Education and Race Relations; 24; Post-School Opportunities For Minority Groups: Implications For The School

Last session was concerned with post-school opportunities for members of minority groups we heard a rather discouraging account. I thought that adds up to what might appear to be an overwhelming problem for the one school agency. To discuss the implications for schools and classrooms. We have as guest panelists at this session. Dr. William Reid of the Boston Public Schools. Dr. Reid What is your post in the Boston school system. Presently I am headmaster at South Boston High School and during the spring and summer of 1965 was project director for the Neighborhood Youth Corps. We have also Mr. Paul Moken of the U.S. Department of Labor. Mr. MARTIN Where do you labor with the Labor Department. I'm the assistant regional director of the Boston Pops of the Bureau of Labor Statistics statistics. We cover the six New England states and also from the Urban League. Mr. Jay Westbrook McPherson. Mr. McPherson. In what community. Is really rated Boston. And earlier you were

way up. In New Orleans for eight years prior to which Phoenix Arizona. Two years. And we are fortunate to have with us again. Our guest lecturer of the last session Mrs. M. Barnett of New York City and of course my good code. Moderator Dr. John Gibson. Dr. Seuss I wonder whether you are a. Pessimistic view. I know I said your opinion as well your view of me as a pessimist is based rather on your despair with respect to the schools as they are. That is that your and your concern is that the schools could never do the job I'm projecting for them. Well I think that I don't think and do the job by themselves. And I was a little concerned with some of your content that indicated a long way to go. You utilized the Pettigrew pessimistic elongation statistics which I think need to be looked at rather carefully and.

I think also. What do you define your terms you know some of us are not as brilliant as you are. Well when you say I'm wrong in the statistics I take it you referred to his projections from the 1960s and to the you're you're you're doing very well thank you. Glad I'm glad to see you define your own terms. You also you mentioned the capital gap widening further now. So I picked this up and felt that. Being basically optimist that. I was depressed. Well I think perhaps it's based on a rule that I was going to say distortion of what I had said that I don't want to use that word quite it's not quite. What I have in mind. I think that. What you. Fail to say is that I have some for schools. I have a feeling that the school as an agency can do a great deal more than it ever has done which I must agree and. That. In large part perhaps part of our problem today is that it is never

accepted responsibility to the extent to which has capability. And I think at this particular session I think we ought to get down close to the classroom and the school building and and look at the problem from that angle. And I think perhaps we ought to start with the Mr. Malcolm. And ask the question as you see the school agency and the youngsters coming into your agency. How close to reality are the public schools as against the kinds of opportunities that are available to youngsters white and colored. Well I think most people would agree that children coming out of school probably do not have an adequate do not have adequate information on the labor market. And I think it's very important that they should because if we consider the typical high school boy or girl graduating at the age of 17 is going to spend approximately 50 years in the labor market. Then this is a very serious situation a very serious proposition. And if we talk about the schools

that their primary function is to prepare children for for life. This is quite a long lifetime 50 years of work. And I have the general feeling that too often in our schools we relegate this dysfunction to the guidance person and in a school of eight hundred or a thousand with one guidance instructor I think he can possibly do the job. Now I would suggest that. Holding a class periodically once a month or even once a week is not adequate that the teacher has a responsibility along this line that we shouldn't put it entirely in the hands of a specialist although certainly he has a primary function but that each teacher should be aware of the changes that are taking place that like Mark and there are certainly many changes entered through his teaching try to bring the child along if we're talking about the primary grades of the teenager later on high school to bring them along with some understanding so that he can make an intelligent judgment and I'll

tell you what. And. How to decide himself what you want to do and what the opportunities are. How can the average teacher. Find out this information and use it. Well I think there are many ways. He can do this. He is he is aware I think of the basic changes that are going on in our society. I think the average teacher is well-read and well informed on many subjects. I think it's not so much a matter that he doesn't know as the fact that he doesn't feel what his basic responsibility I think it is his responsibility to teach math or teach English or to teach history. And what I'm suggesting is that if the teacher makes it a point to try and learn more about the world of work that in his teaching he can he can use analogies and comparisons and he can help to give the youngster an understanding of why he should learn no choices. But it occurs to me that one of the real problems we have in our schools is that our

