A Troubled Opening

Across the U.S. this month, the schools are opening in an atmosphere of apprehensive peace. In both North and South, integration has become a more muted issue than it was. In Pontiac, Mich., where white parents all but rioted against busing two years ago, the buses rolled without opposition. In Chicago, a proposed march at Gage Park High School, which last year was closed because of interracial violence, fizzled out. "It was the quietest opening day in seven years," said one of the city's assistant superintendents.

But in other systems, the school year began in an atmosphere of tension and confrontation. In many of them money had replaced race as the hard issue. In Providence, R.I., only one of the city's 1,350 teachers showed up for work and 23,000 students were told to stay home. In Detroit, teachers picketed as supervisors and administrators tried to keep schools open for 280,000 pupils. More than 20,000 San Francisco pupils were left to make their own way to school when 230 bus drivers went on strike. And in Memphis, it took a federal court order to get the city to supply enough gas to run the 163 buses needed for its expanded desegregation plan.

The incidents reflected a variety of troubles that continue to plague American schools. Among them:

INFLATION. The most pervasive educational problem in the U.S. has become sheer economics. Inflation and rising prices have upset school budgets as much as they have disturbed household finances. Such essentials as pencils and paper have soared in price. Standard elementary school pencils cost 90-c- per gross four years ago; now they are $2.25. Students everywhere will be getting more macaroni and cheese and less meat in their school lunches now, and most will be paying more for them (up from an average of 40-c- to 50-c- this fall). The Hauppauge school system on Long Island will pay 25% more for fuel oil this year, but willingly signed a contract with a supplier who at least promised to keep the school tanks full despite a projected winter shortage.

One serious consequence of inflation has been a cutback in the so-called "luxuries" that many educators feel are far from dispensable. In Youngstown, Ohio, striking teachers are seeking, as well as more money, the reinstatement of art and music teachers jettisoned in an economy drive. Largely because of cuts in federal funding, many schools are not hiring the aides who had been helping slow learners and other problem students.

TEACHER MILITANCY. Inflation has added to teacher agitation as spiraling living costs have negated salary increases. Beginning with a one-day walkout in August in Houston, teachers have struck in 86 communities across the country. In other cities, contracts were signed after marathon negotiations that ended just hours before classes began.

CRIME. Violence and vandalism have become a bleak, persistent expectation in urban school systems. In Los Angeles, where 66,000 broken windows, arson, and other vandalism cost the school system $2.5 million last year, five German shepherds have been added to the nighttime security patrol. New York City will spend some $5,000,000 this year for alarm systems, closed circuit television and other devices to improve security in its schools.

BUSING. Although many parents and educators still consider busing a workable approach to desegregation, a number of minority spokesmen are joining whites in opposing it. Denver superintendent Louis Kishkunas was recently greeted by rocks, bottles and screaming taunts from Chicano activists, who demanded Spanish history and language courses and Chicano teachers, rather than busing.

In many cities, busing has long since spurred a white flight to the suburbs or to private schools that is making busing ineffectual for integration. Enrollment in Memphis has gone from half-black, half-white in 1970 to 68% black. Richmond's schools, now in their third year of massive busing, are 72% black and Atlanta's 80%.

SCHOOL FINANCING. Many experts are coming to believe that the answer to the segregation and poverty of inner-city schools may lie not in busing but in broader-based school systems encompassing the surrounding suburbs. But such systems would require basic changes in the way schools are financed. The Supreme Court declared last spring (in San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez) that the current property tax system, ensuring quality education for the rich and poor education for the impoverished, is constitutional. Even so, many educators and taxpayers agree with Justice Potter Stewart that it is "chaotic and unjust."

Thus the search for a better way to finance schools has become perhaps the central problem of American public education. Most public school systems still receive the bulk of their support from local property taxes, but change is in the air. The New Jersey Supreme Court has given that state until the end of 1974 to devise a more equitable system than reliance on such taxes, and a tax-reform package will be on the ballot in the state of Washington this fall. New Hampshire will experiment on a small scale with a voucher system that its supporters hope to put into effect throughout the state next year. The system will enable parents to send their children to private schools or to some public schools outside their own district.

It may be that Minnesota has found the most workable solution. Through substantial increases in taxes on liquor, cigarettes and corporate and personal incomes, the state's contribution to the cost of running the schools has been increased from 43% to 70% of the total. By 1979, spending for each pupil's education will be virtually the same throughout the state.

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