What Should Our Schools Accomplish?

What should our schools accomplish? No attempt has been made to answer from the point of view of ultimate philosophical objectives which could be read into the question. The Committee has deliberately limited its considerations to the responsibilities of elementary and secondary schools in the contemporary American scène. As a lay group, the Committee has felt it inappropriate to undertake a discussion of curriculum content in specific detail. It has sought instead to reaffirm those current objectives of our schools that it believes to be desirable and to suggest those new emphases which will enable our schools to adjust to the changing needs of our society.

It is relatively easy to observe what the schools try to accomplish. The list is startling to anyone who remembers schools a generation back, even more startling to historians who recall the original task assigned to schools: the teaching of reading and ciphering. What schools try to do varies widely. People in suburbs demand different services from those expected by residents in rural areas. In spite of this, it is not difficult to draw up a list of purposes shared by most schools, however widely the technique for fulfilling them may vary. For good or ill, most modern school systems are normally asked to provide something like the following:

1. A general education as good as or better than that offered in the past, with increased emphasis on the physical and social sciences.

2. Programs designed to develop patriotism and good citizenship.

3. Programs designed to foster moral, ethical, and spiritual values.

4. Vocational education tailored to the abilities of each pupil and to the needs of community and Nation.

5. Courses designed to teach domestic skills.

6. Training in leisure-time activities such as music, dancing, avocational reading, and hobbies.

7. A variety of health services for all children, including both physical and dental inspections, and instruction aimed at bettering health knowledge and habits.

8. Special treatment for children with speech or reading difficulties and other handicaps.

9. Physical education, ranging from systematic exercises, physical therapy, and intramural sports, to interscholastic athletic competition.

10. Instruction to meet the needs of the abler students.

11. Programs designed to acquaint students with countries other than their own in an effort to help them understand the problems America faces in international relations.

12. Programs designed to foster mental health.

13. Programs designed to foster wholesome family life.

14. Organized recreational and social activities.

15. Courses designed to promote safety. These include instruction in driving automobiles, swimming, civil defense, etc.

The Growth of School Goals

During the past two generations, this list of school goals has grown with increased speed. This is a phenomenon which has excited both admiration and dismay. After several decades of experimentation, should this broadening of the goals be recognized as legitimate?

This Committee answers Yes. Nothing was more evident at the White House Conference on Education than the fact that these goals, representing as they do an enormously wide range of purposes, are the answer to a genuine public demand. These goals have, after all, been hammered out at countless school board meetings during the past quarter-century throughout the land. The basic responsibility of the schools is the development of the skills of the mind, but the overall mission has been enlarged. Schools are now asked to help each child to become as good and as capable in every way as native endowment permits. The schools are asked to help children to acquire any skill or characteristic which a majority of the community deems worthwhile. The order given by the American people to the schools is grand in its simplicity: in addition to intellectual achievement, foster morality, happiness, and any useful ability. The talent of each child is to be sought out and developed to the fullest. Each weakness is to be studied and, so far as possible, corrected. This is truly a majestic ideal, and an astonishingly new one. Schools of that kind have never been provided for more than a small fraction of mankind.

Although it is new, this ideal of schools which do everything possible for all children is a natural development in the United States. The moving spirit of this Nation has been from the beginning a sense of fairness. Nowadays equality of opportunity for adults means little without equality of educational opportunity for children. Ignorance is a greater obstacle than ever to success of most kinds. The schools have become a major tool for creating a Nation without rigid class barriers. It is primarily the schools which allow no man's failure to prevent the success of his son.

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In still another way, this new ideal for the schools is a natural development of this country: it recognizes the paramount importance of the individual in a free society. Our schools are asked to teach skills currently needed by the Nation, but never at the expense of the individual. This policy of encouraging each child to develop his individual talents will be of the greatest use to the Nation, for in the long run, if no talent is wasted in our land, no skill will be lacking. This great new goal for our schools is unanimously approved by the Committee. Two particular aspects of this goal, however, involve basic disagreements which the Committee did not resolve satisfactorily, partly because of the limited time at its disposal for complete discussion of the many intricacies of the different points of view represented on the Committee.

Religion and Segregation

The first of these problems arises from the schools' aim to foster moral, ethical, and spiritual values. Programs along these lines inevitably raise questions about the relation of these values to religious doctrines. Discussion of such programs invariably involves widely different convictions about fundamental issues of theology and about the respective responsibilities of family, church, and school in religious education.

In its approach to this problem the Committee noted two facts: (1) public schools are forbidden by law to teach sectarian religion; (2) church-related and private schools have full freedom to include religious instruction in their program of studies. The Committee also noted that the extent to which public schools may take cognizance of religious values and the manner in which religious institutions may cooperate with public schools are matters of widespread discussion and strong differences of opinion. Judicial decisions on church-state relations have clarified only small parts of the whole question. Continued study at community, State, and national levels is necessary.