teachers are not even up to date in the subject areas in which they are now teaching. Never mind the world outside that all too often they become so removed in time and space from the children they are teaching who the time in which they live that you are asking if you are putting on every teacher you are asking I think that is something that's far beyond the average teacher in the classroom and I don't think it's enough to present the teacher with sets of statistics I don't do anything with it. I don't think it's enough to provide the teacher with information pictures and pamphlets and things of that kind. What else are you suggesting. I'm suggesting that there is a basic change that needs to be needs to take place and the way in which we think about curriculum in the first place and the way in which we think about methodology. It seems to me that the teacher who accepts the responsibility for teaching today and for bringing the child in touch with today every single second of the

time is going to look at the content he has to teach in a somewhat different light from the way in which we now look at content. It's a we have a definite outline of facts we now hand out. For example a class in economics if we teach economics we do in New York City. I don't know whether it's done in Boston but in New York we do. I'm sure enough places across the country it is increasingly it will. People are comparing Now what should be taught in economics and it occurs to me that this is a mistake. Because the minute we do that it becomes a rigidity to which we had here all the way we never never got off it. No matter what happens to time. We're still going to get the same job here too. Well what I'm suggesting here is that instead of looking at it that when we look at it in terms of what is there in this world now that the economics that can. Help to convey economic principles. Never mind the order of events never mind the sequence of lessons and never mind an outline of topics previously developed and it seems to me

that the context then it should take shape as institutions are changing and teachers ought to be increasingly aware of these changing institutions and work with them. And in that case I think that they would be going off into the community they would become cognizant themselves of changes that are taking place there. This gets close to the. Heart of our problem. Not. As I see it. I think we're concerned here with The Post school opportunities for minority children. And by minority I include all of those of are economically disadvantaged. Are regardless of their race although I understand that we are particularly concerned with the racial minorities. For the purposes of this discussion. Now I think that it's imposing quite a little. On the average classroom teacher. To do all. Of a vocational counseling job of a sort that we're discussing here and I really think it's a little

off base to expect that our children in the primary and the secondary grades are going to be able to make. Very sound vocational choices. I think that we're concerned with. How what do we do with these children at the primary and secondary level. To prepare them for the world of work that they're going to spend 50 years in. Well I'm suggesting that I'm talking more in terms of the junior high school level and from there on I can visualize for example that are you a teacher or math. If he's teaching math and the student just visualize his problems on the board and correcting and having to do homework assignments. And he can equate that to the outside world that this isn't going to be particularly stimulating to him now. He wants to be an engineer and he has his mind pretty well made up that he's going to go to college and study to be an engineer. He probably knows how math fits into that but I'm suggesting that the boy who might be tending to drop out in the second grade second year of high in

third year of that along the line and the teacher can equate the subject to reality. In other words in terms of if you want to be an electronics technician it's going to require a good math background. This is one reason why you should be devoting attention to this. I think the teacher can do a great deal if the teacher accepts the responsibility of trying to tie his subject into the work environment. Yes that's true at that level. But I think the persons that we're thinking about now we're talking about the definition of poverty the people who are. Underemployed and. Who are economically disadvantaged and didn't get very very good education they are they're in trouble already before they get to the junior high school. And I think that I'm concerned with the fact are we. Teaching them. In school even to be literate. So that by the time they get to junior high school they can cope with junior high school mathematics as it will relate to what I'm contending in other words. That. Are a good

part. Of the post. School opportunities for other people who we're talking about these economically submerged people. Is going to depend on how well the school teaches and the child learns in school. And that's where we're having trouble. These people are missing out. In the very early grades of their trade. Mr. McPherson one of the interesting statistics that I recall that Mrs. Barnett presented to us indicated that of the big cities. Chicago was one of the better retention rates as I recall. I think it was 66 percent is you saying no. Mr. McPherson. Of this 66 percent. Many of them are really unschooled. Yeah. About the graduating class. Yes. These people who do finish school and this is as I'm saying in America today we are turning out high school graduates.

