Huge school districts resulting in loss o f personal approach and inabil ity to adapt the educational process to peculiar local situations. Rather, teachers and pupils are handled as so many cogs in an educational ma chine, and both groups feel that they are subservient to administra tive procedures. Taxpayer rejection o f increasing funding needs o f the schools with resultant cuts in teaching personnel and school services. Growing abdication by the schools o f any attempt to develop and sus tain moral values. Faced by paren tal opposition, organized protest groups, and court decisions which appear to place individual rights above society, the schools have of necessity given way to individual li cense in issues of ethical and moral behavior. A growing attemtp by some to use the schools for societal ends other than education, to capture the schools for ideological indoctrination. Widening acceptance o f the pupil benefit principle leading to increased tax appropriations for the provision of supplies and services to private schools. In large measure, this pro cedure has made the concept of sep aration between church and state of little consequence for application to education. New York now provides yearly subsidies for nearly one mil lion students in private schools. Pennsylvania will appropriate 30 mil lion dollars for private schools next year. Ohio instituted aid to private schools for the first time this year. Other states are taking similar ac tion. A shift in emphasis from the pe riod in American history when the schools had a primary responsibility to assimilate immigrants and func tion as a melting pot to produce a homogeneous citizenry. In contrast, some now see the desirability of di verse educational programs related to varied cultural emphases, which
EDUCATION: A NEW FACE? by Robert Posegate
American education is undergoing basic changes which will result in profound differences for the nation. So striking are these changes that they will affect the educational strat egy of every church and denomina tional group. The issues which are involved are divergent and complex. A few of these however can be identified with some precision. Growing criticism o f the effective ness o f public education. Many in vestigators have found the results to be substandard. If this be the case, it might well be in part due to the impossible task which has been as signed to the schools of seeking to teach a varied and mobile popula tion in oversize class units and with limited educational resources. What ever the cause, it is resulting in widespread dissatisfaction with the schools.
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