Experimental
Programs

August of 1963. The plan provides for staffing and organizing on an experimental basis an entire school district in which there are large numbers of children with special needs. If such a district-wide project can be financed and if it is as successful as our special summer schools have been, then it could become the prototype for all areas in the city with similar needs. It could become a solution to one of the most pressing problems in the cities across the nation.

Important, too, have been the speech clinics, reading clinics, and school libraries provided after school where children have special needs and where such facilities are not readily available in the community. These opportunities are in addition to the 999 after-school remedial reading classes located in 150 schools. The remedial reading classes are small and are taught by experienced teachers especially selected for their skill in teaching reading. This additional and more individualized instruction has been of great assistance,

Meanwhile, there have been many experimental programs planned and operated for children with special needs and for the improvement of the curriculum generally. In both instances these experimental programs are the vanguard for improvement.

Experimental programs for children with special needs include the Doolittle Value Sharing Project which has now been extended to all of District 11; the District 11 Dropout Project, many elements of which have spread to other districts and which has been largely responsible for the initiation of a number of excellent major developments; the Urban Youth Program including the Double E (Education and Experience), the Double C (Census and Counseling), and Double T (Training and Transition); Jobs for Youth; the tutoring projects; and cultural experiences.

Certainly one of the most important means of meeting the special needs of some children has been the establishment of seven educational and vocational guidance centers. Here boys and girls who are generally fifteen years of age or more but whose achievement is not adequate for entrance to high school are taught in groups of no more than twenty. Stress is placed upon obtaining better achievement in reading, writing, and arithmetic; upon raising aspirations, developing a knowledge of occupations, and improving self-perception; and upon preparing for high school.

Experimental programs have included the trial use of theme readers in honors English classes, the use of various modern mathematics programs, projects to identify and nurture creativity, the evaluation of the program for the gifted, the use of "teaching machines" and programmed learning, and the use of airborne television instruction as well as closed-circuit television.

'By November of 1963, there were 1,035 after-school remedial reading classes serving 18,479 children.

We are cooperating at present with such national professional organizations as the National Science Teachers Association and with such developments as Northwestern University's work in connection with Project English of the U. S. Office of Education. Other examples include a teacher who is developing geography materials in cooperation with the National Geographers group; another who is using materials developed by the Anthropology Curriculum Study Project. Teachers from five high schools are working with a university political science group in an endeavor to improve the teaching of government,

Ten years of studying and analyzing the administration and organization of the schools have resulted in changes which have permitted improvements in curriculum, in teaching methods, in counseling procedures, and in techniques of reaching each child.

As early as 1955, the district organization was modified from separate high school and elementary school districts administered by different district superintendents to kindergarten-through-grade 12 school districts, each under one district superintendent. This was done for a number of reasons. One of these was to achieve a decentralization of administration and supervision that would permit decisions to be made where they could be made best close to the problem. A second major reason was the desire for improved articulation between the elementary and high school programs that would assure continuous learning for each child, with no omissions or overlapping in his educational program.

Widespread and continuous efforts have been made to reduce both large class size and excessive school size because of their effect upon the teaching-learning situation. As new schools have been planned, their size has been limited. As an immediate goal where possible, but always as a long-range goal, it is planned that very old sections of schools which are too large are to be razed, thus reducing the total school size. In the interim, a "school-within-a-school" organization is encouraged because it helps make it possible to attain some of the advantages of a smaller school as well as to keep the center of attention on the individual.

After a two-year period of study, a plan for annual admissions was presented to the Board of Education in 1961. The elimination of semiannual promotion and semiannual admission of pupils makes teacher time previously spent in record-keeping and reorganizing the schools available for teaching children. The annual admissions plan keeps children with the same teacher for at least a year and thus provides for every child, with a teacher who knows him well and who is aware of his strengths and needs, a steady forward movement in his work.

Continuous
Development Plan

Evaluation and
Revision

Further, the annual admissions plan makes available at one time, for assignment to groups, all of the children who previously would have enrolled in two sections, one in September and one in February. The larger number of children per grade increases the possibility of placing children in groups that tend to improve both the teaching and the learning situations.

A school organization plan that began in one or two of our Chicago public schools about 1957 has spread to a great many of our schools. This plan is known by many different names throughout our country, including the "nongraded school" and the "continuous development plan." The latter name is that which is in general use in our Chicago public schools.

