Massachusetts Viewpoint; Loque Busing Proposal

Welcome again to Massachusetts viewpoint this evening we are going to have more or less pick up our discussion of last week in talking about the relationship between the inner city of Boston and the suburban communities in our greater Boston area. Last week on Massachusetts viewpoint if you will remember we talked about some of the problems of the growth of Boston and what this might mean for the next 10 or 15 years. We talked about the growth of population in the suburbs and what this might mean for zoning. What this might mean for recreational areas and indeed what this signifies for the whole development of our Greater Boston community. This evening on Massachusetts viewpoint we're going to be a little bit more specific in talking about one area of urban suburban relationships. And this is in the whole field of education. You'll recall I am certain the recent Kennon report on racial imbalance in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts or rather the problems of racial imbalance in our school systems in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Karen The report gave a number of suggestions on what might be done racially to balance our schools

largely because the blue ribbon panel convened by Commissioner Keiran and said that educationally it is right to have racially balance schools. The head of the Boston Redevelopment Authority Mr. Edwin Logan in looking over the canon report said this doesn't make some sense to bring in the suburban communities as well as the inner city of Boston. When we talk about racially balancing the schools might it not be a good idea. Indeed he said to bus some of the inner city students to some of the suburbs in the greater Boston area. Last week on our program Senator Philip Philip Pellegrini suggested this might be a very difficult thing to do and many other people have responded to the local suggestion for basically involving the suburban communities in the whole matter. And problem of racially balancing our schools in inner city Boston. So tonight we are going to discuss the law proposal for suburban urban relationships in education with particular emphasis on the matter of racial balance in our schools.

We are privileged to have with us this evening representing more or less the city of Boston. Mr. Arthur Garland who is a member of the Boston School Committee. Secondly representing the suburb point of view and I don't know that this is exactly accurate as I introduce these gentlemen but representing the suburbs opinion you might say would be Professor Lee untruly of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and also a member of the Brookline school board. We are also privileged to have on our panel this evening the Right Reverend Monsignor Francis J loudly who is editor of The Pilot a person deeply involved in the affairs of the greater Boston area and a keen observer of our educational system representing the Press tonight is Mr. Robert Levy who is an educational writer for The Boston Globe. Well first of all I'd like to turn to you Arthur Garland because as a member of the Boston School Committee you have made many keen observations about the problems of racial balance in our schools and I'm sure that with respect to the canon report and some of the recommendations which have

emerged in that report you might give us a an opening gun here on our discussion of whether the Kanun report should address itself also or the problems of racial balance should be also focusing upon the relationship between suburbs and the urban center. And in this whole area of racial imbalance are the Girton. I won't say that the key in the report should not should not have are should not in the future address itself to including the surrounding communities of Boston and helping to solve problems of racial imbalance. I will say however that I think Mr logs are a categorical statement that the Cameron report won't work or cannot accomplish the objective of racial imbalance is extreme and subject at least to question if not altogether incorrect. I think that he is to be applauded for seeing that the

solution of the difficulties which have been set us so far is the negro minority is concerned. I deserve a solution including contributions by the surrounding communities. But I think that to have said at this time that the recommendations of the Kiernan report cannot produce an effective solution is to provide its opponents with an opportunity for extending delay in addressing the principal question the basic question which is that racial imbalance in school classrooms is educationally harmful. We've already seen the manner in which attention has been diverted from this fundamental postulate to the Question of Race to the confusion of naming busing as an issue instead of a

solution deriving from the basic issue. And I'm somewhat fearful Mr. logs are stupid observations nevertheless may impede the progress which can only be made first by accepting the fundamental principle of the kindom report that racial imbalance exists that it is educationally harmful and that means should be adopted to extirpated from the classrooms of Boston and any other community which is faced with this problem. So in your opinion Mr. Garland. Discussion might focus around the real basic meaning of the kana report itself as to whether the racial imbalance does exist whether it is harmful and then try to solve the matter from there. It has to start here any fruitful address to the problem has to start with the acceptance of the problem itself. And I think that what is abundantly clear from the comments of school administrators in Boston and from

other members of the school committee than myself is that no problem is conceded to exist in the prisons very predominantly Negro population in some of Boston the schools or in classrooms. Well thank you very much I'd like now to turn to Professor Leon trilling of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and as a member of the Brookline school board a person who undoubtedly has had some reactions to the law proposal about relating to the suburban communities to the problems of inner city Boston and the area of education. Professor trialing thank you very much that we first say that I speak primarily for myself and not in the name of the Brookline school committee. Still we all have felt in Brookline that we do have a responsibility in this matter and that it is not realistic to think of

