IMPRESSIONS OF PROGRAM FROM VARIOUS SOURCES

A. Reactions of the aides in group interview *

What the aides wanted to do was revealed in the interviews with them. It differed markedly from the picture gained in the classrooms. For one thing aides reported performing more functions than the study team observed. Both the Neighborhood Youth Corps trainees and the Title I trainees wanted changes made to allow them to take a more important role than planners or teachers had assigned them.

To make clear the similarities and differences between the reactions of Neighborhood Youth Corps and Title I trainees, their responses are put in parallel columns.

NEIGHBORHOOD YOUTH CORPS-TITLE I

(2 of the female trainees of Title I were white, one male was white, the others were Negroes. All Neighborhood Youth Corps trainees were Negro.)

Answers to the question: What do you do that you enjoy!

"Working projectors, because I like "Helping with art work." working with machines."

"Teaching small groups, drilling on words and sound."

"Working with slow pupils gets on my nerves."

"Working with slow groups. Helped one pupil move from 3rd to 2nd group."

"Succeeded in getting a boy to read." "Grading papers before the principal said we couldn't do it."

"Reading stories; sitting and talking to children about the stories."

"Talking quietly when the teacher talks loud."

"Making home visits."
"I took a child home."

"Bringing food for Thanksgiving.”
"Teaching singing of 'School Days'."
"Helping children practice." Several
helped one child.

All: Making and running ditto stencils.
All: Having children show money.

Answers to the question: What in the program would you like to change?
"Extend time of aides on job so aides
could get more pay."

"Teachers would like us to have more
time."

"We want to do more things than we are allowed to now."

"Do home visits; have done none yet." "Discuss how to approach parent on home visits."

"Discuss how to act when teacher is down on one child."

"Make more home visits."

"Have a common car to make visits with."

"Do learning games."

"Grade papers; 6th to 7th grade pupils
do."

"A course in modern math."
"More preservice instruction.” (many)
"Preservice instruction on use of the
bulletin board."

Answers to the question: Would you like a chance to work and continue studying part time?

Group divided: too hard to work and study at same time.

Answer to the question: Do you have enough time to talk to teachers on the job? "Yes, at recess and lunch."

To summarize the answers of the aides, they all seemed to want to engage in a more diversified program of activities than had been assigned to them. Home visits were especially pleasing to the Title I group and were desired by the Neighborhood Youth Corps. Some members of both sections of the aides liked to work with groups and also individual pupils. Neighborhood Youth Corps trainees spoke more of tasks involved in the teaching process and desired to get preparation for them than did the Title I trainees. This may have been because they had more experience in that type of work. There was evidence in the remarks of a very few that they liked to try to "show up" the teacher.

*The group interviews were conducted by the chairman of the Visitation Team.

B. Reactions of the professional teachers in group interview

Opinions and attitudes of the teachers varied considerably, but taken as a whole were favorable to the program. A few maintained that there was a period during which the children needed to get adjusted. The children in the schools had had no kindergarten experience and the teachers believed that, for that reason, the children may have been afraid the aides would not give them the same love as do the teachers. On the other hand, some teachers said their children had accepted the aides readily. In one case the aide was older than the teacher, had children of her own, and appeared to fit right in. In another case an aide who was a father quickly adapted to the classroom context, with positive results. Good things were said by a number of the teachers concerning the work of the aides: "They give individual attention to the children"; "Things seem to dovetail better; less time is spent in getting materials"; "As the aide goes around he children understand the instructions given out by the teacher better"; and, importantly, "One child who was thought to be deaf was found by the aide to be withdrawn".

Limitations, due primarily to the restrictive state law, were voiced by a few. Two said they could allow aides to do nothing related to instruction. One stated that an aide can relate, not teach. "When one of them takes charge of a group, that is teaching." A flat footed statement came from one, "Aides should be professional." Looking to the future, however, one teacher voiced the hope that the approach could be made uniform all over town. One half the teachers did not have trainees; from among them came the eager request: "When will we have aides?"

C. Restrictions expressed in T-groups * (sensitivity groups)

The T-groups served the purpose of "letting off steam” according to one family aide. They dealt with human relations rather than job-related discussion; they were essential in a project introducing new workers into an established institution because they opened up for common consideration the dynamics of role development. The session observed by the study team was attended by six members of the Neighborhood Youth Corps, six of the Title I group, four teachers, one principal, four parents, one social worker, process observers, researchers, and the discussion leader. The planners of the project had assigned to this group the function of eliciting the truth about matters which disturbed the participants, even if it proved difficult to express heir criticism and even if it might be hard to take when directed against an individual. The leader remarked at the session observed that his role was to interpret to the group why they were attacking each other or the program. Attack, analysis, and understanding seemed to be the sequence the communications took.

