Mass v. Merit

The teachers of Philadelphia's Central High School had stood about all they could stand. "Students come to us," they angrily wrote the Board of Education, "without fundamental skills. They cannot read simple verse, or a prose paragraph in history and get the sense. They falter in simple arithmetical processes. . . ." The reason, said the teachers, was that "students assume they will be promoted without study."

Carefully Ignored. The Central High report, written seven years ago, had been carefully ignored. Philadelphia kept to its policy of promoting all pupils in its public-school classes, regardless of whether they had made the grade. Purpose: to keep backward students in their own age groups. Result: the dullards retarded the whole class; teaching was geared to the lowest instead of the highest common intelligence.

Last spring, in a directive to all principals, the School Board of Superintendents reasserted the city's mass-promotion policy. Immediately, all 144 faculty members of the Olney High School rose up in protest. "The directive," they declared, "implies that every pupil is to be advanced from grade to grade, regardless of attendance, behavior, or ability. The chief criterion is to be chronological age. Pupils having been exposed to this 'something-for-nothing' policy . . . will be unprepared to meet real life. . . ." Emboldened, 14 of the city's 16 high schools joined the battle. Individual teachers began to pepper the newspapers with a spatter of angry letters.

"Something Wrong." As long as he could, School Superintendent Alexander J. Stoddard kept mum. The issue was a "family matter," he insisted, and not one for public debate. To his surprise, parents of public-school pupils also began to write letters to newspapers. In a special poll, the Bulletin found that a thumping majority of them wanted to abolish the mass-promotion system. Said the 1,000 members of the Big Four Fathers' Association: "We've felt for a long time there was something wrong with the school system. Now, someone has put his finger on it." The Mothers' Discussion Group agreed.

Reluctantly, Superintendent Stoddard decided that the "family matter" was one which concerned every family in Philadelphia. Though he firmly believed in the old policy ("I have seen many a boy and girl wrecked by being held back in school"), he appointed a subcommittee of the Board of Education to investigate, ordered a public hearing.

For weeks, teachers and parents jammed the hearings--scolding, threatening, protesting. Some proposed establishing remedial schools. Some demanded special teachers to take care of dullards. Almost all insisted on merit promotions. Cried one principal: "Teachers with backward children in their classes are simply custodial agents for morons, until they can be passed on to a higher grade."

Last week, the harried subcommittee began working on a new plan to give Philadelphians what they wanted.

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