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Show Page 6 EDUCATION DAMN THE SCHOOL BOARD Balogan summed up the general feeling of those present when he A mass meeting was called Monday evening, April 27 at 8 p.m. at Central City to discuss education problems in Central City and financial problems in the Central City Center. The center is currently operating without a budget or necessary funds to carry out programs. Some educational problems include: 1)Closing the schools in Central City and busing students to outlaying schools; 2) There are more minority students out of high school than in school; 3) Children as young as six years old are being expelled; 4) Vital classes such as math, English, etc. are being cut from the curriculum of problem students. Balogan Muntu urged all parents and concerned residents to come and get involved with Center activities. There are too few volunteers for successful problems. Shirley Woodward, Center coordinator explained that the public school system is a machine which has broken down and needs repair. “If the children aren’t being educated, the schools might as well be closed,” she continued. She pointed out that there are more Chicano’s in the State Industrial School than in public schools as a result of being kicked out of public schools and subsequently punished for not attending. She advised the recent issue at West High is only one small example of the treatment minority and poverty children are receiving. : A system which expells six, eight and 12 year olds is sick and in need of help. The inter city schools are filled with inferior teachers and poor said, “Damn the school board and their appointed task force. We want a people’s task force.” The public is urged to attend the rally on Thursday evening and make their desires known to the board and the public school system. funds. He also stated that 90% of the teachers in Utah of BYU and could teach black students just manner. This unfair treatment are graduates not possibly in a fair and also leads to in employment and in the courts. Balogan told the audience that VISTA is sponsored locally by the Board of Education which has made this program ineffective and accounts for it being suspended. After many opinions from the floor and a great deal of open discussion, it was decided that a rally should be held Thursday, April 30 at which time the Board of Education would be invited to Central City and confronted with specified documented complaints and grievences and demands would be made to the board. Mr. Wes Bowen, news reporter for KSL urged those present to “lean on the news media” for full and fair coverage. He said most reporters were simply not involved or aware. Ethel Halechallenged this attitude, saying it was the responsibility of the news media to get the facts and report them and it was not up to the people to do this for them. | Mr. James Dooley, NAACP, said one of the most important actions to be taken was to get minority representation on the school board. Agtes aes soley SS oF ee v bE Fg students to leave school. d. Eliminate bordeom. Too many traditional classroom practices are , boring to students. Newer ways need to be found to involve students in such courses as language, history, and_ science. Boredom, along with home difficulties, is perhaps the greatest REPORT OF CITIZENS COMMITTEE reason students drop out. 6. Put children on the right path to begin with. Beginning in elementary school children need to be On January 3, 1970 a Utah citizen’s committee was formed to study and make recommendations on the problems of dropouts and related problems. The full name of the committee is “Committee on Boredom, Dropouts and Curriculum Relevance.’’ Its chairman is Mrs. Ruby J. Price, an elementary school teacher from Layton, Utah. There are twelve members of this committee, representing a cross section of counties in Utah. On April 23, 1970 the committee met with representatives from the State Office of Public Instruction to deliver its report. Earlier the group had met with State Senate President Haven delivered Barlow and had preliminary report. J. a The following is the report which was delivered to the State Advisory Committee on Vocational and Technical Education. A 15- POINT PROGRAM FOR SCHOOL CHANGE facilities, she advised. Mrs. Woodward stated that 80% of employment, health and housing problems are the direct result of poor education. Balogan urged all parents with complaints to phone or write the Board of Education or the Center. Mr. Glenn Edwards, Central City businessman, suggested a law suit be brought against the Board of I;ducation. This would force national attention and_ possible freezing or withdrawing of Federal 4. Lossen up graduation standards and _ accreditization standards. Students can, in measure, set their own graduation standards, in conjunction with counsellors. Some students need to pursue more vocational skills in school. .Eliminate the fixed curriculum. It is causing many If our schools do not meet the challenges presented by the unrest of our times they are in danger of revolution from within. Rebellions of students in high schools and junior high schools are starting to occur in many states, including Utah. Everyone has been waiting for leadership to arise to begin these changes. Upon talking to many principals, vice-principals, superintendents, we get the feeling that everyone is waiting for someone else to initiate the changes. Our committee feels that the state office of Instruction should assume the main leadership in this reformation. Beginning now, so that changes will begin with the 1970-1971 school year, we advocate implementation of the following fifteen points: 1. A massive communication effort, beginning on the state level, using all the news media available, to inform and listen to citizens. An experience recently in the Salt Lake City School District shows the unwillingness of the public to endorse little-understood programs is to the point. The usual stories about pets being brought to a first grade classroom are not enough. 2. More money spent is not the whole answer. Adding programs in addition to our present ones is not the answer. Much of what we are. doing is wrong and needs to be stopped. A change of tactics is needed more than increasing the school budget. 