Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1958-02-23
BY HUGH A. MULLIGAN
Associated Press stan Writer

BY HUGH A. MULLIGAN
Associated Press stan Writer
: NEW YORK.-In James Hill
tons classic tribute to teachers.
Mr.. Chips has his finest hour
soothing student fears while the
bombs fall on Britain. Today, his
real life counterpart here in New
York, scorned by a hard core Of
.teen-aged terrorists as MIR.
Chump." enjoys no such finest
hour. But he does have his mo-
ments-swallowing his own fears
when a stink bomb eruptS in the
closet or a bomb scare emptieS the
building.
Like Mr.. Chips, he still hears
his name fall from youthful lips.
But there's a sneer in the air
now, and, too often an insult i'm
piled if not expressed.
Mr.. = is an S. o. b." pro-
claims a lipstick inscription in
the girls lavatory at Manhattan
-. high school.
Others have been called worse,
far worse not often to their
faces, since this would call for
official action-but in carvings on
desks, in scrawls on walls and in
books. in shouts down crowded
stairways.
Dreams Destroyed
Confidential interviews with
dozens of teachers, administra-
tors. policemen. janitors and
others touched by the problem
make it clear that times indeed
have changed since Mr.. Chips
presided at the blackboard. DIED.
: icated men and women, willing
to reconcile a teachers pay with
teaching rewards, have seen their
college dreams of opening the
doors of knowledge to some back
ward child dissolve into a night
mare struggle for discipline.
This has been building for a
long time" confided department
head in one Of the troubled
schools. THE wonder always is
how the good kids remain un-
touched by the blight"
Said a janitor in junior high
school: The teachers Just seem
to have lost control. They're on
the run"
Last year New York City spent
more than a half billion dollars
educating some 950,0C0 children
in its 913 public schools. In
the same year police counted
1928 incidents of crime and
violence on school property. Nearly
two out of every three schools
had at least one criminal incident,
but some so schools. located in
what sociologists call "culturally
deprived" areas-usually Negro,
Puerto Rican or racially chang
ing neighborhoods = monopolized
the list.
With the 1858 spring term bare
ly under way. the list already in
cludes three rapes. two knifings,
a school gang caught plotting a
bank robbery, teacher fleeing to
closet from club-brandishing
youths, monitor beaten I'M
conscious in a cafeteria fight, an
assistant principal assigned to
other duties because gang
!. threatened his life, exposure of
smut ring peddling pornography
In the classroom.
The board of education esti-
mates that only about per
cent Of the students in its schools
can be classified as hard-core
troublemakers. But in a city the
size Of New York this means
nearly 10000 rough, tough GUS
toners.
The issue stirred widespread at
tention when Principal George
Goddard of Brooklyn's John Mar
shall Junior High School-where
q l3-year-old girl had been raped
-JuulIJtu W ilAo dNdbll VII biAN
morning he was to appear for the
third time before a special Brook
Ign grand jury investigating school
crime. The jury's recommended
ton that a policeman be assigned
to every school was vigorously OPP
posed by the board of education,
but on the night before he died.
Mr. Goldfarb had written a letter
asking that his school be added to
40 others already under police
protection
Most teachers were extremely
reluctant to talk. lest they be sum-
moned before the grand jury or
the board.
But in confidential interviews
they blamed New York's woes on
a variety of causes:
Broken homes. working parents,
back-patting' children's courts, a
State law requiring school at
tendance until age IT, starry
eyed educators who think all
children are educable, "continu-
Gus progress" policy that pro-
notes and even graduates children
OF low ability and performance.
wishy-washy principals who would