With a diploma in their hand who for all practical purposes can't read and write. And people who aren't sufficiently educated and versed in the literary skills to be a similar to the on the job training programs and other skills that they must require in order to function in the real economy just to make sure that this is not a bland statement. I think it might be interesting to hear of the work that you're doing now in the job training area. You have a substantial Grant is the federal government gave the Arab League a quarter of a million plus dollar grant. To do on the job training program. Under the terms of which we are going to persuade employers to set up and plan on the job training situations whereby men and women. Who are. Unemployed because they lack a specific saleable skills can be rendered employees are literate. You have to do any pre-lit some of them will have to be literate. The possibility is that some of them may not

have to be. They have to be functionally illiterate. How does this relate Mrs. Burnham to a lot of the things you talked about in our last session in other words. Here is a vocational program that is sponsored by a community agency in conjunction with local industry that has relatively little to do with the schools themselves. Well this indicates the school is out of touch. It's traditional and it doesn't change. And maybe the school is being bypassed just a minute. Exactly. I would say that the school that's being bypassed and I don't see any reason why we ought to spend necessarily on that score. Well what I suggested in the first place is that the school has become a continuing agency not to become the only agency but the bring force in a child's life to kind of guide the way in which a parent functions with respect to a child the parent isn't the only person who teaches the child of middle class family the parent has only one agency. The child keeps moving out from the home into a school

into a job into more school into a family into a new job and always relates back to the family. Now in this particular instance I'm suggesting that where families do not exist that can help in this direction that the school will become the surrogate parent. That it except the responsibility to see that the child moves from sea to maturity. Insofar as that child needs assistance wherever he may get it. That means that the child would be guided from the school to work opportunities to on the job training programs such as this one we would follow the child continuously. Perhaps the real point is that you some of this in a better position to do it. They're closer to the middleman except that their angle is strictly one. It's an angle of concern about the child's orienting himself to work. It seems to me that there ought to be a broader approach to this child. And I want to come back to what you said. I'm concerned that you look at the child who has not was not able to read as

inadequate. And I would submit that that child is not inadequate. We just haven't found out enough about him. I said I think that we need to do a good deal more to find out what it is that makes him inadequate. I say we didn't teach you very well but we have not taught him to read for a good many reasons. Perhaps part of the reason was the fact that he at that point was not interested but giving him something real to tackle and he may suddenly find that reading is a very necessary part of his life. You know the lack of accountability you've taken the schools right off that you know a tough spot and put the onus on the youngster non-learning. That's right. But Mr. MacPherson said the role of the school is to teach the role in school youngsters to learn. And I think I detect a bit of a concern in the fact that many youngsters going through these schools as you yourself testified would become more and more illiterate as they go further and further up the grade we have an online school man here I'd like to have Dr. Reed's views on this.

First of all by the time he gets the employment agency he has to be 16 that's too late. That's right. Secondly I think most any high school teacher in the United States would agree that many youngsters graduate from high school home and the schoolteachers opinion are not whether you a high school diploma. But that's another factor coming back to Mr. Macpherson's point. He pointed out that these people whom they are hiring. I understood them to say we're functionally literate. So they the schools have done their basic job in that particular group. Granted there are some with whom it hasn't done its job and I will go back with Mr. MacPHERSON that reading is the basis of this. I would like to come back to something else. We're talking about. The. Failure of the child to learn because of his lack of interest. We're talking about the elementary grades where I think the trouble began. I don't think we talk about a child a. 5 6 or 7 year old child who isn't interested in reading.