3. One aspect of the so-called reformation which nearly every leading educator agrees upon is that the pupil has got to be allowed greater responsibility _ for engineering his own learning. All efforts on the part of teachers and administrators must support this premise. trained, or allowed, to understand that they are the masters of their own learning. They need to be allowed, as they grow older, to gain greater and greater ability in engineering their own learning program, so that they will come to see learning as a life-long practice. Many of the students at a Salt Lake City high school were recently given a program entailing a large amount of freedom, and some pupils were unable to use. needs, at best, to maintain a policy of laissez faire with respect to private education. A private elementary school of the Summerhill-type was recently suppressed largely due to a letter from a high figure in the State Office of Education, in which school officials unwilling to look inwardly ways of develop But the greater part of the ae and dropout problem is the part that, holding these like the iceberg, lies neneath the surface of the water. The fact that program. For too long the entire many of our students find it blame has been placed upon the necessary to dropout in order to student, often a member of a survive is telling us a lot about the who remain in_ the minority group or _ deprived students environment. There is no place in classroom, subjected to the same our society for a drop out to go. curriculum which drove many of Principals need to clearly feel their ‘their classmates out of school. right of leadership in adapting the curriculum to meet the needs of the student. 14. Homework, and the resultant lowering of grades to those who fail to do it, causes many students to eventually drop out of school. To it youngsters in some kind of relevant intelligently because of the way they had been taught all through elementary school and junior high school. There needs to be continuity in our _ educational philosophy. 7. Children need to be allowed to fail. In a child-oriented program such as we are suggesting, children will often fail. Teachers will need to overlook many failures and seeming periods ofchaosin the classroom, if children are to be allowed to take over great responsibility for engineering their own _ learning. Many cherished school marm notions may have to be discarded, among which may be report cards, the usual lesson plans, and bell-scheduling. 8. Encourage private schools in Utah. Both vocational and humanities-oriented types of private schools need full support in our state. They are sadly lacking for those who wish to utilize them. The State Board of Education and the legislature because he debunked this mode of schooling. We could learn things from private schools. 9. State officials need to visit districts often. These visits should be in the nature of learning experiences for the official rather than the other way around. State personnel should frequently talk to students, in groups or as individuals, to get a clear picture of the life of the student. Too often, it is feared, a visit into a classroom is Letters to the Edueation most students it is detestible, and clearly gets out of bounds at times. We urge the state to make a clear statement about too much mandatory homework, even to the point of recommending that some students be relieved of it completely if it is necessary to keep them in school. 15. Summary: It is past the time for a prophet crying in the wilderness. We have had these for a long time. Now it is time to do something so that the 1970-1971 school year will come up something different. Crime can greatly be reduced by eliminating the dropout. The dropout philosophy, if we can call it that, is not very” well thought out. It is without a doubt, a very expensive program. LT aa IR 7th PRINTING! Editor Editor: I attended the mass meeting Monday evening and I would like to say that if the teachers threatened to walk off their jobs unless the West High teacher is re-instated, let. them walk. I am tired to my bones, of being pushed around. I am tired of my children being treated unfairly at school. I am tired of the racisim in Utah. This state is one of _the worse for discrimination and prejudice. I want to see something done now. I am tired of waiting. Drop-Outs “As refreshing as it is revolutionary... More and more minority students are leaving the educational system. The common. term for these youngsters is “drop-out”. A The kind of book that can be igmore fitting name would be nored only at the peril of those ‘‘push-outs’’. A system, too who ignore it.”—Washington Star. concerned with conformity and “This challenging, liberating book © acceptable behavior patterns, will can unlock not only teachers but not tolerate a student who doesn’t anyone for whom language and fit into the pre-conceived mold. It learning are not dead.”’—Nat Hentoff. is a system which pushes aside some white students also, labeling them ““deprived’’, ‘“‘behaviorally disorder’, ‘‘delinquent’’ or “unteachable”’. Salt Lake City schools are presently under attack by the NAACP, SOCIO, UNAC and the Utah Welfare Rights Organization for repeated incidents of racism on the part of teachers and the high rate of minority and _ poverty by Neil Postman not a true indication of what usually goes on. 10. Establish greater rapport between students and administrators. The gulf between the two is often too big, and students are unable to communicate with school leaders. Ideally, a principal should set aside a day a week to chat with small groups of students, as well as meet with formally organized student - government groups. Students should feel that adults are on “their side.” ll. Eliminate the droput. We should make him extinct. The term and Charles is obnoxious and a stigma to any Weingartner _ young person. No longer will we as | $5.95 at bookstores citizens tolerate the practice of delacorte press turning children who bored, failing, DELL PUBLISHING CO.. INC. or truant out of our schools iit TEACHING _ SUBVERSIVE children leaving school. Statistics prove -problems exist in the inter City schools, West compared with 122 students eaving school at South, 92 leaving 23 at Highland. to 29 at East and |