Separation Means Unequal

The Federal Government has new, convincing statistical proof that the nation's public schools are still segregated --and that the result is inequality of educational opportunity for Negro children. The evidence comes from a new Office of Education survey, 18 months in the making, of more than 4,000 elementary and high schools, 60,000 teachers and 645,000 students across the U.S. It shows that 80% of white children in first grade attend schools that are 90% or more white, while 65% of all Negro first-graders attend schools that are nine-tenths Negro.

By almost every standard--teacher training, library facilities, lab courses and classroom quality--separation of the races works out to the Negroes' disadvantage. Nationwide, in primary grades, there are 32 students in the average Negro classroom, 29 in mostly white schools. In secondary schools, Negro pupils are less likely to have a chemistry or physics lab; judged by nationwide test scores, teachers in Negro schools are educationally less qualified than those in white ones. Standard achievement tests show that by the sixth grade, a Negro in the metropolitan Northeast is 1.6 grades behind his white counterpart; by the twelfth grade he is 3.3 years behind. Although the survey admits that the home is a key factor in developing the desire to learn, it suggests that desegregation does help. A Negro who has studied in an integrated situation for most of his school career scores an average of nearly two years higher on achievement tests than one who has not.

For Education Commissioner Harold Howe, who has spoken out sharply against de facto segregation in recent months, the survey represents the factual basis for an all-out Government attack on the racial imbalance of the nation's schools. Within the next few weeks, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare plans to organize a special section to investigate de facto segregation in Northern states. Legislation now before Congress would withdraw federal aid for a year from school districts failing to desegregate, and would provide $50 million in technical assistance to those that are actively correcting racial imbalance.

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