I think somebody goofed. I think that the instructor the person's response or whose responsibility it was to get to this little mind and shake and open up his eyes and interesting. Now then if we didn't understand the child who lives at this economic level so that we could reach out to him in terms that were meaningful to him. Well then that's our fault. I wonder if we're not dropping down too low with we're going to talk about the elementary grades. I don't think this is basically the problem I think we would all agree that the responsibility of the elementary school was to be able to teach reading writing and arithmetic. But I think what we're talking about in terms of the the post school period that the boy or girl or junior high and on high school and being equipped. And first of all understanding what she would be if she is going to have to know in order to get a job because it's too late by the time the high school graduate is coming out into the labor market he has either selected the wrong course or he has no information about the trends that are taking place

and he's starting off with two strikes against him. That is very true but I'm thinking of something else. This. Post school opportunity for a school child. Is going to be based upon how he can acquire a skill and are most of our people are not going to technical and professional jobs it's going to depend on whether they have been made literate and school. To the point that they will be able to fit into the job opportunities that they're going to get that will enable them to acquire skill. Now the question was raised a little while ago. Are the schools being bypassed or is it is it to the discredit of the school that this is an on the job training project. I don't think so. I don't think it's to the credit or discredit of the school. I think we have to realize that today. Most of the jobs. That we find in our economy today. Are there's no way to prepare for it at school except to give a person a good solid basic education. Now if for some reason we are not reaching these so-called

under-privileged or or the minorities or by whatever name of course so that they can get enough out of school. So that they're not on the verge of dropping out. Or we have got to the point where somebody said they were magical. By the time you get to the junior high school they're lost before they even get to the post-high school where they can be rich. OK Mr. McPherson but I think we are taking steps to get to these people under the Economic Opportunity Act the Neighborhood Youth Corps set up for in-school youngsters. This will provide. Jobs for youngsters who are in school and no longer stay stay in school. It gives them 10 hours to 15 hours a week and pays them a minimum wage of a dollar a quarter an hour. Now. This. Provides work experience. What is work experience. Well work experience in the neighborhood youth corps as we found out man the importance of a time card. You don't get paid unless you sign and present a properly certified time card. This is one thing we had. In our particular situation a

delay in paying youngsters. Now this is partly attributable to factors beyond anybody's control. But there were certain factors in the spring program. We went along and the youngsters in the summer program we cut down the pay period by one week. It was still too long the delay was. But the youngsters who had been working in the spring program took this in stride. This was routine. They had learned from experience that there are certain things you have to put up with in the labor market. So we are providing a work experience through the Neighborhood Youth Corps and we are also providing money to keep these youngsters in school either through the support of themselves or as a contribution to the family. This is it used some room between descriptive terms in terms of the secondary school program. She talked about a comprehensive high school Comprehensive High School in south Boston. We have a general high school. One has a comprehensive high school.

Well I think that I'd like to separate out two possibilities here. The usual school that I've known the usual so-called comprehensive high school or general high school week they've been called various things in various places I see is a series of. Separate books as I like to say put together under one roof. But they remain very carefully lined up. Each box sits by itself. They're on the same roof. They may even be on the same floor but so far as the children are concerned they are boxed in like in a crate if you like it's too thin. I think you have to be firm that the only way children can move is from the top down from the school out. Few children ever move up the ladder in this kind of school that is. Few children ever move from the general TUPOLA to the academic diploma from the vocational track today to an academic trial a youngster often it moves the other way.

I agree but a youngster can move if he wants to sacrifice the time to pick up the fundamentals which he has missed. Well I think that this is the basic issue in a comprehensive high school as I see that is that we have placed a premium on rigidities he must graduate now with a set set of courses. He must do certain things not to get a certain diploma he must finish in a given number of years we've said it must be before. I don't know what's magic about four years of high school 9th through 12th grade. Some places it's 10th the 12th. What should he do with that time. Why should he have courses that go across the board. I see no real value with path as such for every child. I think there are some children who can be fascinated by every subject area but there are other children who find themselves completely inadequate in mathematics at age 15 and may find mathematics fascinating at age 20 or physics at age 17 and pick it up again at some other point in their lives with great interest because suddenly has other things moved into shape for him intellectually he knows how to deal with the subject area let him before this was beyond him.

