Prelude to a New Push

Buoyed by the ease with which he secured one of the most far-reaching federal-aid-to-education acts in U.S. history, Lyndon Johnson last week assembled some 700 of the nation's most imaginative educators and nonacademic civic leaders for a White House Conference on Education. The size and scope of the two-day meeting led to one clear conclusion: the nation's top teacher is planning another big federal push into education, perhaps next year, and is reaching for both ideas and support.

It was the first such conference since Dwight Eisenhower called one ten years ago. Yet there were major differences --notably in the men assembled to scrutinize the nation's schooling. Eisenhower's conference was dominated by public-school administrators, school-board representatives, and such vested interests as the National Education Association. More in evidence at the Johnson meeting was a new breed of outside innovators, such as Carnegie Corp. President John Gardner who served as chairman; U.S. Education Commissioner Francis Keppel, who does not even hold a graduate degree; and a host of university-oriented reformers, ranging from James B. Conant to President John H. Fischer of Columbia University's Teachers College.

New Concerns. Educators' concerns have also shifted dramatically in the decade. The most debated issue in 1955 was the role of the Federal Government in public-school education; this year's conferees took federal involvement for granted. The earlier conference concentrated on such grand and general topics as what schools should teach and what were the nation's educational goals. More pragmatic in nature were the 18 themes--ranging from dropouts to teacher training--discussed this year during the sectional meetings held at Washington's Statler-Hilton. Underlying them all was an issue scarcely discussed a decade ago: how to equalize the educational opportunity of the Negro.

Panel members eagerly heeded the admonition of Chairman Gardner that they were there "not to be lectured at but to be heard." The topic that stirred the conference's loudest and sharpest clash was the notion that federal grants may be followed by federal testing to assess educational results. Warned Commissioner Keppel: "The nation's taxpayers and their representatives in Congress will want to know--and have every right to know--whether that investment is paying off." John I. Goodlad, director of U.C.L.A.'s University Elementary School, proposed a highly selective sample testing of a representative few students and the use of computers to break the results into age groups, regions and types of schools. The aim: to rate groups not individuals, and thus pinpoint educational "soft spots."

Some conferees were not impressed. "We have two monsters now: College Entrance Examinations and Merit Scholarship tests," protested St. Paul School Superintendent Donald Dunnan. "They are keeping the young from developing anything except intellectual conformity." The U.S., insisted former Sarah Lawrence President Harold Taylor, should "abolish all this testing and concentrate on teaching."

Everything Upside-Down. A grim picture emerged of unchecked decline in the quality of big-city schools. Administrators, it was charged, are failing to face the implications of the sociological revolution now under way in U.S. urban life. A primary need, many scholars agreed, is top executive and intellectual talent on big-city boards of education. "Everything is upside-down," summed up former Political Science Professor Hubert Humphrey. "The better schools are in the better areas, and the poor schools are in the poor areas. I'm not asking that those on the top receive less. But a nation which believes in justice must see that those on the bottom receive more."

The conferees saw no surefire means to solve the central problem of urban change: school segregation, which has merely shifted focus from legally enforced separation to de facto segregation. Nearly every metropolitan area reports an increase in segregated schools as a result of housing patterns. For a start, proposed Pittsburgh School Superintendent Sidney Marland Jr., there ought to be a drastic redrawing of school districts in major cities and their suburbs.

Only Nibbling. What is obviously needed is fresh approaches to such problems. Yet, noted Keppel, "We have been nibbling at innovation." The educators agreed that new ideas in teaching are tried out in only 15% of the nation's schools, and that teachers should have more freedom to experiment.

After announcing an innovation of his own--worldwide fellowships for work by students at the U.N. as a memorial to Adlai Stevenson--President Johnson pledged himself to take on an immense amount of homework. He promised to read all the reports emerging from the conference.

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