Search

This article examines the need for improving education in the U.S. A certain quiet may seem to have settled over the educational scene during the summer months. No spate of headlines or broadcasts, at least, has reflected any barrage of criticism. According to the journal "Southern School News" for August 1956 the continuation of school segregation was not, in Tennessee, an issue as prominent politically as first predicted. Meanwhile, in Texas continued school segregation was a dominant issue of primary elections, though the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held in the Mansfield school case that local opinion was not of itself a sufficient reason for denying African American children the right to enroll in an all-white school. Schools and school people have their character shaped, their values enhanced or thwarted, however, by the nature of local opinion, as has been made abundantly clear in Clinton and in Mansfield. The order of a federal judge to bring an end to segregation in the public schools of Charlottesville, Virginia, in the fall of 1956 was no more effective in getting immediate action than was the determination of the Catholic Bishop in New Orleans to end segregation in parochial schools at the same time.

This article reports that writer William C. Carr, writing in the January 1956, "National Endowment for the Arts Journal," expressed the indebtedness of all in education to fellow citizens, educators and laymen alike, who gave generously of time and talents to make the White House Conference of 1955 a landmark in the history of the country and its schools. This report has been substantiated from many quarters. Bice Clemow, publisher of the newspaper "West Hartford News," a member of the delegation from Connecticut, for instance, praised both the achievement and the process of the conference in a guest editorial written for the journal "The Saturday Review." In Clemow's opinion the conference worked. Some 1,800 delegates have gone back to their hometowns to fight for better schools, conscious of a clear national view, whether they agree with it or not. The conference could be a stimulating turning point in the political determination to employ the resources to the utmost in behalf of today's children.

The article focuses on improving the state of education in the United States. A controversy has existed ever since the Central Michigan College of Education initiated the teacher aide experiment. Those involved in the program approve it but the officials of the National Education Association and the heads of some teachers colleges do not. The fact is that under the conditions of the experiment classes have been enlarged. Keeping an educational concern, this appears to be the worst possible way to deal with the problem of teacher shortage. The notion of introducing teaching aides into the classrooms of the country is worthy of serious consideration. It is conceivable that teaching aides in the classroom would make it possible for teachers to engage in the business of teaching. One may speculate that teaching aides would work to the advantage of students and teachers and of the school. Given the need of the students in teachers colleges, and given the need of the public schools to secure more help in dealing with the increasing numbers of students, an effort to develop pre-professional aides would be worthy of consideration.

The article focuses on the need of improvement in the education sector. The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) has tried to give reality, in the working life of schools, to what is known, thus far, about the ways in which individuals may grow most effectively through participative opportunities provided them to work responsibly in groups that confront common problems and share a concern to reach solutions on which they may stand together--and then grow further from this base. It is continuing, through its board of directors, its executive committee, its committees and commissions, and its membership at large, to explore critically all areas of educational experience in ways that will increase the ability of those who are responsible for curriculum development and supervision to provide creative leadership for all who give the educative process its character and quality-boards of education, school architects, parents, administrators and the status leaders who represent them, and, finally, the teachers in whose hands rests the basic responsibility for transforming education. The ASCD has a right to a proper pride for having shouldered such responsibilities. Curricula have a way bf continuing the pat- terns of the past. Teaching methods, often seeming to be different on the surface, manage to maintain a relationship to ends for which they are not, in fact, appropriate means.

The article discusses ways to improve education as discussed in the annual meeting of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. The days ahead are going to be difficult ones for the educator. The determination of that part of the South is to ignore the mandates of the United States Supreme Court as these bear upon the abolition of segregation in education now is openly and vehemently expressed, even within the Congressional halls. All the while, of course, the teachers from the North, anxious to get on with what they believe to be the necessity of showing the world immediately that the principles of democracy are the basic ground on which to nourish the lives of all citizens, that it is within shared lives, not merely in sacred documents, that these principles are preserved, wonder how they can help. Young people have learned something about the dignity and quality of men of difference in sports, in the Armed Forces, in the classroom, and from the wealth of material now appearing in our differing communicative media.

Presents the article author's experiences of working with the U.S. National Commission for the Defense of Democracy through Education. View that the author's experience coincided with the period when the schools of the United States were at the receiving end of planned campaigns of destructive criticism; Role of the Commission in exposing and combating negative influences; Arguments pertaining to the current situation of schools in the United States; Discussion on the book "The Restoration of Learning," by Arthur Bestor; Promotion of the relation between the schools and their communities by the National School Public Relations Associations; Information that the author is now a field representative of the National Education Association.

The article focuses on the role of the public in educational planning in the U.S. The complexity of modern life is perhaps nowhere revealed more clearly than in the current need to bring about an effective relationship of school and community. In a nation which early realized that public education is an essential instrument for its proper development it does seem odd that so much effort is now needed to guarantee that the public remains sensitive to the significance of that which it wrought with so much of distinction. Education came into being as a formal undertaking in the U.S. because the citizen valued it. It developed with amazing rapidity for the same reason. And it will be maintained for this reason. Yet today, when educators work to create a public interest in education, they often forget that schools gained their status long ago just because of the presence of a determined public. The public schools are public and, in ways which the profession must yet invent, the public mind must be brought to meet the professional mind.

Discusses key issues and concerns involved in improving the state of education in the United States. Discussion on the social perception regarding the general state of education in the U.S.; Key issues related to developments in the field of professional education; Importance of education for the common good of the society.

The article focuses on the multiplicity of forces that shape and reshape educational policies and programs in the U.S. The fact that segregation no longer has legal status is illustrative of how a cultural fact can have meaning for education. No edict has been issued before which all persons must simultaneously bow. The solid South turns out to be a core of states that may almost be counted on the fingers of a single hand. Habits and attitudes are not changed by court decisions, though the latter do help initiate and sustain change. The fact is that a single decision has released a relentless pressure on the American education to replace a darkened area in the American Dream by a luminous one. The proper work of education, the development of young people who understand the significance of their heritage of freedom and who, through the capacities they have been helped to develop, steadily gain confidence in their ability to help maintain and extend it will be but partially done should any percentage of teachers and administrators reveal that they neither respect some children nor some ideas. There are many factors on which the future of democracy rests.