And it seems to me that we begin if we do if we have a school which caters to and use the word cagers cagers to the strength of the child rather than through his weakness lets him explore the areas in which he shows positive ability. And interest at a certain point and lets him pursue it to the point of great depth. And great depth because he can master that we have done that child a very great service rather than to ask him to repeat French because he hasn't yet learned how to play how to conjugate the verbs or because he can't respond. Or really whatever the reason may be we ask a child to do a language when he's completely inarticulate language at this point. Why wonderful in science and math. Why not let him focus on that and at a later point when he has to read scientific material and journaling to pick up his German and read it. You buy this Mr Nicholas or. I'm thinking along another line. Is the way school people talk.

Well I'm High School that's what it is. Yes I mean years threw him off here. Here is my concern. We are concerned with what are the poorest school opportunities for minority groups. All right. I think it's safe to say. That we have progressed. In this business of equal and fair. Employment opportunities to the point where. Anybody who has a specific saleable skill in our market today can just about get a job at least to the extent that the opportunities are coming faster than we can find people who have been equipped. And trained by these schools to take advantage of these opportunities. I want to add that that is our situation at the moment now I don't know that I mean I'm not very much concerned with. How we do it. But did we teach the child that's what I'm on I'll take for example W-word words. When he was the secretary of labor back in about 19 64 I guess he points out. That.

Half of the 18 year olds half of our young males reaching draft age are for the compulsory military training service. Were washed out could not meet the standards of military service training. Half of the rejects because of mental reasons which are the army means that they didn't have the equivalent of a seventh grade education. Now. They're saying that in America we have a public school system. That is turning out young men who cannot qualify today to to to join the army. And they certainly will be able qualified to make a living tomorrow in our growing technological employment. You are aware of course that there are some sharp regional differences in the rejection rate and that there might be some causative factors nailed down by looking at the regional differences. Is point still valid though. Yes it does represent practices. Well I mean let's look at the regional differences. The national average across the nation was 50 percent.

And in New England New England was above the national average and rejects. Massachusetts was above the league. And we are an enlightened state. I think it has to complicate the situation a little further I wonder if I could throw a few more statistics on the fire. I think the National Science Foundation pointed out several years ago that all of the. That of the top third graduating from high school each year. That half of them do not go on up the top third of those graduating. In other words we are losing a very important part of our manpower our boys and girls that have the ability to go on. Now I would like to pardon me to go on to college. So this college has said. Well. Why college. Well I think to start off with that. It's worth the boys while in terms of. Well in terms of the dollar factor we have some of them. Let's give him the real argument the in the old days the work permit was like this. And you needed a massive labor group

today the work pyramid is inverted. You need a massive group and a small laboring group. So from the point of view of opportunity also from the point of view of self-fulfillment. When Mr. Malkan suggested that the fundamental purpose of the Amish school is to be found in the Three-Eyes I think he may have committed some other important aspects of of education that might be. Concerned might be useful in other areas beside occupational training. Mr. McPherson I wonder could I come back to that matter of why go on to college. We have some figures that indicate that a high school graduate in the course of a lifetime. Well we're in about $250000. A college student in the course of a lifetime will learn about three sixty five thousand dollars. So I would say that the value of this boy who has the ability the boy and girl who has the ability to walk through college. It is in terms of dollars and cents it is worth approximately

$150000 more for him to go on through college in the course of the 50 years that he will spend at the labor market. I would agree that this is not the only reason to be considered. But the point that I was trying to pull the conversation back on a little bit more was in terms of is it the only school that is responsible for guidance. I would suggest that industry has a responsibility along this line. For example I think that. Over the years there have been members of minority groups who were qualified who did have the innate ability to go on and they were blocked. And I think that there is a blocking going on today. I think there is certainly a blocking going on in terms of a youngster who has the capabilities to move up the occupational ladder but he is blocked at the entry level in a particular class. So I would suggest that we should also consider that industry has a responsibility on this. For example if a girl has the ability to graduate with that type is from high school but she should be encouraged by industry and particularly a member of a minority group to be encouraged to on the job to pick up the skills in