Boston separately of Brookline and other suburban communities separately. It is a single greater Boston area. And if there is a contribution that we can make then we ought to think seriously about making it. Now specifically Mr. log's proposal is not I think the long range solution of the problem but it has many attractive features as an intermediate range proposal. It seems to me that. While for reasons which are outside the scope of the Boston School Committee. Their funds are of the order of three hundred eighty dollars per student. And while the suburbs are able to spend some 600 dollars per student on the average with the best will in the world there are things that Boston might find it difficult to do which the

suburbs could do. And we might very well for a number of years try to relieve some of the pressure and make it easier for Boston to plan for the future with a little bit of elbow room. I think this is what I see in the law proposal which is attractive. Actually the school population in the 14 suburban communities in the immediate neighborhood of Boston is of order 100000. The public school population in the Boston schools I believe is also of order 100000 of whom possibly 20000 or 25000 are the ones that are under discussion. If the suburbs were to take some responsibility for half of these are 10 to 12000 this would mean two youngsters per classroom of 25. I think this is a burden which the suburbs could carry from the point of view of educational

quality and from the point of view of their programs. There are some problems. There are problems of student selection and placement because we don't want to give the impression that we skim off the cream we must I think choose at random. This means we must give remedial support to these youngsters to help them remain in the classrooms in which we would place them. There are problems of organization just getting the suburbs all to work together. And finally there are problems of funding because we cannot really expect that the suburban communities can support this program on the basis of the real estate tax. But the contribution that can be made is I think so important that we ought to get together and think of ways and means of attacking the problem rather than focusing on the difficulties. Thank you very much Professor drolling we're going to get back to some of the facts and figures you have given us very shortly. Right now though I'd like to call upon Right Reverend Monsignor Francis de lally editor of the pilot and as I

indicated earlier a person who has been deeply involved in our metropolitan problems and policies and particular in the area of education and the rebuilding of Greater Boston for a good many years Monsignor lolly. But I seem to me that Mr. Loeb's proposal is a very imaginative one. And I think deserves the full study of all thoughtful people in the community. It seems to me it fits very well into the general race picture we don't think of trying to solve the the race problem for Boston without thinking in terms of the suburbs as well as the core city and the peripheral gray areas here in racial imbalance. I would think the same principles apply. I also think it has some extraordinary psychological advantages. We know that the suburbs people in the suburbs are very interested in the race problem they've shown their intrinsic interest demonstrated by taking part in all kinds of demonstrations. They've indicated seems to me

a very real will to be involved in the multiplication of fair housing committees which cluster really around the center city and yet they don't have an opportunity to attack this. Educational problem unless it in some way can be brought to them. And I'm not at all distressed by the bussing it seems to me this is as Mr gotten pointed out as it's being used as a as a flag to attract attention. Unfortunately away from the principal issues. But why I don't have the figures I'm inclined to believe that there probably are more children in the United States bus to school not children who walk to school. When you think across the country of the number of people in rural areas especially that every day go to school by bus doesn't seem to me that the rocks re streets are that hazardous or even the streets leading out of the city are going to create problems that school buses haven't already sought.

School buses can be attractive they can. We've all ridden school buses at one time or another and and they can be an experience the child can live with without. Promoting any kind of personal problems for him as long as busing remains a bad word I word that alarms parents and races raise all kinds of emotions. I think this problem is going to be hazed over by the concept of bussing for my own part I'd like to see it supposed I'd like to have a few people say a good word for busing show that it has been demonstrated to be a legitimate educational system in many parts of the country or here in other parts of Massachusetts you will bust every day on the road and there's no reason to believe that these are liability to the educational process so that. While I think there may be legal problems and some of the problems mentioned by the US because it seems to me

this can be very productive and I think we ought to explore as far as we can. Well thank you Monsignor I know. I like to ask you Robert Levy of the levy of the Boston Globe who is as you know an education writer and a person who has written extensively on they can report the Willis report and about every other report on education that has been coming out of the study groups during the last year and a half two. But some questions to the member of the panel this evening and Mr. Levy I know that you have a number before you right now. Why don't you go ahead. Well I'd like to start off by asking the panelists to possibly respond to a general area concerning this word bussing. I think that Mr. Lowe really was took a new a new look at the word busing in his report when he effectively said that busing is necessary and busing

