NEW YORK’S* SCHOOLS

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 966, 8 May 1930, Page 9

NEW YORK’S* SCHOOLS

EDUCATION SYSTEM TO BE OVERHAULED “THREE R’S” NOT GRASPED The City of New York is overhauling its school system. Critics charge it with inadequate preparation iin-the rudiments of education: failure to'Tmprove curriculum and methods in line with modern thought; low teach ing moral; and inefficient organisation. A few up-to-date facts may be a guide as to the nature of the problem of education in New York, ’there are as many children attending the schools in New York as attend those of Australia and New Zealand combined. The annual outlay is £20,000,000. A new school is opened every thirteen days. Sixty new schools are now building. There are 600,000 attending evening and vacation schools, outside the regular attendance. There are six times as many women teachers as men Accentuating the problem is the fact that 540 schcol children are killed and 14,000 injured every year by motor-cars. Civic Control Education is controlled by the civic authorities. There is uo parallel for the task of educating New York's children. They comprise, besides the natural-born American, a vast number of nationalities, Nordic and Negro. mid-European and Asiatic. The Americanisation classes alone have an attendance bordering ou half a million. Yet, with such a vast systematic operation, pupils who have sat for eight or more years in city schoolrooms and received the city’s diploma cannot pass the State tests in the essentials of arithmetic, English and geography. The high school authorities declare that the children they receive from the elementary schools are steadily decreasing in funda mental knowledge. More than 70 per cent, fail to pass preliminary tests in arithmetic, English and geography Two-thirds of every class fail in arithmetic and English. One-third of high schools fail to reach their grade and drop out. One in eight give up after the first four months. Pupils in the first grade, throughout the city, range in age from 5 to 14 years. Experts Condemn System The system has been roundly condemned by experts as having no spiritual basis, allowing '-eachernireeted class drill, and being the victim of divided authority aud autocratic high officials. If the Bill before the State Assembly and Senate is passed, it will centralise the re- j sponsibilitv where it is now ramified among numerous authorities. The average parent devoutly hopes that it will give his children a moderate knowledge of the Three R’s which | they do not appear to be able to ! acquire under present conditions. ~