Integration's Headaches

When he noted the below-average record of Washington children in reading and arithmetic, District of Columbia Commissioner Brigadier General Thomas A. Lane thought he knew just what was wrong and how to correct it. Integration had thrown together children of unequal preparation, he told the Washington Education Conference. West Pointer Lane's solution to the problem: a mass demotion to restore students to their proper grades.

His proposal outraged both parents and educators. It also set off a public debate calling attention to a problem that many a Southern and border-state school system will eventually have to face: how to get past the transition period if poorly prepared Negro students are put into classes with white students several years ahead of them in training.

New Foundation. Washington's schools were integrated in the fall of 1954. Before that they were divided into two groups: Division 1 for the white schools, Division II for the colored. There was scant connection between them. The average Negro high school class was seven students larger than classes in the white high schools. Few Negro high schools could afford to offer the special remedial courses which students coming to Washington from the South urgently needed. One reading test given to eighth-grade Negro students found them lagging behind white students by roughly three years.

Despite such advance warnings, most Washington educators were unprepared for the problems that integration has imposed. Commented one principal, whose school is now 60% Negro: "It's largely a matter of economic background. There's just nothing to build on. We have to give them some foundation before we can even start." Because most of the Negro students come from poor homes, teachers have had to spend considerable time attempting to straighten them out on matters of hygiene and discipline.

Greater Need. Despite this state of affairs, most District educators are bitterly opposed to Commissioner Lane's demotion plan. "It is the duty of the public schools to accept children without blaming them or punishing them for their lack of intelligence or limited cultural background," said a committee of 17 school officials in a statement issued by School Superintendent Hobart M. Corning.

The answer, the educators believe, is to keep Negro students with white children of their own age but give them extra help through special grouping and remedial classes. To do that Washington will have to increase its teaching staff. But even with more teachers and smaller classes, Washington educators know that they are in for a long uphill fight. "You can't put two school systems together overnight," said one administrator last week. "The shaking-down process moves slower than sand through an egg beater."

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