THURSDAY, JULY 15, 1971 U.S. SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON EQUAL EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITY Washington, D.C. The Select Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10 a.m. in room G-308, New Senate Office Building, the Honorable Walter F. Mondale, chairman of the committee, presiding. Present: Senators Mondale and Javits. Also present: William C. Smith, staff director and general counsel; Donald Harris, staff member; Francis A. Hennigan, Jr., minority staff director. Senator MONDALE. The hearing will come to order. I will ask today's witnesses, Dr. Robert Wheeler, Dr. Ruth Love Holloway, and Mr. Isaiah E. Robinson to please come to the witness table. STATEMENT OF ROBERT F. WHEELER, AREA SUPERINTENDENT, DIVISION OF URBAN EDUCATION, THE SCHOOL DISTRICT OF KANSAS CITY, MO. Senator MONDALE. I have your statements and I will ask Dr. Wheeler-he is not here yet? Dr. WHEELER. Yes, sir; I am here. Senator MONDALE. We will ask Dr. Wheeler if he will begin with his statement. You have a copy of a research report we will insert in the record.* Dr. WHEELER. Senator Mondale, in 1966, in grades one, two, and three, about 3,000 pupils enrolled in schools located in the poverty stricken areas of Kansas City, Mo., were given a well-known reading readiness test. Slightly more than 80 percent of these pupils scored below the average level set by the test publishers. In 1968, a reading program was designed and implemented for the children in these grades, which was intended to meet their specialized needs in this most crucial area of educational skills. ACHIEVEMENT OF READING PROGRAM By 1970 test scores of about 3,000 pupils attending these same grades in these same schools, and coming from the same background of economic and social depression earned achievement scores in reading which placed them at the national norms published for this test. See Appendix 1, p. 5756, Moreover, the second grade group, those pupils who had participated in the program for 2 years, placed slightly above the published norms and the norm for the total second grade population in the Kansas City, Mo., schools. Senator MONDALE. This is the really poverty stricken area of the city? Dr. WHEELER. That is right. Senator MONDALE. What you are saying is that not only did they come up to national norms, but in fact they placed slightly above the Kansas City norm? Dr. WHEELER. That is right. The analysis of the achievement score data revealed the following major findings: 1. Reading achievement scores increased significantly for each class entering the program by grade one. 2. Mean achievement scores in both vocabulary and reading comprehension were at grade level for published national norms. 3. The average growth in grade equivalent scores for the second graders exceeded 1 year in both vocabulary and comprehension. In addition to these findings, there were other important developments. Systematically gathered data revealed a substantial upturn in the teachers' achievement expectations for the pupils, as well as strong indications of other positive attitudinal changes. To put this another way, the syndromes of despair and futility, usually characteristics of those of us who struggle with the educational problems of the poverty stricken areas in all the major cities of this country, were considerably lessened for us. Now we in Kansas City feel that if the momentum already generated can be sustained, we shall make even greater and more sig nificant inroads into the formidable educational problems which deny equal educational opportunity to a sizeable segment of the population of the United States. There are several important lessons to be learned from the Kansas City experience. First, a functional administrative division was organized and charged with the responsibility of improving the educational plight of inner-city children in Kansas City. Senator MONDALE. Is that the office you have? Dr. WHEELER. Yes, that is the Division of Urban Education. Dr. WHEELER. Second, a clearcut goal, the improvement of achievement in reading, was set and the program organized to reach this goal. Third, while the finances provided by Federal aid were significant, they fell far short, and still do, of meeting the comprehensive needs of pupils who must grow and develop in poverty, subject to the debilitating societal forces which impede their educational careers. Consequently, priorities had to be set, the program organized so as to supply enough intensity to develop a chance for success. In Kansas City the first priority was the development of reading skills. The rationale here is that reading is central and crucial to all educational progress. ALTERNATIVE STRATEGIES Senator MONDALE. If you will stop there, what other priorities were urged upon you which you rejected? What other alternative strategies were suggested? Dr. WHEELER. Well, all kinds of alternatives which were related to the needs of these students. First of all, inner-city children can suffer from the same kinds of needs that any other child suffers from, and it so happens that they suffer to a more severe degree. Remember this: If you have a limited resources, it doesn't make sense to start out in all directions simultaneously. Senator MONDALE. Did some people argue, for example, let's emphasize math? Dr. WHEELER. Yes. Of course, in the school districts there are all kinds of vested interests and everyone wanted to use it to his own choice. So we had things from people wanting to build buildingss, to buying shoes. But we saw inevitably that we were going to be called upon to demonstrate how the learning of these children had been increased. Well, the rationale here is that reading is central and crucial to all educational progress. Fourth, the results of the Kansas City program substantiate the position of the Division of Urban Education of the Kansas City Schools; that inner-city children can learn as effectively as more fortunate children if they are taught properly. In other words, we believe that an instructional program geared to the specialized needs of these children, sensitively administered, resourcefully implemented and responsively delivered can produce the desired results. We reject the position held by some that there is a genetic inferiority which contributes to the failure of these children. to learn. We also reject the theory that the negative forces rampant in the environments of these children produce permanent and irreversible learning