For example: conflict between the Neighborhood Youth Corps and the Title I group of trainees relating to the labeling of the groups in the routine of payments was brought out. The next day a human relations expert spoke to the two groups, and was followed on the succeeding day by honest communications between the group members. The more mature Title I aides and the professional participants were defensive of the school system when its routines were brought into question. Another problem the group was called upon to discuss was the feeling of job insecurity on the part of an aide, his concern over the continuity of his job, and the likelihood of political implications in the arrangements for the job. One discussion dealt with the fear of certain teachers of another adult in the classroom. Another concern of the T-groups was the charge by an aide that the teacher "is teaching Johnny wrong".

The majority of Title I aides maintained in the Group Interview that they enjoyed the T-group sessions. One lady said, "I don't like them, but they may turn out O.K. for me". There seemed to be a growing realization that the Tgroup was a method of solving problems that was not in the behavior pattern of the participants. A complaint was raised that there was an in-group and an out-group in the meetings. One aide remarked that in her T-group four or five had not spoken.

D. Reactions of superintendent of schools

"I am convinced that eventually the teacher's responsibility will be changed. The teacher's job will be to direct the process. In Illinois we are constantly

In the T-Group the visitation team were observers, not leaders. The groups were led by staff on a regular schedule after school.

reminded that we have to call aides 'clerical aides'. There must be legislation in 1967 to give aides a place in the school."

E. Reactions of visitation team

1. Requests of aides should be seriously considered: (a) to know more about the mental make up (especially emotional factors) of children before their service begins; (b) to be given more instruction in certain specific areas of their duties such as decorating the bulletin boards.

2. The request of some teachers for more training in what to expect of an aide was a valuable comment.

3. Also significant was the desire expressed by both aides and teachers that they should have time to meet as teams after working together in the classroom to review their common experience and plan together.

4. Rapport and creativity seemed to flow from the frankness of the TGroup sessions and from the dedication and ability of the instructional staff. Mr. CAREY. Will Monsignor Donohue, Monsignor McManus, and Mr. Cicco resume their testimony, and Mr. Considine?

Monsignor DONOHUE. Mr. Chairman, Congressman Carey, we had concluded our formal statement, and we are in the process of answering any questions the committee might have.

Mr. CAREY. When we recessed, I was addressing a question to the panel in general, that anyone can answer, if you will.

First, on the question of Operation Headstart, and Followthrough, what has been your experience, in terms of mounting community support, getting community support, and effectuating successful programs for Headstart and Followthrough, in your contact with the programs themselves and the public educational agencies and the community?

Monsignor DONOHUE. Yes. I would like to ask both Mr. Cicco and Monsignor McManus, who have been working on these programs ever since their inception, in both Chicago and Pittsburgh, and whose knowledge of the kind of things that you are asking is very broad, to speak to this.

First, Monsignor McManus.

Monsignor McMANUS. Mr. Carey, we have 900 children in a child development program, under a subcontract with the Chicago Committee on Economic Opportunity, which in turn is funded by the OEO. I feel that now that we are in the third year of our operation, that our experience has given us reason to claim an extraordinary degree of success.

The essential aspect, in my mind, of the child development program, is that it is much more than a child program, and much more than a school program. Three major components in our program are the master teacher, the social worker, and the family life educator. We have approximately 20 in each category, for our program, and from our experience, we are fully persuaded that we will do little good for these 4-year-old children unless we simultaneously reach their parents; and the parental response, thus far, has been most rewarding. Our discipline is strict. We are more strict with the parents than we are with the children. The parents who refuse to cooperate are at least threatened with having their children and themselves expelled from our program.

The program is operated according to OEO terms, along strictly nonsectarian lines. Children of all denominations are eligible, and the teachers are employed without regard to religious denomination.

The program, therefore, has given us a chance to respond to the call of our Government for mobilization of our best resources in the war against poverty.