is the issue rather than dealing with it as a symbol or a flag or something to rally around in opposition in other words he dealt with it not as a symbol but as a fact that you cannot achieve integration at all effectively without bussing. And I wonder whether the panelists feel that perhaps busing should it that it should be made more clear that this is the essential route to at least temporary integration. I think they're going to respond to it. I think that. It does. This idea has effectively obscured what is not what hasn't been sufficiently addressed and hasn't been addressed at all by the Boston School Committee particularly there are many many contributions which can be made toward the reduction of gross racial imbalance and nothing other than the work of the canon or committees. Nothing has been done to try

to apply the recommended procedures of the past doctors pairing redistricting altering the grade structure of the elementary the middle and the high schools contributing toward toward racial balance by the development of experimental schools are super elementary schools. There are so many ways that have been suggested for reducing gross racial imbalance. And there's one other thing which I think is totally overlooked. The Negro leaders and the Negro people are not essentially different from anybody else they know that if some evidence is given goodwill and earnest of intention to furnish them with equal and integrated facilities that. The ironing out of the last wrinkle can be deferred for mature and for continuing study. All of us around this table

know that you don't solve any problems totally permanently but if you can contribute an atmosphere of cooperation and willingness you will find a dissident hostile groups will see where you are heading and will be glad for anything done toward the recognition of the problem and the solution of the problem. For example we talk about a percentage of negroes in schools as signifying an integrated school. That percentage is a statistic it's a mist of testing isn't revelation it isn't. It isn't fundamental school which is 100 percent Negro. I think would be regarded by Negroes as substantially and effectively and beneficially integrated. If the percentage would drop if it would drop to 70 percent 60 percent. I think from a very practical point of view the negro minority which is not politically potent would recognize that the

presence of a large number of white children or a goodly number of white children. Might mean that members of the majority white parents would voice a protest which they are presently voicing but are impotent to carry through effectively so that if we had a 90 percent school made of 70 percent School the negro leadership would recognize that this is a step in the right direction. We should stop thinking of total and permanent solutions and simply begin by saying the canon Commission findings are correct that racially imbalance schools are educationally harmful. Now in this spirit now in a spirit of amity let's sit down and talk about the ways which have been specified and the additional ways by which racial imbalance can be overcome. The new slogan I feel has been he doesn't feel this way. But I feel he has been too extreme. First in saying that the Canon report won't work and

second in considering that his mode which has to overcome great obstacles in the creation of a new element of Metropolitan Government is the only way for a permanent solution we mustn't be so doctrinaire we must be so final about whose way it will work whether it's got Linda Kiernan on Brookline or whatever and just get on with a serious round table conferences trying this or that ploy and aiming at the goal without being quite certain that we have the way of accomplishing it. That's a trolling like also. Suggest that bussing is not the key issue the key issue really is education. We are talking about the education of a number of young people. Busing is a device which may help us solve this problem. It is not the only one it is one of several that may be tried

and if it proves temporarily helpful in providing equally equal educational opportunity for some children then we ought to look for ways and means of of using that method but the. We should keep in mind that the key matter is one of education and there are many other ways in which suburban communities can also. Take some part in solving the educational problems of the greater Boston area. The negro group in the greater Boston area I talk about Mr. Leving I'd like to take this a bit further I must bring with agreement with Mr. Gotland on what he said about intention that if there isn't intention in good faith you don't stuff. And I must also agree with Mr. trilling that bussing is not the issue.

But what I'm suggesting is that on one hand isn't it possible that Mr. Low criticism of the canon report's blueprint so to speak might have been true in other words isn't it possible that Mr. Lowell also agreeing that we need intention first and also agreeing that racial imbalance is an evil that should be rooted out. I came to the conclusion from his purview as a city planner that the types of plans suggested in the canon report probably would work at best for very few years and maybe almost not at all in terms of truly integrating schools and adding to this that bussing though it's not an issue. Is the device by which integrated education is created.

