Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1958-06-24
Schools and Our Future

Although II offers nothing essen
TALLY new In either It's findings or recon-
mendations, the latest report of the
Rockefeller Brothers Fund serves as
another good and timely warning on the
imperative need for prompt and far
reaching action to reform and REIN
vigorate our American educational sys-
tenn. Certainly, as the system now
stands, 1t is woefully ill-equipped to give
our young people-from grade school
on up-the kind Of schooling they must
have II they are to cope effectively with
the enormous challenges and opportu-
mites inherent in this unprecedented
age Of swift-moving change.
One measure of the problem, but
only one, can be found In the fact that
our country, which is already bedeviled
with the educational strains of over
crowded classrooms, shortage of COM
petent teachers and kindred headaches
implicit in our rapidly growing popu-
lation, must reckon with the following
prospect: Elementary school enroll
ments will rise from some % million to-
day to about "a million by 1960-6l. BY
1869 high schools will be deluged with so
to 70 per cent more students than they
can now accommodate; by 1875, our col
leges and universities will face at least
a doubling and in some cases a TRIPPING
OF present enrollments."
These are statistics that speak for
themselves. Quite obviously, In the
words Of the Rockefeller study, they
mean that "our schools will need greatly
increased public support and attention,
and much more money. But they also
need something besides money: An I'M
sparing determination of current prac-
tices, patterns of organization and OBJ
1ectives." In short, as the Funds ex-
perts see the situation Immediately
ahead, I'VE are moving into the most
demanding era Of our history" and our
country will be flirting with disaster
unless we build for the future in edu-
cation as daringly and aggressively as
we have built other aspects of our ma
tional life in the past"
AS for the financial phase of the
problem, the Fund report, while declar-
Ing that continuing and growing Fed
eral aid seems at once to be inevitable
and necessary, warns that there must be
"a thorough, painful, politically coura-
geouS overhaul of State and local tax
systems" If sufficient money is to be
raised to expand school facilities and
increase the supply of competent teach
ers on the scale and in the numbers
needed. But beyond that, and even
more important, the study emphasizes
that there must be changes In instruc-
tional techniques, guidance methods
and curricula to inSure-without i'm
pairing the equality of educational OPP
portunity-that talented youngsters will
move ahead in keeping with their capa-
bilities instead of being held back by
the slower learning pace of the mass.
On this latter point the Rockefeller
experts have not Endorsed the idea that
"elite" schools should be established for
the mentally gifted. Even so, they have
put heavy stress on the desirability of
taking special pains to develop the po-
tentialitieS Of such students. This is
only one of the reports many recon-
mendations, but it is perhaps the most
significant, and it should have the most
earnest attention not merely of educa-
tors but Of the American people as a
whole. After all, the future well-being
and safety Of the Nation will depend
primarily on its brain power.