Originally developed in a university laboratory school, the plan spread to suburban and city schools. The ultimate goal is the elimination of all grades and all promotions. Each child moves ahead at his own pace in each subject; there is no failure or double promotion, no repeating of work and no omission of work; evidence of specified learnings are required before work at the next level is assigned to a child. Pupils are moved from one level to the next when they are ready; sometimes the level is taught within the same classroom, sometimes in another.

Organizing for this plan and administering it are not as simple as a description might seem to indicate. But even approximations have provided impressive results for the slower learner as well as for the child who moves at a faster pace. Especially important, as we see it, is the evidence that the plan provides great possibilities not only for the "average" child but also for both the gifted child and the child with other special needs.

Within the last two years, variations of the plan have spread to a number of schools throughout the city. As a result, a city-wide representative study committee reviewed the plan and the needs of our schools. The committee developed a handbook for teachers and principals that provides a framework for the organization and administration of the plan and guidelines for the teacher in its operation.

But ten years of working toward excellence in all of these ways could be of little value unless review and appropriate revision were built into the materials and into the process and unless provision for in-service education for all staff members were an integral component.

Thus the regular review cycle on a four-year basis has been established for curriculum and study reports. This is in addition to a continuing evaluation by teachers and consultants through use of the materials and

a number of provisions for "feedback." Through the Curriculum Council, representative steering committees for the review of materials and the study of problems are appointed. Lay and university members of the Council are involved. Additional representation is secured through subcommittees; these permit all geographical areas of the city and all major teaching and learning situations to be represented, and sufficient teachers with depth preparation to obtain the desired results. By means of questionnaires and evaluative surveys which invite comments, all teachers and administrators participate in the review of curriculum. Evaluation designs are planned by the committees in cooperation with the research staff.

Prior to the evaluation and the development of revised materials, university scholars with outstanding reputations in the field being reviewed are invited to participate in a conference regarding the status of the field and forward-looking trends. Based upon the conference, a study of research findings in the subject, and teacher evaluation of the existing curriculum materials, guidelines for the revision of the curriculum guides are developed. Materials are developed by outstanding teachers and the Department of Curriculum Development subject consultants during the summer. After the development of the materials or the revision of them, again university scholars are invited to review the work, and appropriate modifications are made before the materials are distributed to teachers for use in the classroom. In some instances revised guides are field-tested in classrooms before final printing.

When the work in progress involves a study report of the type mentioned earlier (for example, the report on Elementary Education in the Chicago Public Schools) university scholars serve as consultants to the committee on a continuing basis throughout the period of the committee's work.

Ten Years of Seeking Quality in Services to the Program of Education

Supporting and strengthening the program of education is a network of services performed by auxiliary members of the school staff, by district office personnel, and by others who operate from a city-wide base. Some of these services are extended directly to pupils; some are extended directly to the teacher; others are in the form of information and/or materials which indirectly support the program and indirectly reach the student through an improved program.

One of the services to the program of education is that provided by the Division of Libraries. In 1953 there were 367 libraries in the elementary schools and the high schools plus four high school library branches. As of June 1963 there were 486 elementary school and high school libraries and 26 high school library

Libraries

branches. A comparison of the 1953 figures with the latest available figures, those for 1962, reveals the following:

Recreation and
Social Centers

It is notable that during the ten-year period the school library in its expanding role has increasingly become an instructional materials center with diversified collections of materials in varied media including filmstrips, recordings, transparencies, and paperbacks. Audio-visual equipment is distributed from the library.

The program of library services includes individual viewing and listening areas, emphasis upon individual study and research, depth and breadth in library instruction, and the teaching of bibliographic skills.

Services here, as in so many areas of the program, have been expanded for children with special needs through the operation of libraries during the summer program, through the libraries in the ten special grade 1-6 summer schools, and through the operation of twenty-five elementary school libraries after the close of the school day. The latter program makes books available to read for pleasure and/or for study; it provides a quiet place in a pleasant atmosphere, with friendly help always close at hand. Expansion of these programs, as is so often the case, is limited by the money available.

Among the achievements of the Division of Libraries are an extensive program of in-service training, the promotion of the use of library resources, and the publication of approved listings of books. A manual of practice for high school librarians and a curriculum guide for elementary school librarians are being developed.

The Division of Social Centers and the Division of Recreation provide services and activities which supplement and enrich the regular in-school program of physical education and the intramural and interscholastic schedule of sports activities.