An initially in any in any point you might say you're all I want you can respond about. I couldn't agree more seems to me that. It's just realistic to think that the race question is going to stop with the school district line up with the board of the city of Boston especially Boston Many consider that Brookline is is really Boston it's surrounded on all sides by Boston. It's a part of the city logically and intelligently to be part of the geography of Boston and to suppose that because an imaginary line that. Makes Brookline here in Boston here that the race question should follow the science seems to me it is silly and I think this is the heart of the proposal is that the race question is was it early a metropolitan problem and we've got to get it in those terms. Bussing is an important part of this I don't. All the other programs are attractive and important too but they seem to me to be more long range whereas busing the range of the children

to go into the already available classrooms take up space that makes just in certain suburban schools could be done almost the beginning of the new term. Garland let me tell you some of the facts which are available and well known I think the school officials them which should be better understood by the public. If it were not for the fact that bussing is hateful when it's done for all proposals for ethnic reasons and we should recognize that in the city of Boston we are now busing for a variety of reasons and that of the captioned of overcrowding. We are already accomplishing the improved balancing of the negro white population in the Dorchester area. I couldn't agree more with Mr Loewe who I believe is thoroughly expert in the matter. That the change the rapid change taking place in the Dorchester area may mean that this emotion which was good last year and this year may not be effective next year but I can

exemplify the beneficial effects of busing within the city just by telling the members of the public that in the Christopher Gibson district which is in the Columbia Road Washington St Geneva Avenue area of Dorchester is a predominantly Negro population. It also was seriously bursting through the walls of the two schools the afternoon the Christopher Gibson. Within about a half to three quarters of a mile of the school which I attended from grades 1 to 130 on West Park Street and northwest of the Florence Nightingale. It's a school building around nineteen hundred eighteen or twenty one of a relatively modern buildings. It is in good condition. It's in a residential neighborhood. It had a capacity has a capacity of about three hundred three hundred twenty five pupils and was being used for the classes for mentally retarded not exceeding 100 in number. Now while that

Gillis was still a superintendent of schools in 1962 he recognized the overcrowded conditions in the afan district and proposed to the school committee the same one which is now an office that approved the busing of children out of the Atherton district from a collection point at Columbia Road on Washington Street for the frank the time some school or junior high school also relatively new 921 with an addition and 25 and not in use. It was perfectly obvious that you could you could reduce the busing requirements and you could reduce overpopulation in the Atherton district and you could only accidentally I hasten to say you could accidentally reduce gross racial imbalance in the Atherton district. If you had bused to the Florence Nightingale school now this is exactly what we did by an alternate proposal. Superintendent tell us we did. We decided to convert the nightingales school back to standard school use and to send

the mentally retarded children most of whom were transported to the David better of school in Austin which was another totally our new school and the result of it was that we have at present I think about 300 children in the nightingales school. I think the balance is 60 40 and I'm not sure which is white and nonwhite. But this is a perfect demonstration that today if we have the will to do it and we accept ethnicity as a basis for busing we can do much with the existing plans of the city of Boston to reduce gross racial imbalances and to begin to begin immediately to discover how much if any harm is wrought upon white children by the placement of supposedly inferior Negro children in the same classrooms. We can do so much now if we only will try. And if we would undertake it immediately instead of delaying and obfuscating the whole problem. If we

would i wanted to take it now we might. We might contribute toward the stabilization of the Boston population instead of frightening people to death by this problem of busting you know the strangest thing is that people who object to busing in the public schools very often the very parents who have either themselves transport of their children considerable distance or have permitted them to go on private deliveries of private hackneys to parochial schools and other private schools. It really isn't the Hobgoblin that it ought to be. Well you're addressing yourself to the topic this evening Mr Garland. Do the Boston situation itself and therefore if I read you correctly the proposal with respect to the suburbs may be made pretty soon what's the purpose of the people in Boston have to consider this themselves without taking account the suburbs that correct. I don't think it's altogether superfluous I do share Mr log's feelings and they have been reacting around this table that the racial imbalance in every

aspect employment housing and school is a community problem and the Boston community is larger than the municipal limits but practically speaking we must remember that we have a tradition of generations of municipal separateness. There is almost a feeling that the municipality is sovereign and autonomous within certain limitations so that I don't like to see the end a position now of a totally new solution then the discrediting of the Kiernan solutions. Because I recognize I insist indeed that there is so to change our thinking at this time is to contribute to the opponents of integration and to cause further delay and further dislocation and dissonance. Well thank you very much Mr. Garland. This is John Gibson at the Lincoln filing center at Tufts University and this evening we are having a discussion of the proposal by Edward locos head of the Boston Redevelopment

