Section I of this report was issued previously as a slightly different Summary A publication of the NATIONAL CENTER FOR EDUCATIONAL STATISTICS A. M. MOOD, Assistant Commissioner F. C. NASSETTA, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Superintendent of Documents Catalog No. FS 5.238:38001 U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE WASHINGTON: 1966 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402 - Price $4.25 144127 THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES THE PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE The attached report is submitted in response to Section 402 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964: SEC. 402. The Commissioner shall conduct a survey and make a report to the President and the Congress, within two years of the enactment of this title, concerning the lack of availability of equal educational opportunities for individuals by reason of race, color, religion, or national origin in public educational institutions at all levels in the United States, its territories and possessions, and the District of Columbia. The survey requested in this legislation has been conducted. Its major findings will be found in brief form in the summary section of this report. For those desiring more detailed information, a comprehensive presentation is provided in the eight sections of the full report. The full report also describes in detail the survey design and procedures and the types of tests used; it contains copies of the questionnaires administered to superintendents, principals, teachers, and students as part of the study. In carrying out the survey, attention was paid to six racial and ethnic groups: Negroes, American Indians, Oriental Americans, Puerto Ricans living in the continental United States, Mexican Americans, and whites other than Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans often called "majority" or simply "white." These terms of identification are not used in the anthropological sense, but reflect social categories by which people in the United States identify themselves and are identified by others. Stated in broadest terms, the survey addressed itself to four major questions. The first is the extent to which the racial and ethnic groups are segregated from one another in the public schools. The second question is whether the schools offer equal educational opportunities in terms of a number of other criteria which are regarded as good indicators of educational quality. The attempt to answer this elusive question involves describing many characteristics of the schools. Some of these are tangible, such as numbers of laboratories, textbooks, libraries, and the like. Some have to do with the curriculums offeredacademic, commercial, vocational and with academic practices such as the administering of aptitude and achievement tests and "tracking" by presumed ability. Other of these aspects are less tangible. They include the characteristics of the teachers found in the schools-such things as their education, amount of teaching experience, salary level, verbal ability, and indications of attitudes. The characteristics of the student bodies are also assessed, so far as is possible within the framework of the study, so that some rough descriptions can be made of the socioeconomic backgrounds of the students, the education of their parents, and the attitudes the pupils have toward themselves and their ability to affect their own destinies, as well as their academic aspirations. A Only partial information about equality or inequality of opportunity for education can be obtained by looking at the above characteristics, which might be termed the schools' input. It is necessary to look also at their output-the results they produce. The third major question, then, is addressed to how much the students learn as measured by their performance on standardized achievement tests. Fourth is the attempt to discern possible relationships between students' achievement, on the one hand, and the kinds of schools they attend on the other. My staff members and the consultants who have assisted them on this project do not regard the survey findings as the last word on the lack of equal educational opportunities in the United States. But they do believe that sufficient care has gone into this survey and into the interpretation of its results to make the findings useful to those who are concerned with public education in the United States. The report does not include any recommendations of what policies or programs should be mounted by Federal, State, or local government agencies in order to improve educational opportunity in the light of the findings. In the months ahead, the U.S. Office of Education will use its own staff and seek the help of advisors to determine how it can use the results of the survey to enhance the educational opportunities of all citizens of the United States. We encourage other public and private groups to do likewise, and we will gladly cooperate with others who are seeking constructive courses of action based on the survey reported here. HAROLD HOWE II, U.S. Commissioner of Education. JULY 2, 1966. |