impairment. As potent as these forces are, they can be overcome with an instructional program adequately supported and intelligently delivered. Further, and very importantly, it can be done through the public school systems, despite the myriad of problems which they now confront, and contrary to the hypercriticism from which they suffer. TEACHER AIDES The Kansas City program is multifaceted. However, there are at least three features which seem to us to be essential. Effective and ample instructional force must be created. This was accomplished by the use of lay aides to the teacher. Senator MONDALE. What is the adult-student ratio in your schools? Dr. WHEELER. Well, we in the inner city, the average pupil-teacher ratio is about 30.1. And in the elementary grades, we have one per teacher, and beyond the third grade, we have one teacher aide for two teachers. So this is not an extravagant thing. I might comment also that we don't, we are not avid subscribers to the fact that the smaller the classes, the better the quality of instruction. We just have not agreed that the quality of instruction is improved, that that is a crucial factor in improving instruction. I think that there are some other things that are crucial. Although many Federal guidelines and much Federal legislation encourage the training of teacher aides by colleges and universities, we have retained the responsibility for the training programs. This decision arose from the logic that relevance would be most easily preserved if the educational institution responsible for the delivery of the educational program also assumed responsibility for the training of its personnel. Implicit in this decision, of course, was a rejection of the idea that the seats of all educational wisdom are located at the higher education levels. I suppose that there is some cynicism in that statement, but I hope that the committee will allow it because of its truths. What I am Senator MONDALE. I think there has been a good deal of resistance to teachers' aides from some education people but I gather that you found that these are very helpful people. You can train them right in the schools? Dr. WHEELER. I think that is part of the point I would like to draw, Senator. But in addition to that, the colleges and universities are at least one step further removed from the boondocks where the operation really takes place. And as a consequence of that, many times they are not as intimately familiar with the kinds of nuances that operate throughout the educational task. Furthermore, I think the evidence for that is that I don't know of a major college or university which has inserted into its teachertraining program, those pieces of knowledge which we are now fairly secure in, in terms of what is needed regarding professional competence for teaching inner-city children. There are some that have a scattered course here and there that they present to the teachers on a voluntary basis. The result is that when the teachers come to the school districts from up in the teachertraining institutions, we find that we have to hold their hands and watch them pretty closely for about 5 years. TEACHER CORPS Senator MONDALE. Do you have a Teachers' Corps? Senator MONDALE. Was that useful? Dr. WHEELER. But in Kansas City it was substantially different than some of the Teachers Corps operating in the rest of the country. That is probably the reason we had some conflict with the sponsoring agencies, and as of today we do not have a Teacher-Training Corps. Some did not agree with us and found it did not meet our guidelines in keeping our philosophy intact. Senator MONDALE. Who was the prime sponsor of your Teacher Corps? Dr. WHEELER. I think the Teacher Corps was connected to the Office of Teacher Education. Senator MONDALE. State or Federal? Dr. WHEELER. Federal. It was a Federal program. PROGRAMED INSTRUCTION Dr. WHEELER. Second, we recognized that the reading program would have to be delivered through a strategy which would permit considerable opportunity for individualized instruction. Consequently, we adopted a programed reading series. Programed reading series also forced teachers to operate the classroom in a radically different manner than they had been doing previously. It is not possible to use a programed series and sit behind the desk. You have to find out what the difficulties are that the students are having. That is one reason we adopted this. I don't mean to leave the impression that the programed series is the only way to effectively teach reading. I am saying we felt it necessary to make this choice to accomplish this program, to teach the teachers with the responsibility for their instruction. I am not advertising programed series. Third, and perhaps most important, a continuous inservice training program for teachers was designed. Great care was given to finding solutions to educational problems encountered by the teachers in the classroom. Professional and other resources were turned toward this activity as a first priority item for their application. Again, while we sometimes profitably collaborated with the colleges and universities, we retained the basic prerogatives for program design and direction. I want to point out that we haven't given up at all yet on the ability of the colleges and universities to help us with inner-city education. We think they have to understand the problems as we pose them in the terms that we perceive them. We think a merge between our insights and their resources can produce an effective program that really becomes productive. In Kansas City we know that we have not completely solved the educational problems of the inner city. But we have made a very significant and encouraging beginning. We are also confident that if provided with adequate financial resources we will be able to produce comparable results as we expand to other subject matter areas. Expansion, however, will call for great assistance. We think now that we have made a significant beginning in reading so that we can begin to attend to the needs of the children in social studies, for example. We felt it would be folly to begin to emphasize achievement in social studies and history and even mathematics so long as these kids were suffering from inability to read. FEDERAL FUNDS FOR COMPENSATORY EDUCATION First and most fundamental, there needs to be a substantial increase in the funds allocated to the Federal compensatory educational programs. The justification lies in the fact that at the present time |