Authority concerning the busing of students in inner city Boston to some of our suburbs. So as to racially balance our schools and to help deal with the problem that was discussed in some detail by the kana report on racial balance in schools in the Commonwealth. On our panel this evening as I've already mentioned Mr. Arthur Garland remember the Boston School Committee especially on trailing of the Bassett Institute of Technology and a member of the Boston school board or rather Brookline school board. Thank you Monsignor loudly and also right Reverend Monsignor Francis De-Lovely editor of the pilot who is my prompter this evening. We also have with us Mr. Robert Levy education writer for The Boston Globe. Well a lot of talk of course has been circulating around with respect to the willingness of the suburb still work with Boston in some kind of cooperate arrangement on the whole matter racial imbalance in our schools. And we have with us of course Professor trialing of Brookline. And yet the thought occurs

to me that Brookline as Monsignor Ali said is a suburban community surrounded on three sides by Boston. A suburban community very much a part of the Boston life it's almost difficult in many ways to draw a line between some parts of Brooklyn and some parts of Boston but there are a number of other suburbs in the greater Boston area many of which have a. Policy as you might say whether explicit or implicit with respect to real estate provisions make it somewhat difficult for the Negro to live in the suburban community. And there are some feelings I know in some of the suburbs that a relationship with inner city Boston might be wholly in doubt in alleviating some of the problems that Negroes obviously are faced with in the educational system in Boston. I guess what I'm really saying if there's a long song and dance is it's Brooklyn really a typical community in this respect or when we talk about involving the suburbs in the problems of education Boston is Brooklyn a little atypical or should we

face up to the fact that maybe there are some other suburbs that might look at it somewhat differently. I don't really know whether Brookline is atypical in Brookline we have been aware of this problem. A group of interested citizens brought before the school committee last September a proposal for Brookline to become involved in the problem of the education of culturally under privileged young people just a committee working with the boy at the Brookline school board so all this was not a citizen group. I see a Brooklyn Civil Rights Committee. They suggested that we might give tuition scholarships to 10 youngsters and the school committee felt that the proposal was a very worthwhile one in spirit but that this might not be the most effective way for us to have an impact on the problem. And the school committee appointed a group consisting of members of the school committee the school administration the high school student body and the lay public

to investigate what ways there we might find to have as much of an impact as possible on this problem. We proposed to the school committee range proposal which would involve. A rather elaborate tutoring program to start. Hopefully this summer and a longer range plan which had some pictures in common wish Mr. Loeb's proposals as a matter of fact. The idea was that a number of suburban communities would accept into their system. Number of youngsters from the Boston area and would put them through the suburban school system and that at the same time we would have an agreement from a group of participating universities who would commit themselves if these young people were able to meet the entrance requirements to give them financial support through their college

education. We are still very actively exploring this and the school committee is unanimously on record as being willing to go ahead with this plan if other communities and if the universities are ready to go along. So to what extent Brookline this typical I'm not sure but there was a sentiment to go ahead that's a very exciting response but I also remember some comments at least once that I saw in the press after the law proposal was issued by some superintendent of some of our suburban communities that his proposed solution would be very attractive to them. And yet maybe the more they consider this the greater the possibilities might emerge for their getting into some kind of cooperate. I mean do you have anything to say on this about something I think that we ought to acknowledge Mr. Loeb was probably being a good deal more subtle than the surface of his paper suggested. We know there's a good deal of of there's an immense amount of goodwill actually in the suburbs on that race question

and an eagerness to get involved I think in solutions. But there's also a reluctance to break up the comfortable suburb in terms of the. The demands of racial justice and I think while the town surrounding Boston have been pleased to accept negroes they used accepting negroes on their own terms their expense accepting people in Waltham and Winchester and Lincoln expert receiving Negro families there of the middle class and upper middle class variety and this isn't really going to the heart of the matter at all. I think Mr. look had in the back of his mind the suburbs serious about this business people who come marching in to hear Dr. King on the Common and then march back to where they came from. And the most I've ever seen of rocks was caught a playground. These people serious about it do they really want to bring underprivileged

youngsters into their schools outside the community. The parallel argument that I just love to mention before tourism as an important one how many communities outside of Boston. I mean these small communities have ever seriously set out to provide the kind of housing low cost housing which would attract the Roxbury negro North Duchessa negro. The answer of course is that they're not that serious. Some 15000 dollar home is selling to a different class. And I think that behind it all Mr. Love was was putting on the line to the suburban communities are you serious or are you just talking. I think that's a good point. LEVY Yeah. I think that Mr. log did just that and went one step further by making the sort of guidelines of his plan so palatable that you'd wonder where objection would come from for instance for small points. He is assuming his plan could ever be arranged. It