We were invited to come into this, we did not seek it. And we are pleased that we have accepted the invitation. So our community responds that of all the OEO programs, that has received the widest acclaim. This perhaps is due to the appeal of the 4-year-old child, but I would attribute it as well to a deeper reason; that is, that there is mounting evidence, as we learn more and more of the science of child development, that reaching a youngster with a compensatory education program at the age of 4 and following through on it, at least to the fourth grade, at which time we would like to have the child on grade level, as I explained earlier today, fairly well guarantees that the boy or girl will not be a high school dropout. Not being a high school dropout will give this youngster an opportunity, then, to move into employment in our presently affluent society.

So I heartily endorse the child development program, and hope that it will remain under the jurisdiction of the Office of Economic Opportunity.

Monsignor DONOHUE. Mr. Cicco.

Mr. Cicco. Congressman Carey, we probably have a very unique situation in Pittsburgh. We are involved in summer Headstart. In fact, all of the Headstart programs conducted in Pittsburgh during the summer are conducted by private schools. Public schools do not conduct any summer Headstart.

Now the Catholic diocese last year served some 1,600 youngsters, and had been asked again this year to serve some 1,300 youngsters in the city of Pittsburgh under the summer Headstart program. We have been very happy to participate, and we feel that we have made a tremendous contribution to the community as evidenced by the evaluations that have been submitted by the community to the Mayor's Committee on Human Resources, through which we subcontract, and published. The evaluations have been excellent. I feel as Monsignor McManus that the followthrough is very important. This is only the beginning, and I also feel as Monsignor McManus that this program should stay under OEO, because in this area, we are able to do with more flexibility what we cannot do under ESEA. We can use our resources, and both physical and personal, to great advantage for the betterment of the community.

Mr. CAREY. Would I be correct, then, in assuming that if the recommendation that the Headstart program, in toto, be assigned to the Office of Education, and that all the programs, summer and yearround, be conducted through the system of public education, this would be an end and a writeoff of your records thus far?

Mr. Cicco. Well, all I can say, Congressman, is that at the present time, the public schools in Pittsburgh do not operate a summer Headstart program, so if it were to be placed under ESEA, under its present restrictions, then we, in fact, could not operate them.

Now, whether they would be taken up by the public schools, I don't know. I can only tell you what is happening at this time.

Monsignor DONOHUE. I think our position would be, Congressman, that if the Headstart program were transferred to the Office of Edu

cation, and its management and its implementation were restricted by title I concepts, for instance, that we would have to be strenuously opposed to it. Under title I, of course, no puble agency could contract with a private agency to conduct the program, and this would really tie our hands in offering any kind of viable, valid service to the community. Monsignor?

Monsignor MCMANUS. I recall, Congressman, a similar question in 1946, when the issue was the school lunch program. Congressman Flanagan at that time was the chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, and he asked, "If the progam were transferred from the Department of Agriculture to the Office of Education, would the parochial school children eat?" and the answer was negative.

He said, "Well, then, the lunch program will remain in the Department of Agriculture," where it remains today.

I could say the parallel fashion that if the program were transferred from the OEO to the Office of Education, the decided probability would be that the nonpublic agencies, not only the churchrelated agencies, but all the other nonpublic agencies which have made a record in this, would be denied the opportunity to respond to their Government's call in the war against poverty.

Mr. CAREY. Well, the chairman will note that because of the need for members to attend to other duties, we will be forced to suspend the hearings at this point, by reason of our inability to maintain a quorum, but in closing the hearing, let me state this: that I feel that it will be unwise for me in the chair to operate with this particular panel, anyway, which could be described as ultra vires, or in any way except in a format of meticulous legality, which is not one of the comments that I was in the chair any way cooperating in anything but a wholly constitutional and legal way and proceeding in a correct way with this particular panel, or any witness to come before the committee at this time.

However, I do want to make this statement for the record, that I feel that we have before us two problems, and one is that we must act upon a bill, and move a program by extension in order that the obviously well-working features of the program can be extended through legislative and other acts on the part of the States, and that there is need for us, therefore, to be expeditious in moving the bill.

On the other hand, in a very real sense, this bill has uncovered more problems and more depth of challenge than we probably knew was in existence when we first began our deliberations on the original bill in 1965.

Therefore, I would hope that the committee in its wisdom would engage in a more professional and more extensive reading and discovery operation on the subsurface and long-term challenges in education today, long-term problems that need to be surfaced in education today.

We heard at least one witness from this panel, and another, a distinguished educator from Bank Street, indicate that there was need to inject competition for the good of the student into American education.

I would wholly second that. In fact, I believe we could spend a day or possibly a week or more, on what kind of competition would be