order for anybody to aspire to be a secretary. It's a difference of probably sixty five thousand ninety five dollars a week. And I think industry can help to do this in turn. It will help to motivate the girl in a first grade second grade of high school so that she won't quit work if she realized that she can be a type that she can move up to be a private secretary that will help her along the way. That's all very true. May I just pick this up because perhaps I have just one area that I want to. Put together on here. You seem to argue and you are most concerned Mr. McPherson about the child whom you consider to be who you think we have found. Well I would question that. I would say that those. Let me finish this thought. I say that if you think. That there are children who are uneducated educable and you think we would agree with that. I'd say that that's the first question we ought to set aside because we ought to agree right now as to whether or not there are a great many young people who have not yet demonstrated how much more they can

bear. I think we ought to go to the second step that would start to write anybody off yet. Now let me go second first second. I think that if we set a child aside we ought to recognize. That if we don't know how far he can go we ought to let him explore how far he can go to the farthest extent. Well you ought not to say to him this is where we think you. This is how far you we think you should go. We ought to let him go as far as possible on ourselves. No finish this. We're going to explore and find out where he wants to go again. But that is what I don't know about this magical business. I mean I am radically do not say that the child was magical. What I say is this I see that these school people in our school system who have blown their job. Of. Educating these people because of their own ineptness and inadequacies. They are the ones who have put the labor VARLAAM of labor on edge a couple on some of these disadvantaged children. And that's the thing that concerns me.

Then they you're talking I'm not talking about the teacher I'm talking about the system in the main in which the teacher works. I don't think the teacher can do a much better job than the system in which she worked as the society functions. Well I don't want to go that far with time both. I don't think we can dismiss one from the other. But I think we're suggesting that the schools have a responsibility to lead the way they do. And just like persons point for example in textbooks that will never show a negro work that you're in history it's somewhere along the line the system has fallen down and has not given minority groups a fair shake in this area. That's that's exactly so. But I think now we ought look just to be concerned with educating with educating just for the three years that's not enough. It seems to me are we speaking all across the board. I think the thing is that there are many different levels of ability among all the children. And that we ought to concentrate our thinking here tonight just on those opportunities that our work at the lowest level we ought to be concerned. How far up the ladder we can move children not how we can get them to train for the

most immediate job in the first section. And I want to come back to what you've suggested. And. That is that the youngster comes into a job at the lowest level. He. Is. Asked. To be called than the job he is not qualified for on hiring. He may be a very fine secretary. We're really ready to hire him as a typist hoping someday maybe he'll get to be a secretary. We do not give the child an opportunity to explore all of his talents on the job as we hire. It seems to me that he ought to go a step farther. He ought to be prepared to say to children. The school has trained you so far industry is going to pick you up from there and go on I think your point is well taken. Instead of that industry expects the schools and society to get them ready made products on the one hand I don't think that's fair. And I don't think it reflects what industry is doing today. I think. That. Our major part. Of the training for the work day where we are today is actually being done by and inside industries. And I think that is

one of the reasons why negroes as minority groups are suffering as badly as they are now. It's been a good long while since a negro with a Ph.D. in chemistry or a sense negro who was a good biologist or a statistician had any trouble getting a job. Sure he's exhibit A. Everybody wants him. They want him. He's got stripes. But we're we have suffered is if these on the job in Grant training jobs have not been available to our young people I do want to see them after the mission. But in its presentation at the last session the references to Clarke and to Sloan in terms of classrooms in-stores classrooms in the military classrooms in the factories and this is one reason why I would tend not to expect the schools to do it all now even in New York City. The organization with which you are now connected in this survey seemed to imply as I read your report that the secondary school should be a comprehensive high school with emphasis on the kind of improve general education

and that vocational training should be placed on a post-high school basis. That's called a technical training as opposed to vocational training. The problem there is that the vocational training has been is that there's a lag between the kind of training for which children are trained and the kinds of jobs that are available because once we do the shops the specific shops and the specific skills that we have to get children to fill those shops and teach them those skills teachers are bad. Instead of that if we do that kind of training on the job rather than in school then it would be a more realistic vocational training. In those cases the schools therefore want to concentrate on what areas of training for industry for example in general areas of electronics or general area of metal work various kinds of metallurgy there are any number of broad areas in which.