would involve no local financing that would answer the financial question. It would move no white children which would answer many questions of prejudice et cetera. It would have the unique advantage of exposing almost every negro child in Boston to integrated education for four years at least of his school Korea and fourth. I think it's the most sublime aspect. It would take any 100 percent Negro school and spread the children out so that the receiving schools would never exceed 10 percent. And I think I'd be curious to ask Mr. Gotland accepting. I'm asking as a devil's advocate only but accepting these guidelines. What objection could there be. I don't think that I'd want to be recorded as opposed to the DA and I

very very much replied Mr. Long interposing himself in a great community discussion. I certainly think he is entitled to great credit for. Unequivocally accepting the fundamental bases of the canon report I think that the obstacles in the way of the accomplishment of his program his recommendations will can and probably will seriously delay Bostons attempting to solve its own problem. Even in the short run. Consequently I can say without I think needing to apologize for it that I approve of his fundamental right his fundamental endorsement. I'm not opposed to his recommendation for the transfer of pupils out of Boston. But I don't think

that he's correct at all when he states that the Cameron report is doomed to fail or that the recommendations are doomed to failure so that I can comfortably keep a foot in each camp arm with the Kin and report for what I think it means now as well as in the future. And I'm not opposed to the idea I'm sure of this that there are deep reservoirs of goodwill and high purpose in the in the seven communities and there are ways in which by voluntary interaction of Boston and the suburbs and communities good things can be accomplished in the in the schools and for the aeration of negroes in education. I could perhaps go a step further and say that everything that has been sent as beneficial to flow from structure to change for Negro pupils would equally applicable to underprivileged white children of which there is an extremely large number.

You know the surprising thing about the whole dispute of the last two years is that negro parents many of whom of con generations without education and who felt a very real social and economic suppression. Highlighting an argument that should be brought to the doors of the school committee and beyond the commissioner of education. Very many white parents namely that education second upright Elementary and Secondary Education today is not adequate to the task of training children for the automated sophisticated world of industry and commerce. I don't I don't understand this I don't know why it is. I know to the credit of many unidentified Boston school teachers that they recognize the inadequacies of what might be called educational output. This isn't an acknowledgement of their own weakness by any means. They sense that the results aren't good enough and they I think would be eager to try any

gambit and all of the gambits that would improve elementary and secondary education. The trouble with the whole thing is that it's been placed into such special focus as to keep educators themselves from acknowledging how much needs to be done for the remediation and the enrichment of education. White and Negro underprivileged children. Thank you very much Mr. Garland. And one thing that I wanted to have your response to in addition to what you just said is whether the Boston School Committee itself has had a chance to react to the proposals whether there has been any discussion in the Boston School Committee of involving the suburbs and cells in some of the problems for disadvantaged youth whether they're white or Negro. In other words do the suburbs committee or discussions in the Boston School Committee. Well I'd have to say this to Gibson the whole subject has been Tebow even as it affects the city of Boston you know the for the first Kenyon report which is described

as sometimes described as preliminary as if it were not only preliminary but hypothetical and uncertain was issued on July 1 of 1964 and the school committee of Boston at that time refused to take the opportunity to discuss it or even to repudiate it out of hand. Now it is significant that nothing said in the second and final report. All one whit the original report relating to the basic issue of whether imbalance is home full now there's been plenty of opportunity and there will be an opportunity at the next meeting on May 17th. To partake in a disc in the discussion and then to respond to a series of resolves which I mean to place before the committee. I don't want to have this thing break down over whether or not we should have bussing or whether we can pick Princeton. I want first of all a repudiation or an acceptance of three simple

propositions number one racial imbalance exists in Boston Public Schools number two racial imbalances educationally home phone number three the school committee should adopt all means for the elimination of racial imbalance in Boston schools. Now if the committee and the committee will have ample opportunity to discuss it and will have an opportunity to lay it on the table which will be tantamount to repudiation vote no on hold Yes. If the committee will vote yes. This can be the beginning of a more sensible and unimpassioned and objective discussion of the means that I've specified have been specified in the canon report. They may have to be altered in view of changed figures between February of 64 And today but there will be the opportunity and I would conclude my answer to your suggestion there has been opportunity but it has been avoided. I just love it.

I'd like to be pessimistic for a moment and suggest that the present position of the Boston School Committee continues let's say for two years or four years or six years and one can then look back on nine years of not addressing the racial imbalance problems in the city and using that as a discouraging projection discuss the low proposal in terms of the question could it come to past. In other words I'm suggesting. Would In the end even with imagination and hard work the same. Basic question of racial resistance probably knocked down the hope for developing some method of relieving racial imbalance. Well that's a big one Monsignor do you want to try to tackle I don't know I was trying to think when the next election was and we presume that situation will go.

