DIY History | Transcribe | Campus Culture | State University of Iowa Human Rights Committee first annual report and correspondence, 1963 | Increasing the Quantity and Quality of Negro Enrollment in College Page 6

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State University of Iowa Human Rights Committee first annual report and correspondence, 1963

Increasing the Quantity and Quality of Negro Enrollment in College Page 6

Negro College Enrollment  275

With the middle class moving to the suburbs) has brought about expanding slums with heavy concentrations of Negroes, Puerto Ricans, and other minorities. The children of these residents of run-down neighborhoods are largely attending schools in which too little is expected of them and achieved by them. 
   Of equal, if not greater importance, we learned that attacking the problem at the 12th grade level only scratched the surface, helping the relatively few survivors, those with enough native ability and drive for education to overcome the effects of early deprivation. These two concepts seem relatively simple and even obvious now. If any one proclaimed them back in 1955, that proclamation eluded us; yet they go to the very core of the problem and earlier identification and educational stimulation of able but deprived children.
   The first opportunity for NSSFNS to test out these now conclusions came in New York City with the appointment of the Board of Education's Commission on Integration in 1955. This body was appointed by the Board in response to concerted demand, from both within and outside Negro and Puerto Rican neighborhoods, for an end to de facto segregated schools and to the inequality of educational opportunity offered in them. Preceding the appointment of the Commission, a study5 by the Public Education Association, also commissioned by the Board, had confirmed the existence of a large number of racially homogeneous schools, as well as the substantially lower scholastic achievement in the predominantly Negro schools, compared to the city-wide average.
   As a member of the Commission on Integration and chairman of its sub-commission on guidance, educational stimulation and placement, the President of NSSFNS introduced into the sub-commission's recommendations much that had been learned in the NSSFNS program. One of these recommendations proposed a demonstration guidance project in a junior and senior high school, for the early identification and educational stimulation of students from deprived families. The measure of the success of the Project was defined as the increase in college enrollment from Project classes over pre-Project classes from these schools.6
   The project, now pretty generally known among educators, began in Manhattan's Junior High School 43 and in George Washington High school, in the fall of 1956, co-sponsored by the New York City Board of Education, the College Entrance Examination Board, and NSSFNS. Since Dr. Wright-

5 Center for Human Relations, New York University, The Status of the Public School Education of Negro and Puerto Rican Children in New York City(New York: Public Education Association, 1955)
6 The commission on Integration, Toward the Integration of Our Schools( New York: Board of Education of the City of New York, 1958).

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Negro College Enrollment 275 With the middle class moving to the suburbs) has brought about expanding slums with heavy concentrations of Negroes, Puerto Ricans, and other minorities. The children of these residents of run-down neighborhoods are largely attending schools in which too little is expected of them and achieved by them. Of equal, if not greater importance, we learned that attacking the problem at the 12th grade level only scratched the surface, helping the relatively few survivors, those with enough native ability and drive for education to overcome the effects of early deprivation. These two concepts seem relatively simple and even obvious now. If any one proclaimed them back in 1955, that proclamation eluded us; yet they go to the very core of the problem and earlier identification and educational stimulation of able but deprived children. The first opportunity for NSSFNS to test out these now conclusions came in New York City with the appointment of the Board of Education's Commission on Integration in 1955. This body was appointed by the Board in response to concerted demand, from both within and outside Negro and Puerto Rican neighborhoods, for an end to de facto segregated schools and to the inequality of educational opportunity offered in them. Preceding the appointment of the Commission, a study5 by the Public Education Association, also commissioned by the Board, had confirmed the existence of a large number of racially homogeneous schools, as well as the substantially lower scholastic achievement in the predominantly Negro schools, compared to the city-wide average. As a member of the Commission on Integration and chairman of its sub-commission on guidance, educational stimulation and placement, the President of NSSFNS introduced into the sub-commission's recommendations much that had been learned in the NSSFNS program. One of these recommendations proposed a demonstration guidance project in a junior and senior high school, for the early identification and educational stimulation of students from deprived families. The measure of the success of the Project was defined as the increase in college enrollment from Project classes over pre-Project classes from these schools.6 The project, now pretty generally known among educators, began in Manhattan's Junior High School 43 and in George Washington High school, in the fall of 1956, co-sponsored by the New York City Board of Education, the College Entrance Examination Board, and NSSFNS. Since Dr. Wright- 5 Center for Human Relations, New York University, The Status of the Public School Education of Negro and Puerto Rican Children in New York City(New York: Public Education Association, 1955) 6 The commission on Integration, Toward the Integration of Our Schools( New York: Board of Education of the City of New York, 1958).