Machines for example of automotive machines would be one need not just be the automobile that could be other machines as well. The general this is losing touch with reality. Well I think probably Dr. Reid is probably better equipped than that. Let's take a question because he has a machine shop talking about ways to go inside training. Well I'm talking about the person who comes in your door and the occupational opportunities that are currently in demand. I would agree the type of Vocational Guidance vocational education is important place in a high school cannot train for all walking patients. I think that right all your school picks a particular field whether it's carpentry or clerical operations or machine shop or what have you. And that they can give a general type of education to a boy so that at least he can he can learn something about drafting something about Shop mathematics and things like that that will have wide applicability later on. So for a mechanically minded boy who particularly he was not going to go on after high school this I'm sure was very helpful with keeping in keeping him in high school.

I don't think like any of the later on I think let's get Mr. McPhearson comment because we want to get down to base. I don't think we're getting down basically what our problem is. We want to know. What are the post-school opportunities for the minority. Person. I'm saying that I include in that minority the economically disadvantaged because Dr. calling this book social dynamite he has shown very clearly. That it doesn't matter what the race where these colored or white is if they live in these substandard slum communities. These people are disadvantaged now. Regardless of what this man's color is there. We want to know what are his chances after he gets out of school. What I am concerned about. Is that. In his schools from the very beginning grades. This man is not being made functionally illiterate. And. Educated to the point where he can be picked up and trained by industry in many cases where. He must be trained where industry is willing to train if you want to. So it doesn't matter now we talk about we're going to get the boy who doesn't go to the school. What we're talking about the film comes out of this

strong environment. And one of our higher class communities he's going to get something out of school in a way where I won't know we're talking about these people who aren't getting it. And these people. Who are lost and ready to drop out of school by the time they get to June why aren't they getting it. Why are they getting. Because I don't think that our system of education. Has adapted itself. To the needs of these people. And the cultures in which they live up to the point that they can reach them and teach. What does that mean specifically. This is the kind of language we've got a great deal of. Mrs. Barnett spoke in her first presentation about the curriculum and the rigidity of the tracks and the curriculum and the instructional materials that we've referred to which are inadequate and presenting a lot of these. And a lot of these things for the teachers and before we close I just want to ask you first what is the role of the teacher and all that you've been concerned with institutes for. Working with teachers of disadvantaged youth. Do you see any real hope here.

KIRRIN mentioned the governmental programs the economic opportunity act which Dr. Reid mentioned what about the new work that is taking place in teacher education for those who are concerned with this. Well we had a summer institute for teachers of disadvantaged youngsters 60 teachers from an inner city school. And. After. A seven week period I think we were able to observe some changes in attitude and appreciation for different value systems not that these people didn't have some feel for this and some real knowledge and skill. One of the discouraging aspects is the fact that many teachers sat back and waited for the social scientist. And the person in economics and you know all the statistics that we've heard that one of the social scientists would be able scientists to translate this. So they would know what to do on Monday morning in terms of prescription and prescriptions were not forthcoming and the need to take the general word that you

used how to meet the needs of these things and you got to specify this much more effectively. I think what we want teachers to do to develop a much more effective techniques of motivating youngsters guiding them in the selection of learning activities. And also using them and doing this basically in terms of a good relationship on a two way street so to speak with a positive attitude that asks the question what do they do. But why did he do it. Now this gets back again to teacher training and we're not in this particular area. Our concern is opportunities on the outside and it's quite true as Mr. MacPHERSON implies. What good are the opportunities that may be open to you if you can fill out a form in the personnel office. I doubt very much that you're going to be able to get any kind of a position. Well this has been a vicious circle up until now about until now we've said that there are jobs for qualified numbers of minority groups but they weren't qualified. Now we're

today I think it is only with the passage of federal legislation that we're facing a moment of truth that now the situation is changing because there are opportunities being made available and it was only done as a result of under the force of the law. And I think that probably we have to face this fact that the schools the churches the community agencies over the years have needed a strong legislative program to make us what we've come to a moment of truth perhaps because it's almost over and we will hope to look at this problem in another way. Thank you very much for your participation at this session. We have still some questions of course before us. I