The second difficult question concerns the relationship of the issue of segregation to the generally accepted goal of equal educational opportunity. This, too, is an area of conflicting opinions not entirely resolved by Supreme Court action. This Committee agrees that the great social, psychological, and organizational changes implicit in the recent decisions of the Supreme Court designed to abolish segregation in the public schools cannot be achieved with equal speed in every community. The Committee also agrees that the intent of the majority of the American people is to abolish racial segregation as soon as possible. This is a problem which must be worked out by each community in its own way within the framework of existing legal structures and the intent of the relevant Supreme Court decisions.

In view of the emotionally charged atmosphere in which questions involving both religion and segregation are sometimes discussed, this Committee notes that the present era of rapid social change offers special opportunities and makes special demands for understanding and tolerance of differing convictions. It is only in the achievement of this mood that there is hope for an ultimate meeting of minds.

In spite of the difficulties concerning the relationship of schools to religion and to segregation, it seems to this Committee that there is much more agreement than disagreement on school affairs throughout the Nation. The almost unanimous decision to broaden the goals of the schools is fundamental, and has received all too little attention. Its implications are little known and little understood. First of all, this great lifting of the sights implies greatly increased expenditures for schools. The expense must be recognized and the reasons for it explained. The ideal of schools which could do everything possible for every child remains little more than a declaration of intent, for few schools have the money, space, equipment, or personnel to make it a reality. The danger of increasing the duties of the schools without adding proportionately to their resources becomes increasingly clear. Schools which try to put the new ideal into practice on the budget of the old run the risk of doing all things a little and nothing well. This danger points up the importance of priorities in the goals of any school.

The great lifting of the sights also implies increased school personnel and a determined effort to maintain the competence of teachers. What the schools can accomplish will depend a great deal on their success in attracting to their faculties a substantial proportion of the able young men and women of each generation.

Since this Committee firmly believes that the continuance of local control of the schools is desirable, it assumes that the high goals of the schools will be pursued in different ways in different parts of the Nation. The Committee therefore limits itself to five recommendations of general application.

RECOMMENDATIONS

1. As the duties of the schools expand, the establishment of priorities in education should be studied by every board of education. This Committee believes that the development of the intellectual powers of young people, each to the limit of his capacity, is the first responsibility of schools. Beyond this basic task, all kinds of instruction are not equally important for all children, and their importance varies from community to community. This Committee also recognizes the need to invoke priorities in extracurricular activities. Athletics must be controlled, for instance, so that they serve young people rather

than use them to enhance the competitive standing of a school or community. A primary responsibility of any local school authority is to establish priorities of significance among basic general education, specialized education of all kinds, and extracurricular activities.

In this era of international stress, the United States has unusual demands for good scientists and engineers, in addition to other specialists. There is a necessity for broad understanding of the meaning of citizenship in the United States. America must have citizens who know something of other nations and are equipped to understand their own Nation's role in international affairs. These special needs can be assigned a high priority by schools which are pursuing the broad list of objectives currently demanded by the people. In adding new, worthwhile activities to the curriculum, nothing of value has to be subtracted if a proper sense of proportion is maintained and enough resources are provided.

2. Overspecialization of vocational education should be avoided. There are almost 50,000 trades in this country, and specialized instruction for all of them cannot be provided. Broadly conceived programs of vocational education must be maintained which are not likely to be outmoded rapidly by technological change and which offer basic instruction that can be useful in many jobs.

3. Just as good schools permit flexibility in this whole Nation by allowing individuals to achieve the level of accomplishment their abilities deserve, the school system must be flexible within itself. Pupils should be able to shift from one program to another as they grow and change in interests and abilities. This Committee thinks that for every child to have, throughout his school career, the chance to change to the kind of education found best for him is more important than the time saved by choosing a few pupils early in their lives for accelerated, specialized programs, as is often done in Europe. The American people have time as well as the physical resources to allow this kind of flexibility.

4. Educational programs which fully exercise and develop the abilities of especially brilliant students must be maintained. A system which wastes the talents of those who have the most to offer has no part in the new American ideal for the schools. Social equality can be maintained by the schools without hampering the intellectual progress of the unusually able. Increased stress must be placed on meeting the challenge of those students who have the capacity for the greatest intellectual growth. Improved provision for these talented young people should be the next great advance in our public school system. This Committee believes it possible to achieve this goal and still handle the tidal wave of new students which is expected. The real and fundamental manpower scarcity at the present time is a scarcity of quality and not of numbers. Consequently, the identification and careful