50 Years Behind?

Have U. S. schools been corrupted by newfangled ideas? Yes, cries many a tough-minded oldster. No, snorted the No. 1 U. S. school efficiency expert last week --they are not even up to date. The expert, trim, white-haired Professor Paul R. Mort of Columbia University's Teachers College, after a three-year study of 344 schools, reported his findings in American Schools in Transition (Bureau of Publica tions, Teachers College; $3.75).

Dr. Mort and a research associate, Francis G. Cornell, made up a list of 183 things that most educators, conservative and progressive, agree a modern school system should do. (Samples: public kindergartens, junior high schools, classes for slow pu pils.) Then they investigated how many were practiced in representative public schools, rich & poor, urban & rural, big & small, in Pennsylvania (considered the best cross section of the U. S.). Findings:

> Only a tenth of the 183 modern practices were in 90% of the schools. Only a fourth wereused in as many as half the schools. One school in six had a kindergarten,one in two had a properly equipped building.

> Most schools were at least 50 years behind the times. It evidently takes about 50 years to get a needed new idea tried out, another 50 to get it widely adopted.

> Two schools in three were bedeviled by politics.

> Most likely to be modern were schools in good-sized suburban towns with a cosmopolitan, well-educated population and enough money to spend at least $2,000 a year for each elementary class.

> Although the U. S. public spends $2,250.000.000 a year on its public schools, it knows little and apparently cares less whether its schools are up to date.

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