Uniform Pupil Standards Unrealistic Education Goal

BY JOHN W. LETSON

A major goal of the Atlanta Public Schools' instructional program is to assist pupils to reach and to maintain a high level of scholastic achievement. Them is no uniform standard pupils are expected to reach. There is a simple reason for this. Pupils are not uniform in their ability, background, motivation or desire to learn. Every effort is made to assist each pupil to achieve as much as he possibly can--as rapidly as he possibly can, and as a rule the better the teaching the wider is the spread of individual pupil achievement.

All Atlanta schools have pupils achieving both above and below an age-grade standard which quite simply is an average. Obviously this is the way an average is determined--some above and some below. Maintaining a standard of excellence based upon characteristics of each individual pupil requires standards of excellence in teaching. What happens to a pupil in school is directly related to the activities of the teachers with whom he comes in contact.

Improvement of instruction is accomplished as teachers and administrators continue to improve their competence.

Several years ago the Atlanta schools began an extensive program to bring about the continuous improvement of teaching. A career development teachers' salary scale was implemented to provide incentive.

The Board of Education adopted a leave policy which provided teachers and others an opportunity to work toward a doctor's degree. Since 1960 the number of personnel in the school system holding earned doctorates has increased to 28.

A significant effort to help alleviate obvious and complicated problems facing teachers has been the program of in-service classes. These sessions are designed to encourage improved practices in the classroom.

Of the approximately 1,700 teachers who participated in one or more of the 54 college and increment credit courses sponsored by the school system during the school year 1967-68, over 800 participated in one or more of the following: Science for Elementary Teachers, Team Teaching in the Middle Grades, Understanding of Children in a Given School, New Directions in Kindergarten, Staff Interrelatedness, Upgrading the Elementary School, Planning for Change, Cultural Understanding, Staff Utilization, and Interaction Analysis. Approximate 3,700 Atlanta teachers are participating in in-service current school year.

Efforts to improve and expand the instructional program include the establishment of 14 pre-kindergarten classes in schools located in low-income neighborhoods, employment of 225 teacher aides to assist the professional teacher in the classroom, staff additions of counselors, social workers, and curriculum assistants, and a large expansion of the opportunities available in vocational education.

Curricular offerings are under constant revision. The entire secondary school curriculum, including graduation requirements, has been revised and upgraded during the 1968-69 school year: Curricular revisions emphasize individualized instruction, set high standards of excellence in terms of individual pupil needs and abilities, provide flexibility, increase the options available to pupils for study, and make all courses more relevant to the needs and understanding of pupils.

Improving basic skills has received increased emphasis. The introduction of listening stations, programmed instruction, language laboratories, and new and revised materials for teaching speech, reading, and all arts of communication are but a few examples.

Pupil achievement is difficult to measure. With some justification, it is claimed that for many pupils existing tests reflect a cultural bias rather than measure true ability or achievement. Each year pupils move in and out of the Atlanta schools in large numbers.

Achievement scores on a citywide basis are misleading if used to show results over a period of years. A high percentage of the pupils tested a year ago are no longer enrolled.

Pupils from rural areas of Georgia and other parts of the country have moved in to take the place of pupils who have left. Several Atlanta schools had a mobility index of over 100 per cent during the 1967-68 school year.

Throughout the country scores of pupils from deprived backgrounds are usually two or three years below national averages. It should always be kept in mind, however, that there are many individual exceptions.

The changing pupil population in the Atlanta schools has greatly increased the problem of maintaining desirable achievement levels.

Atlanta's search for answers will include continued efforts to individualize instruction, to upgrade the quality of teaching, and to insist that each pupil achieve as much as possible as rapidly as possible. Many current programs are aimed at the accomplishment of these goals but the schools alone are not the complete answer.

Improvement in the quality of living generally and the elimination of poverty and its devastating effects are community goals which must also be assigned a high priority. In addition, efforts will be continued to expand pre-kindergarten opportunities, especially those which involve both children and their parents; provide adequate space for effective instruction, expand curricular offerings to better meet the needs of both college bound and non-college bound pupils, fully implement the four quarter plan for greater flexibility, maintain a pupil-teacher ratio which permits the highest quality instruction and greater involvement of parents in the activities of the schools.

There are no simple or easy answers to complex problems, but the Atlanta schools will continue to work effectively toward their solution.