Shock in West Virginia

Though their state ranks only No. 41 in the amount it spends on each pupil, West Virginians have long balked at putting any more money into their schools. Last week, in his "state of the state" message to the legislature. Governor Cecil Underwood finally made a proposal he never dared make before--a bill to give education an additional $15 million a year in state funds. Reason for his sudden boldness: the shock felt throughout the state by the revelations of a 476-page document called the Feaster Report.

The result of an 18-month survey led by Dean Eston K; Feaster of West Virginia University's College of Education, the report gave West Virginia (pop. 1,900,000) little cause for pride. Even taking into consideration the shocking fact that the state's pupils rank five points below the national average in IQ, youngsters still do not begin to accomplish all they could. In scholastic achievement, ninth-graders are nearly two years behind the national norm. Third-graders lag by half a year, sixth-graders by a year and a quarter, twelfth-graders by nine-tenths of a year.

Easy Does It. While the schools score above average in the number of basic courses they offer, these courses are getting fewer and fewer takers. General enrollment has risen 26% since 1945, but with the exception of first-year algebra (up 11%) and solid geometry (up 28%), the number of pupils in all other mathematics and science courses has slumped. Physics is down 10%, chemistry 17%. Other academic subjects have also suffered: enrollment in social studies, which include one required year of U.S. history, has dropped 9%; first, second and third-year Latin are down an average 20%; fourth-year Latin is not offered at all.

What sort of courses have the greatest appeal? Typing is up 19%, shorthand 7 1/2%, and something called Office Practice a huge 139%. Orchestra--i.e., serious instrumental music--is down 27%, but Band is up 138%. The fastest growing course of all: Driver Education, which now has seven times as many pupils as it did ten years ago.

How to Be Bored. As if the figures were not bad enough, the Feaster Report has some bitter words to say about pupil and teacher attitudes. "Regardless of the types of schools the pupils have come up through, however much interest in learning a very significant proportion (36%) of them had in grades six and eight is completely, or almost completely, gone by the twelfth grade . . . When more than three out of every four seniors in four large high schools call schooling exasperating and tedious, the situation is too serious to be laughed off."

The state of mind of the teachers is even worse. While the pupils at least took part of the blame for their apathy, "only one teacher even insinuated that the faculty might not always be blameless. The most alarming symptom was [the teachers'] fatalistic attitude toward pupil deficiencies and derelictions. The charge most frequently lodged against pupils for not studying, for instance, was 'they don't know how to study.' The tone of the accusation and of the teachers' elaboration on it was one of resignation to fate, of washing their hands of responsibility . . . Until teachers become imbued with the attitude that pupil deficiencies in minimum essentials are the unfinished business of every teacher, the situation in West Virginia will grow progressively worse."

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