding Fund Trustees ments to see Mr. Benjamin on Satur piped into the Student Union to accom conferences of Cairo, Tehran, Yalta, and day mornings to discuss questions they modate those who weren’t able to gain Potsdam, showing how each failed. In The University recently received a richment not available through regular may have on placement procedure in admittance. completing his history of the conferences, half-million-dollar Spaulding Memorial channels of University income. this program. Summit Meeting, A Trap he cited the failure of the Geneva Meet Fund for the improvement of the qual Two Previous Grants Please Register by May 23, if you Mr.

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