I mean let's go back to Boston going to yes I think that the fact that the killer put it as a matter of great community impact this was a document signed by some pretty important people representing a broad community consensus. And I'd like to hope that you're wrong about this pessimistic. Future She asked me if Misty got them presents in the manner he suggested a proposition to the Boston School Committee that people are going to want these questions answered and I got it. What the man said it seems to me in a way that fits in with the conclusions of the canon report I don't know how any other attitude would be considered tolerable. Well the League of Nations was by a distinguished group and it had a fine goal it didn't get very far. And I could see the numbers here a small pump and long handled. Do you do you personally feel hopeful about changing the

pattern of Negro exclusion and the quote Negro ghetto was a should my senior. Yes I do I think that it's some kind of I think busing is probably going to be the issue that will be held over we ought to be pessimistic about that although my own part it seems to be a reasonable and good solution. I think the emphasis will probably come in some other aspects of the program but they may not be acknowledged as coming out of the cannon report. But there will be the same thing I'm not. I'm happy if they don't want to get the credit you know what that's fine as long as they get the program going. I honestly don't see how the city can tolerate infidelity can tolerate a stand pat ism on the subway is going to have to be done and I'm just watching very closely. I mistrust a parallel if I may sell my has been the scene of recent demonstrations clashes between white and Negro population and it should be noted the nigger population supported by a growing number of white people. Selma Alabama Selma Alabama.

Now I don't for a moment suggest that everybody who has been a segregationist in Selma has changed his point of view. But I remind you of the fact that the attorney general of the state of Alabama who was an avowed segregationist I can't recall his name at the moment was recently quoted quoted in the newspaper as saying in substance this we have lost and we had better accommodate to the new conditions new conditions being the recognition of Negro rights on a full and equal basis with the white population. I don't think that there everybody in Boston is going to like integration I think some people are going to hate it and are going to move out of the city or are going to attempt to remove their children from the public schools to the parochial or other private schools. Obvious what the limitations are by the way and Catholic Boston among Catholic Bostonians in removing their children to already overcrowded parochial schools

ought to lower middle class and poor white people moving out to Newton and western and westward. They're no better off than the poor negro population so far as that goes I think that if we do nothing in answer to Levy's expression of pessimism if we do nothing officially and in the legislative chamber of the Boston School Committee we can expect that the affected population will express their discontent by noon demonstrations at the last meeting of the school committee. Gentleman from the Dorchester section who had been spokesman for a group of. Petition is to reduce overcrowding in the Endicott district said in a sort of helpless and almost desperate tone to us who remained. Mr Lee Mr Eisenstadt and myself. Gentlemen tell us tell us what we can do. Where can we turn now if we can't speak to the school committee. What do we do next.

Well we can imagine what they can do next by what they have done in the past. So while I'm I share Bob's pessimism about the speedy adoption of all aspects of the Clinton report and its extension and perhaps even its improvement or about the adoption of the log recommendation I'm optimistic that the Boston community even among those who don't like integration will reverse busing or whatever will like less civic upset and the stigmatising blackening up the Boston name throughout the United States so that they will as Monsignor has said they will not tolerate stand pat as they will look for some kind of forward motion. If there are ways of doing it by saving face better I don't think anybody here. I don't think anybody would rejoice in the humbling of a person who's taken a strong position. But we must face the reality that intransigent positions maintained

so far. Opposed to reducing gross racial imbalance have got to be vacated unless we are to invite civic upset. Well thank you very much Mr Garland I want to get back to a point that Professor trolling made about some of the costs comparative cost that is per pupil of the school system I think you said that's a drawing that was about 380 in the city of Boston and did you say it was about 600 in Brookline. Well in Brookline it's a little more than well the morning that you said you said the average in the average of the suburbs is around 50 or 60. This makes quite a bit of difference doesn't it in an annual expenditure for student in a in a school system. And yet I remember that Mr. Levy pointed out that the law proposal had some built in funding procedures if I'm not mistaken. And I wondered whether you would rather than be a member of the press let me ask you a question about some of the financing that the law proposal seems to indicate with respect

to. Well has his finance the financing plan was simple enough he just said that. Federal support should be sought if possible and if it had to be paid for by the state. It should be raised from tax revenue. And he made one suggestion that of the 1 cent increase on cigarettes would create five million dollars with which to complete the plan that he suggested which was moving 4000 children to. 18 communities and these monies would cover everything not just the bus fee but building portable schools in the areas that couldn't initially take the children. That's not going to stop going to the sales tax on this program because I miss all three hours I think and I'm saying here this is a hypothetical question if I may say that this deal would do anybody else would like to take it up as you know the Springfield case on racial balances Now oddly before the Circuit Court of Appeals here in our circuit

and I just wonder whether a decision by the federal courts with respect to the Springfield case at the Springfield schools might be racially imbalanced other words up holding the federal court decision would have some impact upon the whole matter of racial imbalance here in the area. This of course is very hypothetical we don't know how this is coming out. Do you see any of these legal decisions that might emerge as have been I think that they're very important in the in the wider community. The pressure that they create I think that the Springfield decision shocked a lot of people who hadn't stopped to think about it before. And just as the decisions of the Supreme Court makes which often don't touch situation locally directly they do affect the the context the environment in which they exist and I think of a strong effect on public opinion. At the end ole Stevie has a case against Boston at the moment and if this was if this gets to the courts and gets a decision against the city this will

have a very extraordinary effect I think. Well I think this is going to be something that will be very much before us. I don't want to say it is going to come out fairly I suppose my Circuit Court of Appeals decided on the Supreme Court. And as we all know the Supreme Court has not taken up a. Case involving racial imbalance to the best of my knowledge other words the ones that have come to a court has not except some people seem to feel that the Springfield case might be might be a little different. The blue ribbon panel on the Karen and study met here at the Lincoln filing center four or five times and a number of academics were involved in the studies that are obviously in the kind of seas of the Cuban report Mr. Germond a lot has been said about the school man's interest in racial imbalance and in education there are a number of people here at Lincoln filing center like Paterson and of course Pettigrew and Harvard sonin and Preston and then these people have been

involved in studies a lot of them do live in Boston have lived in Boston have on the Boston schools and yes. It seems to me that the academic or the Kin and report and the academic studies that are attached to it in some people's minds seem to make it less real in addressing itself to some of the real problems in inner city Boston. Do you think that there are any any disadvantages in having these academic studies talk about racial imbalance. Another point would be Are there any academic studies that you know that might support the majority opinion of the Boston School Committee. You understand representing the minority opinion. I can't give you a bibliography on either side I think there is some academic I suppose it might become some academic support for the view that there is no proof from. A living environment which is wholly

segregated. I think that if there is such a body of opinion it seems little known and scant quantity because of the fact that the strong position in favor of the status quo in Boston taken by the administration and by the plurality of the school committee has never seen fit. I have not yet seen fit to bring forward expert testimony to support that position. Rather it has been said simply We don't agree. This is found in the number of answers which were made by the superintendent of schools in a court case brought by parents of the children in the Boardman district of Roxbury in September 1964. Attorney Richard Banks put a series of questions to him which were derived from the Qin report as to whether or not your child is diminished in his view of himself by being in an unbalanced classroom situation and so on. And the superintendent categorically disagreed with every

implication every statement on this subject of the of the Qin report. But I do not recall either seeing it in print or hearing from him. Any reference to authority or any bibliography no on the contrary the canon report is rich in bibliography. It had people who are conversant with the Boston public school situation in general. Studying it and of course you know the strange part of it is that when the academics disagree with this we depreciate their ivory tower efforts but we struggle like the dickens to get our children into the colleges where they instruct them that might be very dangerous you know and I do want to say that these chaps are not only academics but they also are very much in the swing of things and really having an inside knowledge of education. We've been privileged to discuss this evening the proposal by with respect to relating the suburbs to the inner city of Boston and trying to alleviate problems of racial

imbalance. And yet as our Forgotten has pointed out Arthur and being a member of the Boston School Committee that the Kent report itself. Points out that racial imbalance does exist and it is harmful and that therefore the school systems which have racial imbalance within their framework should take all means to eliminate this progressively over a period of time therefore the key issue here is education and means toward ends and the law proposal talked about bussing students from inner city Boston to some of the suburbs as one means whereby we could reduce racial balance because the suburbs are certainly interwoven in the Boston area and the whole metropolitan area where education is one of our great problems and great responsibilities. And yet we have an inclination by many members of the societies in the suburbs that well is this or is this not a good idea Professor trolling and pointing out what Brooklyn was thinking and doing about this whole matter suggest is there with respect to tuition scholarships and other things that could be done by Brookline

and yet it was also pointed out especially by Msgr. law by that the law proposal really is asking the suburbs are they serious about working with the Boston school system in helping to alleviate problems of racial balance in all of this brings us up to the point that we should discuss the matter much more among ourselves. Thank you very much.